OVERVIEW

On the Vita Motus team, I supported the technical and environmental design for THE CHI WITH LOVE, a virtual concert and fundraiser produced with Kamp Grizzly to launch Season 3 of Showtime’s The Chi. Developed during the pandemic shutdown, the project marked the studio’s pivot into real-time virtual production and was created in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement to benefit the Equal Justice Initiative.

PERFORMANCES

The piece featured spoken word and music by Chicago artists including Common, BJ the Chicago Kid, Ravyn Lenae, Jamila Woods, Jacob Latimore, Twista, MFnMelo, and Lena Waithe.

VIRTUAL PRODUCTION & ENVIRONMENT DESIGN

I developed the Unreal Engine environment and production setup, optimizing Kamp Grizzly’s spatial concept while establishing lighting logic and technical parameters for virtual staging. The sequence progressed from warm skylit daylight to twilight as a carpet of animated grass rose from the floor, culminating under an indigo moon during Lena Waithe’s closing remarks.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & PIPELINE DEVELOPMENT

Working as virtual cinematographer alongside Adam Newport-Berra, I shaped lighting and camera pacing to sustain the minimal, poetic tone. I directed Unreal specialists to refine foliage and lighting passes and coordinated final real-time raytraced renderings via Vita Motus’ internal RTX pipeline— then emerging technology for virtual production.