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PIEDMONT, Que. -- In a sprawling, converted summer house tucked away in Quebec's Laurentian Mountains, 15th-century Italy is coming to life, pixel by pixel.
That in itself isn't remarkable -- at Hybride Technologies' comfortable offices in this picturesque resort town, digital effects have been crafted for dozens of movies, ranging from 300 to Sin City to James Cameron's upcoming sci-fi epic Avatar.
This time, though, the streets of virtual Florence are being made not for a cinematic release or a TV program, but for a companion piece to a video game.
Assassin's Creed Lineage, produced by recent Ubisoft acquisition Hybride, is a prequel of sorts to Ubisoft Montreal's Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 video game, which lands in stores Nov. 17.
Set in Florence in 1476, it tells the story of Giovanni Auditore, the father of the game's main character, and delves into the family's involvement with a centuries old brotherhood of assassins, as well as the conspiracy that is the catalyst for the events in the game.
"It's reaching a wider audience," Hybride president Pierre Raymond said of Assassin's Creed Lineage. "Not only the gamer, but the people who will be interested in the dramatic side of the story."
And it seems plenty of people are interested. The first 14-minute installment of the three-part film was the most-watched video on YouTube on the day of its release, racking up an impressive 1.7 million viewers in 24 hours. (You can see it at youtube.com/user/assassinscreed, where parts two and three will also be released in coming weeks.)
Lineage isn't the first film to be inspired by a video game; there are plenty of examples of movies spawned by interactive entertainment, with the majority being mediocre at best. But it marks the first time that so many resources have gone into making a film that's designed to dovetail with a game, rather than exist as a wholly separate, Hollywood-produced piece of entertainment.
Shot over 15 days in a cavernous Montreal studio, Assassin's Creed Lineage was filmed entirely on green screen, with background elements added in afterwards. There are about 750 visual effects shot in the three-part movie, requiring more than five months of post-production time at Hybride's facilities. "There are no shots, literally, where green screen was not used," Raymond said.
The techniques employed were very similar to those used to create virtual worlds in 300 and Sin City, but Hybride also developed some innovative new methods to make the process faster and smoother. Many of the actors appearing in the film -- including Romano Orzari as Giovanni -- also lend their voices and likenesses to the same characters in the video game.
The result is a short film that's impressive, both visually and dramatically. Helmed by Yves Simoneau, the director of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Marie-Antoinette and the recently aired pilot episode of sci-fi series V, Assassin's Creed Lineage is a far cry from cheeseball game-inspired fare like Tomb Raider or Resident Evil. It wouldn't look out of place on PBS, but with the added thrill of featuring characters and locations featured in one of the most anticipated games of 2009.