Legends are talked about, but the most legendary of legends are immortalized in song. So to celebrate Titanfall 2’s epic bond between man and machine, we crafted a futuristic ballad of the gunfighter featuring a blend of original live action and custom CGI, without any gameplay footage.

Realizing that the Pilot-Titan relationship is the modern version of a Man and his steed, we sought to create a world where our heroes and their landscape could be treated with the same cinematic reverence Sergio Leone would have brought to the table. As Pilot and 20-foot wingman fight as one across the Frontier, our reimagined version of the classic “Bang, Bang (My Baby Shot Them Down)” narrates their every kill:

“From one fight on to the next

Two outlaws ride with weapons flexed.

One is quick, the other’s tall,

Together, they’ll kill them all…”

As our legendary warriors battled on the Titanfall frontier, we battled with time and money. With too little of both, flexibility and planning were crucial to pull off our cinematic vision.

Pilot suits and Titans that would’ve been created physically were instead made with CG at a fidelity high enough to mix seamlessly with live action and hold up in slo-mo and close-ups.

With a shortened pre-vis and shooting schedule, we also needed the flexibility to recompose the action scenes as needed. We used Lidar scanning and pan and tile, so we could adjust the background to the action rather than reframing action to the environment.

Our lush, naturalistic environments were another challenge without a lot of time to prep. But compositing highly detailed explosions and VFX robotic fight scenes amongst the lush foliage was something we knew would make our film stand out, so it was challenge we embraced.