Black Raven

Black Raven (Chornyi Voron) is a 2019 Ukrainian historical war drama directed by Taras Tkachenko and adapted from Vasyl Shklyar’s novel Zalyshenets. Chornyi Voron. Starring Taras Tsymbaliuk, Kseniia Danylova, Andrii Mostrenko, Nataliia Sumska and Oleksii Trytenko, it follows an insurgent band in the Kholodnyi Yar region resisting Bolshevik rule in the early 1920s.

Period combat on this scale sets the whole effects agenda. A war drama a century removed from its shoot needs digital crowd and troop augmentation, large-scale pyrotechnic and destruction simulation for shelling and burning villages, smoke, muzzle-flash and blood elements, and the removal of every modern intrusion — power lines, roads, aerials, tyre tracks — from otherwise authentic countryside. Matte painting and set extensions restore settlements and horizons that no longer stand, while rotoscoping and compositing bind the additions into gritty, naturalistic photography. Terminal FX contributed visual effects and animation to the film as part of its film, television and commercial portfolio.