Why Cordillera Collective Has Embarked on the Greatest Journey

“As children, we always ask ‘are we there yet?’. In every aspect of this piece - whether in how it was made or in what happens within it - we are, indeed, there”. 

When the team at Cordillera Collective set out to make ‘Greatest Journey’, they shared a powerful sense of ambition. This was always going to be a film that not only showcased their grasp of storytelling and filmmaking technology alike, but that also said something about themselves. About their view of the world, the industry, and where it’s all going. 

And the result is a piece of film that blends wide-eyed wonder with a sense of scale and mission, relentlessly focused on the future. 

“Part of the narrative in Greatest Journey was that electric vehicles are the car of the future, so it ended up being this amazing opportunity to figure out what that looked like in our ideal world,” explains Cordillera founder and partner John McCain. “Specifically, a future Toronto”. 

Toronto is the city that Cordillera’s founders call home, and the team’s vision of where it may be headed opened up some fascinating filmmaking challenges. For instance, figuring out a sense of place for Torontonian landmarks in a futuristic setting required a blend of imagination and cutting-edge tech. “The project was always supposed to have these fantastical elements that took advantage of all the tools at our disposal”, continues John. “So that’s what inspired the time-lapses and the mega-skyscrapers that dwarf the CN Tower”. 

The future depicted in ‘Greatest Journey’ is more of a utopia than dystopia - a result of the refreshing positivity with which the Cordillera crew approached the project. There’s an element of fantasy, but it’s framed as the dreams of a father and son being realised. “The close-up of Tyler [the boy] as he witnesses time passing is one of the most meaningful shots of my career”, notes fellow Cordillera founder and partner Andres P. Galicia. “With that gaze, Tyler reminds us to always look at life with childlike wonder - a valuable reminder to keep doing so. Fun fact; for a lot of the time with him we would not let him know we were shooting - his face was just amazed constantly”. 

And yet despite the themes of wonder and amazement, the film is still firmly grounded by its own sense of place. That also connects to another wider theme that’s shared by both ‘Greatest Journey’ and Cordillera Collective as a whole: Environmentalism. 

“One thing that was especially important to us, and that we focused on from the beginning, was that the future largely revolved around green space”, adds John. “Toronto is sometimes called the ‘city within a park.’ It uses urban forestry to improve air quality and reduce heat during the hotter months. I think that’s why it’s famous for being so alive in the summer. In our ideal future, Toronto is a city within a garden”. 

It’s a point which is particularly prescient to our current moment. “This project was especially meaningful to us because urban forestry in Toronto is diminishing”, continues John. “It felt important to show what an alternative to that could look like”. 

Future-Forward 

Making good on their ambitions for ‘Greatest Journey’ whilst working to a tight budget meant that the Cordillera team needed to get creative and find solutions in new places. “Having access to virtual production is largely what made all these fantastical elements in the project possible with the budget we had”, states John. “And I think the reason we felt confident about being so ambitious in our concept was because we knew we had that resource that we’ve explored as a team in the past”. 

To that end, the team collaborated with SP Studios, Canada’s top virtual production studio based in Toronto. “Having worked with Cordillera and specifically with Andrés as a DP on shoots in the past we knew to expect something fun and technically challenging”, notes SP Studios’ founder Khasan Aripov. “Upon first receiving the brief we just knew this shoot was designed to be shot on the LED wall, as a lot of the shots and setups were purposely built to benefit from using virtual production”. 

There are plenty of good reasons why ‘Greatest Journey’ was designed from its inception with virtual production in mind. One of the more surprising is how it mitigated any potential challenges that came from working with a child actor. “We needed to execute complex scenes set at dusk and dawn, so using VP was a strategic choice”, recalls Andres. “It allowed us to have Tyler on set after a full night's rest while capturing an endless 'magic hour’”.

And there’s also a sense that a virtual production studio - particularly one with access to state-of-the-art equipment like SP Studios - is particularly useful when it comes to work in the automotive category. “Being able to fully control the environment, lighting, weather and even other traffic in the comfort of a studio allows the director and talent a lot more freedom in how they want to capture these moments”, posits Khasan. “The quick turnaround time between driving plates and car setups also allows for more shots to be done in a single day and can even have the talent in multiple locations within a single day too”. 

In addition to VP, artificial intelligence was also leveraged to bring ‘Greatest Journey’ to life. “Using AI for your pre-vis work allows for a really interesting, iterative process when you’re doing the treatment”, explains John. “We worked with our AI specialist, Ana Mancera, from the beginning. We traded visual references - mostly AI generated - which she was able to build out into a really compelling animatic. I think that’s what most enabled us to get our partners excited, and in tune with what we were trying to do. It was based on these AI generated explorations, and their fast output, that we could generate the full CG environments with the CG team at Behind, who did a phenomenal job at creating the full scope of the universe we envisioned”.

Leaning into new technologies and techniques is one thing, but an old-fashioned embrace of collaboration is another part of Cordillera’s foundation. “Teamwork is at the heart of our operation. Bringing in the best partners we can and always maintaining an open conversation about solutions or improvements to the craft and the process are what makes it fun and a happy process for us”, says Cordillera’s EP and partner Mariana Duran. “For ‘Greatest Journey’, we were incredibly lucky to have Behind Studios on VFX and Ruslan as a co-director, given his extensive experience as a CG director. Everyone brought their best to the table and we think it really shows”. 

Cordillera Collective is a young company, and there’s an extent to which the team is bringing that youth to bear through enthusiasm and passion for projects like ‘Greatest Journey’. But on a deeper level, there’s more to youth than the number of years under your belt. 

It can take young eyes to see the world with optimism and wonder. But the worldview of Cordillera Collective that runs through ‘Greatest Journey’ like DNA is something that invites us all to be younger, to think younger. 

And it’s a welcome reminder that we’re only as old as the last time we truly opened our eyes.