RYAN KAVANAUGH TO RECEIVE OUTSTANDING VIRTUAL PRODUCTION AWARD AT INFINITY FESTIVAL'S 2026 MONOLITH AWARDS FOR ACME STUDIOS WORK

Two-Day Showcase Expands Lineup with ACME's Ryan Kavanaugh alongside George R.R. Martin, Brad Bird, Seth Rogen, Mel Brooks, Pola Maneli and Leading Animation Studios

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 13, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Infinity Festival announced today that Ryan Kavanaugh's studio, ACME Media, is being honored for pioneering the Grey Box™, an AI-driven production methodology that integrates live-action performance, virtual environments and generative visual effects. ACME AI is taking virtual production beyond the stage and into the whole of filmmaking. 

They were selected for this honor as the company to make the biggest paradigm shift utilizing technology in film and entertainment today. Specifically, they were able to create a totally photoreal movie, preserve all actor performance and pioneer the use of the Grey Box™ methodology for actor capture, while utilizing their tech to create over 213 locations in 21 total days. 

The Grey Box™ is a stage and actor performance capture system built around the filmmaker. A Grey Box™ production makes films the way films have always been made – it shoots with the same cameras, the same crew and the same process as any other film, just with extra technology and a precise design to allow for a more cohesive and cost effective process. Department heads are employed and on set, the actor's performance is not touched, and the director still owns the frame. 

ACME's own systems, engines and artists (150 across multiple locations) then build the world around that performance, delivering fully photoreal 16-bit 4K output for theatrical release. 

The Grey Box's™ proprietary performance capture methodology leads to a 50-75 percent reduction in production time and cost. This gives each film and filmmaker more flexibility, tools and coverage than was financially feasible previously. 

" Virtual production has never been about technology alone. It's about expanding what filmmakers can imagine and achieve. ACME AI & FX is challenging the boundaries of traditional production by rethinking how live-action performances, digital environments, and emerging technologies come together," said Jeroen Hallaert, Executive Producer, Infinity Festival Hollywood.

"Their approach represents exactly the kind of bold experimentation and convergence we celebrate at Infinity Festival. We're proud to recognize ACME AI & FX with the Monolith Award for Outstanding Virtual Production.

ACME has spent in excess of 70 million dollars building its tech, which has led to its own process and program which runs off of over 500 tools and 175 film attributes with thousands of its own lawyers on its its internal program now running across its own network. "This was a two-year, multimillion-dollar, all-hands effort and we couldn't be more proud of the team for what it built," said Garrett Grant, ACME co-founder and partner. ACME is the only production company and/or studio to deliver an A list feature film utilizing AI which holds up against films shot traditionally for much larger budgets. 

Yves Bergquist, who is one of the most relied upon voices by studios and entertainment companies around technology and AI in relation to entertainment (he is the head of the AI Media lab at USC's Entertainment Technology Center and a member of the generative AI working group at the Academy of Motion Pictures), said: "I am in the fortunate position where I see what I believe is all the most recent advancements in AI filmmaking. That includes from the biggest tech companies to the studios to highly respected filmmakers. More or less anyone doing AI production, I have seen their work. To date, I haven't seen anyone that is even at 10 percent of the quality or output of where ACME is. What they have done is not just extraordinary; it's a shift to the industry no one else has even begun to figure out. Their product is bar none, on par with the biggest, best productions to come out of Hollywood. There is a reason they are making movies for many of the studios and have so many films in their pipeline and that ACME has become the go to for studios and production companies alike and the reason they have become the go to not just for AI production but more and more for production overall." 

Other features that they have built and incorporated include another 246 unique virtual production features 

• A director's dashboard that allows a director to seamlessly work between the real grey stage shooting with their traditional camera setups and team and the virtual portion with ease
• Lens and Lighting Library: virtually every lens and lighting package filmmakers rely on, built and mapped so the finished world matches what the camera photographed, including anamorphic.
• Being able to adjust the camera, lighting, camera movement, lenses in post
• Being able to adjust any part of a scene that isn't the actor's performance in post 
• Full DI and finishing system 
• Theatrical Finishing: photoreal 16-bit 4K output, mastered through to DCP and EXR delivery.
• Protected IP: a portfolio of 22 patent applications covering the core systems.

Kavanaugh said, "The ability to respect the integrity of the acting while being so tech-forward was a big part of our consideration. Obviously the tech itself and the artistic process that is required to make the tech work is another. They are literally bringing back the mid-budget film genre by making those stories financially feasible to make. The art of filmmaking is at the heart of everything we do. We built the Grey Box™ and our own engines so that every tool a director could want is available, even on a small-budget movie. Original films that sat for years because of cost are now getting made, at the same scale and with the same vision. We are grateful to Infinity Festival for recognizing that," said Ryan Kavanaugh, founder of ACME and consider this a tremendous honor."

The Monolith Awards honor Story Advanced by Technology. This award honors ACME for pioneering an AI-driven production methodology that integrates live-action performance, virtual environments and generative visual effects. With Bitcoin, ACME has taken virtual production beyond the stage and into the whole of filmmaking, bringing some 200 story locations to life around real performances captured over 20 days. We are delighted to celebrate it alongside this year's honorees, including Brad Bird and George R.R. Martin, both receiving Lifetime Achievement.

Additional featured talent includes Sony Pictures Animation director Tyree Dillihay and President Kristine Belson; Netflix's Steps directors Alyce Tzue and John Ripa; Disney/Pixar Hoppers director Daniel Chong; Toy Story 5 co-director/writer Kenna Harris; Hexed directors Fawn Veerasunthorn and Jason Hand; DreamWorks Forgotten Island filmmakers Joel Crawford and Januel P. Mercado; LAIKA's Wildwood writer Chris Butler and cinematographer Caleb Deschanel; Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender director Lauren Montgomery; The Simpsons director David Silverman; Cartoon Saloon director Louise Bagnall; Tangles director Leah Nelson, Cat in the Hat directors Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Carloni, X-Men '97, The Violinist directors Raul Garcia and Ervin Han and The Proud Family creator Bruce W. Smith and more.

 ABOUT ACME

ACME Media is a film and television studio and the parent company of ACME AI, the most prolific studio working in AI today. ACME's principals have produced, financed or distributed more than 250 films with more than $17 billion in global box office. They created slate co-financing, built the structure that allowed Marvel to make its own films, co-created the subscription streaming window with Netflix and built the largest mini-major studio of its era. Their films have received over 60 Academy Award® nominations, Based in Los Angeles and London with AI artists worldwide, ACME pioneered the Grey Box studio and completed the first performance capture AI film BITCOIN, currently in post-production. The film is directed by Doug Liman and stars Casey Affleck, Gal Gadot, Pete Davidson and Isla Fisher. ACME has more than twelve films in various stages of production.

 ACME AI pioneered the Grey Box, a stage and actor performance capture system that delivers photoreal 16-bit 4K theatrical output while cutting below-the-line costs and has over a dozen feature films in various stages of production, as well as endeavors in music videos, and advertising.

SOURCE Infinity Festival