Giving a shot in the arm to its mission to automate background removal for TV and film, artificial intelligence (AI)-focused visual effects (VFX), tech start-up Electric Sheep has closed what it says is an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round of half a million dollars.
Electric Sheep’s solution based on the process of rotoscoping, is essential before adding special effects. Currently, the only way to deliver the detail needed for the big screen is to manually cut around foregrounds frame-by-frame. This process takes around 6 hours for 1 second of footage and costs the industry over $1.5 billion per year.
Electric Sheep will use the new capital injection - filled by AI focused VCs, led by Dasein Capital (US), and backed by Spatial Capital (US) and Look AI Ventures (Czech Republic) - to build and enhance Spotlight, claimed to be the industry's first AI rotoscoping tool capable of the detail needed for Hollywood. Spotlight is designed for industry workflows by outputting an editable layer that allows VFX artists to make key adjustments, that is splines. The cloud-native solution is said to be able to process 1 second of footage in less than a minute.
Electric Sheep says it is streamlining post-production workflows to allow artists to get back to what they do best - telling stories through creative, stunning and impactful visual effects. Its decision to go cloud-native aligns with the MovieLabs joint venture research lab run by Paramount, Sony, Universal and Disney - that advocates for the industry to be fully cloud based by 2030.
“We are excited to partner with three investors with considerable experience in AI, VFX, and building at scale.” said Electric Sheep CEO Gary Palmer (pictured centre) commenting on the investment. “Flawless background removal negates the need for onset green screens, empowering creatives to capture the energy of the scene without compromising the final image.”
Steven Sullivan, partner at Spatial Capital and former senior technology officer of LucasFilm said: “Electric Sheep's cutting-edge cloud and AI platform is poised to revolutionise several core VFX workflows. They're taking a smart and pragmatic approach to accelerate some of the most tedious post-production tasks.”
Electric Sheep will use the new capital injection - filled by AI focused VCs, led by Dasein Capital (US), and backed by Spatial Capital (US) and Look AI Ventures (Czech Republic) - to build and enhance Spotlight, claimed to be the industry's first AI rotoscoping tool capable of the detail needed for Hollywood. Spotlight is designed for industry workflows by outputting an editable layer that allows VFX artists to make key adjustments, that is splines. The cloud-native solution is said to be able to process 1 second of footage in less than a minute.
Electric Sheep says it is streamlining post-production workflows to allow artists to get back to what they do best - telling stories through creative, stunning and impactful visual effects. Its decision to go cloud-native aligns with the MovieLabs joint venture research lab run by Paramount, Sony, Universal and Disney - that advocates for the industry to be fully cloud based by 2030.
“We are excited to partner with three investors with considerable experience in AI, VFX, and building at scale.” said Electric Sheep CEO Gary Palmer (pictured centre) commenting on the investment. “Flawless background removal negates the need for onset green screens, empowering creatives to capture the energy of the scene without compromising the final image.”
Steven Sullivan, partner at Spatial Capital and former senior technology officer of LucasFilm said: “Electric Sheep's cutting-edge cloud and AI platform is poised to revolutionise several core VFX workflows. They're taking a smart and pragmatic approach to accelerate some of the most tedious post-production tasks.”
