Applying painterly machine learning techniques to CG renders, Antibody’s Raoul Marks and Patrick Clair set a menacing tone for the Amazon series The Peripheral, the first screen adaption of a William Gibson novel since the 90s.

Patrick Clair: “I’ve been a fan of William Gibson since reading Neuromancer at the age of 18 – he defined the cyberpunk we grew up on, hell he defined the internet! To work on a series based on his book was an honor and a privilege.

“At the heart of the story is a device whose signal can transcend time, transcend dimensions BUT the HEART of the story is a girl struggling with challenges of life in the American south – a sick mother, a low-wage job, a small town existence.

“So, we realized the solution needed both tech credentials and hand-crafted humanity. The resulting aesthetic was developed by Raoul Marks to make use of machine learning-based techniques that could bring a painterly interpretation to CGI renders.

“This was then combined with a healthy dose of tech distortion to create a look that straddled hand-crafted and digitally disrupted. The structure of the sequence is based on demonstrating to the viewer that a tenuous broadcast connection can span early 21st-century America to far-future London – a strange land of monuments and empty streets.”
 

 
Client: Amazon Prime Video, Kilter Films

Production: Antibody
Director: Antibody