Cinepacks Studio

Established in California, CinePacks aims to deliver quality digital assets to creatives and filmmakers at affordable price points. Today, it features a robust collection of effects, filters, samples, and even physical studios to give creative professionals exactly what they need at short notice.

Where it All Started

It is the brainchild of Tyler Casey and Andy Chen, both accomplished professionals in their fields with an awe-inspiring portfolio of work backing their expertise.

[Andy Chen, Filmmaker and Co-Founder of CinePacks]

While Tyler is a Bay Area-based director with experience collaborating with artists like IAMSU, SOB X RBE, Mozzy, and many others, Andy is a Los Angeles-based Director of Photography who’s been shooting music videos and narrative short films since 2012!

[Tyler Casey, Co-Founder of Cinepacks]

They were both heavily immersed in the music video world, where they’d often direct, shoot, and edit music videos together. It’s during this work that they came up with the idea of CinePacks.

It began as a 2-man operation with the goal of offering affordable digital assets to other directors and editors. “Many people either don’t have the time, the technical know-how, or the knowledge to build these assets themselves,” explains Andy.

However, the ride to reach where they are today was bumpy, especially at the start when both cofounders had no choice but to wear multiple hats.

“We were our own R&D team, graphic designers, web designers, marketer team, and more. It was just the two of us doing everything!”

[Joshua Lykkeberg, Unreal Tech]

DIY All the Way!

Even when they were opening their physical studio locations, Tyler and Andy got their hands dirty and did everything themselves, including painting the building and installing flooring. “We still try to keep that spirit with everything we do even today, and are very much a ‘DIY’ company,” Andy says with a smile.

“We came from a world of producing low budget videos for local musicians. That’s how we paid the bills!”

Before CinePacks, both Tyler and Andy depended on producing low budget music videos for local musicians. Even now when they have considerably more resources at their disposal, their philosophy remains the same – offering top-tier resources to up-and-coming creative professionals.

A Virtual Wall That Transports You Anywhere

When asked for details, Andy gives us the example of virtual walls. “An LED wall virtual production is something so new and inaccessible to the general public.,” he says, “But we devised a version that costs far less than what majority of studios could offer without compromising on quality.”

For reference, Virtual Production is a filmmaking technique that uses real-time computer-generated imagery as a backdrop for a physical on-set filming location – allowing you to simulate high-end visual effects in-camera without much postproduction. It requires a mix of Unreal Engine, camera tracking technology, and state-of-the-art LED panels.

“We were inspired, like many others, when Disney showed off behind-the-scenes footage of how they leveraged massive LED walls to shoot The Mandalorian.”

Hit shows like Disney’s The Mandalorian (Star Wars) successfully leveraged virtual production to deliver spectacular visuals to audiences across the globe.

Funnily enough, the CinePacks cofounders never planned to dive into virtual production. They purchased a small LED video wall from a local company during the pandemic with a singular purpose – a flashy music video backdrop.

However, once they downloaded Unreal Engine and played around with it for a while, they realized that they had found a viable lower budget approach to virtual production.

Paved with Challenges

Although the virtual production route offered flexibility, it did come with a set of unique challenges. Back when Andy and Tyler were still toying with the idea, resources to learn about virtual production were limited. “It was a challenge to learn enough about the technology to even set it up,” says Andy.

For a DIY company like CinePacks, costs needed to remain low. To this end, they had to go out and learn as much as they could. So, they talked to different LED manufacturers about different specifications, learnt what kind of processing power a computer would need to handle what they need, and so on.

“The VIVE Mars Camera Tracking System released at the perfect time!”

HTC launched their VIVE Mars Camera Tracking System precisely when they were starting to hunt for a more professional setup, which was still affordable.

Getting the Hardware Together

“The Mars Camera Tracking System fit the bill,” says Andy, “that’s also when we rushed to order MSI’s RTX 4090!” He explains the choice with a simple statement – “We would have a single computer system running graphics on a huge LED wall, so we simply had to get as much graphics card power as possible.”

“We need as much GPU power as possible to keep up with the smooth frame rates needed for a high-quality virtual production using an expansive LED wall.”

When asked about their current setup, Andy tells us that a single computer with an MSI GeForce RTX 4090, running Unreal Engine is at the center of it all. The graphics card feeds into a Novastar MX40 Controller, which then hooks up to the gigantic 30 ft x 12 ft Absen LED wall.

"Having the right hardware, and powerful hardware, is essential to a smooth production day.

Andy’s still amazed at the degree to which modern graphics cards like the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 outperform anything else for virtual production applications."

Is Virtual Production the Future?

He’s truly excited by the prospect of technology becoming even more affordable and accessible than it is now.

“I can see more filmmakers adding virtual production to their workflows,” says Andy. Although indie studios and creatives will clearly benefit quite a bit from this democratization, major studios also have plenty to gain according to him.

“Think about it,” he prompts, “as it becomes more viable, virtual production will save so much time and money.” It’s true, when you consider the astronomical costs of building sets, traveling to locations. In fact, they both believe that virtual production is a boon to the industry as a whole – making the film industry more sustainable and eco-friendly.

Wielding Unreal Engine Early

For younger professionals, Andy has some practical advice: “get started, however you can.”

He recalls a time in the past when he was focused on earning and absorbing information from everywhere. But he slowly realized that the more he learned, the more he didn’t actually ‘know.’ Now, he’s a firm proponent of just diving in, and learning as you do. “The same goes for business,” he adds, “just doing it is the best way to learn fast.”

“The more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know, and it affected my confidence in getting started.”

Both Tyler and Andy feel like the virtual production style of filmmaking is truly the future. So, having the knowledge and skill needed to wield Unreal Engine better than most others is the best way to get ahead for younger, aspiring creative professionals.

Their last piece of advice: Unreal Engine is free with tons of free assets that you can download, and you’ll find tons of tutorials popping up everywhere online. Start learning by doing as soon as you can.

Full PC Specification:

Processor: Intel® Core™ i9-13900K Processor
Motherboard: MSI MEG Z790 ACE
Graphics Card: GeForce RTX™ 4090 SUPRIM X 24G
Cooler: MSI MEG CORELIQUID S360
Memory: Kingston FURY Renegade DDR5 RGB 6800MT/s 16GB
SSD: MSI SPATIUM M480 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 2TB
PSU: MSI MEG Ai1300P PCIE5
Case: MSI MEG PROSPECT 700R
Monitor: Optix MPG321UR-QD

Cinepacks Studio: https://www.cinepacks.studio/
Cinepacks:https://cinepacks.store/