Quixel’s REBIRTH

Cinematic Art Direction

Victor Bonafonte was Art Director of REBIRTH, a Quixel project in which Beauty and The Bit shaped its look and feel. Conceived as a short film made entirely in Unreal Engine, it evolved through improvisation and reformulated directions. The use of real-time technology proved invaluable, allowing flexibility, faster production, and a dynamic creative process.

From the outset, Bonafonte sought to design a place that felt otherworldly yet grounded in reality. To establish a visual tone for the narrative, he developed a series of inspiring images for the team, drawing heavily from photographs of the Quixel expedition to Iceland. Rapid sketches helped accelerate early production phases, allowing the team to refine or discard directions with agility. One of the most demanding aspects of his role was conceiving the architecture, both exterior and interior.

The idea behind the short film was to create an audiovisual piece generated entirely with Unreal Engine. At the beginning, the team had only a few guidelines, but like in every ambitious project, directions had to be reformulated and improvised along the way. Rapid sketches helped accelerate early production phases, allowing the team to refine or discard directions with agility. One of the most demanding aspects of his role was conceiving the architecture, both exterior and interior.

Bonafonte aimed to imagine structures that were intimidating and mysterious, with preliminary models exploring architectural languages that resonated with the surrounding mountains and the overall narrative. For interior spaces, he worked with essentialist geometrical forms, marked by clarity and striking design lines. Through his art direction, Victor Bonafonte helped shape Rebirth into a piece that balances the monumental with the minimal, the real with the surreal. His contribution leaves behind not only a powerful visual identity for the film but also an inspiration for future real-time filmmakers.