Watch Neill Blomkamp Short Film ADAM: The Mirror, Made with Unity

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Watch Neill Blomkamp’s New Short Film ‘ADAM: The Mirror’, Created Using Unity 2017

By Adam Chitwood

Published Oct 4, 2017

The animated short film was made in real-time using the game engine Unity 2017.

Fresh off of yesterday’s announcement that District 9 and Chappie filmmaker Neill Blomkamp was directing two new animated short films in the ADAM franchise, the first short film has been released online for all to see. ADAM: The Mirror is a follow-up to the original ADAM, which was released in 2016 as a short film to demonstrate technical innovations on the game engine Unity. Blomkamp is now using Unity 2017 to create two new animated short films, ADAM: The Mirror and ADAM: The Prophet, and the first one is now available to watch in its entirety.

The Mirror was made in real-time using Unity 2017, and it follows our amnesiac hero as he discovers a clue about who he is. Blomkamp produced the short via his OATS Studios, through which he produced, directed, and released a series of live-action short films earlier this year. The goal of OATS Studios was to test out concepts for potential feature films and see which stories audiences responded to.

neill-blomkamp-unity-adam-mirror-image — Image via Unity Technologies

It’s unclear if any of those shorts are moving forward as a feature, but it’s clear Blomkamp has taken initiative to put his career in his own hands. The director was attached to helm a new Alien sequel before Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox put it on ice for fear of infringing on Scott’s own Prometheus franchise. This came on the heels of the box office and critical disappointment of Chappie, and so Blomkamp has now put his adeptness at visual effects to great use, crafting his own original sci-fi stories.

Speaking about the technological advancements of Unity 2017, Blomkamp said:

“Ever since I started making films I’ve dreamed of a virtual sandbox that would let me build, shoot and edit photorealistic worlds all in one place. Today that dream came true thanks to the power of Unity 2017,” said Neill Blomkamp, Founder OATS Studios. “The fact that we could achieve near photorealistic visuals at half of average time of our production cycles is astounding. The future is here and I can’t wait to see what our fans think.”

This short certainly looks incredible for the quickness at which it was made, and I’ll be curious to see how this impacts the video game and media industries going forward. Check it out below.