Shadow Chasing: Lighting with Intentions and Control
It’s often said that light is never just illumination — it’s direction. It tells the eye where to go, what to feel, and when to pause. Chasing Shadows grew out of that belief.
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The project began without a fixed destination. Early on, it was loosely called Shadow Chase, imagined as a dynamic, stylised chasing scene. As the work evolved, it shifted into something more narrative — a short, cinematic moment built around atmosphere rather than action. With no strict benchmark to follow, we leaned into exploration, allowing light to become the primary storyteller.
That freedom was what made the project so compelling.
For Grace, our Lighting & Compositing Lead, the absence of references wasn’t a limitation — it was an invitation.
“Without a benchmark to go from, I was excited to be able to test out different styles and try some unconventional things.”
Working in Unreal Engine and Nuke, Grace approached lighting as an emotional tool rather than a technical checkbox. Color became mood. Contrast became tension. In the cathedral scene especially, light behaves almost like a character — pooling, fading, and guiding attention through the space. Painterly effects, subtle shifts in palette, and deliberate shadow placement were all tested and refined to hold the viewer’s gaze, especially within the constraints of a website environment.
A significant amount of time was spent simply playing — experimenting with camera movement, colour combinations, and texture response until the scene felt alive.
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“I think it took about a week of playing around with different camera movements, color combinations, and testing out the painterly effect you can see happening on the cathedral scene,” Grace shares.
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Behind that visual atmosphere was a tightly coordinated effort across disciplines. Joseph, our Animation Supervisor, approached the project from a parallel challenge: building something from scratch, independently, with limited resources — and pushing it as far as possible.
“This is the first project I worked on independently from scratch, so I was excited to see how much we could push ourselves and the freedom we had creatively.”
Using Maya for animation and Unreal for rendering, Joseph shaped movement to support the lighting rather than compete with it. Camera paths were softened, pacing was refined, and motion was restrained to ensure the lighting could breathe. What emerged was a quiet choreography between light and movement — one never overpowering the other.
Collaboration played a critical role in sharpening that balance. Modelling adjusted set-dressing details to better sell each mood and create stronger contrast. Animation helped smooth camera movement to keep the experience immersive rather than disorienting. Each adjustment was small, but collectively, they elevated the lighting’s impact.
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As Joseph reflects: “The team gave a lot of different perspectives based on their own expertise, and it made quite an impact on the final outcome.”
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In the end, Chasing Shadows became a focused showcase of lighting prowess — not through spectacle, but through control. Through knowing when to brighten, when to obscure, and when to let shadow do the work. It’s a reminder that strong lighting isn’t about excess, but intention.
For us at Fuloso, the project reinforced something we deeply believe: when light is treated as a storytelling tool, even the simplest scene can linger. And sometimes, it’s in the shadows that our strongest work reveals itself.
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You can take a look at the final comped and rendered version of the Chasing Shadows.
