Creator of Chalk Warfare. The VFX and previs team behind MrBeast's most-watched videos and Beast Games. The real-time previs pipeline for HBO's The Last of Us. Now funding and building Chalk Warfare into a video game.
Studio-scale work on creator timelines, delivered by nimble teams built around each project. Originals, television, music video, VR, and brand campaigns.
A multiplayer PvP shooter in Unreal Engine 5 where you draw your weapon mid-match. Chalk Vision, an in-house recognition model trained on more than a decade of the team's own drawings, runs locally on the player's machine and turns any sketch into a usable weapon. Debuted at Unreal Fest Chicago with Puget Systems; closed beta underway; public demo on Steam in early 2027.
On the TED2026 main stage in Vancouver, a live demo with technologist Bilawal Sidhu of AI filmmaking where the director keeps every pixel and angle in hand, driving the shot like a game instead of surrendering it to a text prompt. TED introduced him as a visual effects pioneer.
A two-minute short made at sixteen, where every weapon is drawn in chalk and comes to life, that "just erupted" on upload. Four feature-length episodes later, the series has hundreds of millions of views, a Streamy nomination for 4.0 (a 16-minute YouTube blockbuster that opens with a real skydive), and a 2026 return, Chalk Warfare 4.5, that doubled as the video game reveal.
An ongoing partnership: VFX on dozens of MrBeast videos, including several of the channel's most-viewed, pipelines built to turn work around at a pace the industry hadn't seen, marketing and VFX for Feastables, and previs plus VFX for Beast Games on Prime Video. Season 2 meant planning hundreds of cameras, the world's largest LED floor and Beast City shot by shot in advance, for a show whose first season was Prime Video's most-watched unscripted series ever.
A fully CG short in which three Tesla bots recreate the Cybertruck's bullet test, with one of them riding inside. Posted as a Short, it went viral on X within days, and Elon Musk replied: "We could probably make this real next year." It grew into the studio's action film Tesla Robots Fight Back.
"Every Country On Earth Fights For $250,000!": one competitor from nearly every nation, five events, and more than 350 VFX shots from SOKRISPYMEDIA to raise the stakes on track, fencing and the rest. On release it set a new 24-hour record for a non-music video on YouTube, with close to 60 million views in its first day.
Led the previs team for the opening episodes of Season 1 during lockdown, building a remote real-time pipeline (Unreal Engine, Xsens performance capture, live camera tracking) that streamed previs to HBO's creative team over Zoom as it was performed. The work behind the Episode 1 driving one-shot and plane crash, later published and presented at SIGGRAPH 2023.
Every set rebuilt in Unreal Engine before the shoot so hundreds of contestants could be captured correctly, then 350+ VFX shots delivered in ten days. The video hit #1 on YouTube trending, passed 100 million views in under a week, and is still the most-watched video on YouTube's most-subscribed channel.
A documentary series on building the game: Chalk Vision, motion capture, the race to Unreal Fest, and the first remote beta.
The 2026 return of the series, which doubled as the official video game reveal.
Concepted and built the Unreal Engine worlds that ran in real time on an LED volume for the video. Prod. co. SixTwentySix, dir. Miles & AJ.
Ongoing VFX and marketing content for MrBeast's chocolate brand, including putting Feastables on the Moon.
Directed and VFX-supervised three stereoscopic virtual-reality shorts, produced with Madison Wells Media.
A branded action short made with Epic Games, in the drawn-to-life spirit of Chalk Warfare. 52 million views.
A 4-million-view original made with Samsung: an orca, a jellyfish tank, and effects that refuse to behave.
VFX and visualizations for Ninja's new Red Bull streaming room, with Stept Studios (dir. Patrick Hall). VFX supervisor.
A recorded Unreal Fest session on converting a 300-million-view series into a UE5 game, published by Epic Games.
One of the channel's viral originals: phone filters let loose in the physical world.
A short rendered in real time in Unreal Engine, with a full behind-the-scenes on virtual production, featured as an NVIDIA case study.
A 6-million-view original, cut, graded and composited in DaVinci Resolve and Fusion and profiled by Blackmagic Design.
Starts the SOKRISPYMEDIA channel with fifth-grade friend Eric Leigh.
Chalk Warfare, a two-minute short made at sixteen, goes viral; it has more than 55 million views today.
Streamy Award nominee, Visual & Special Effects, the first of five nominations. Best in Show at the USC VR Festival for the studio's virtual-reality work.
Best in Show at the USC VR Festival for the second year running.
Streamy nominations for Visual & Special Effects and for Tiny Tank, the virtual-reality series funded by Google Daydream.
Chalk Warfare 4.0, a 16-minute episode opening with a real skydive, earns a Streamy nomination on its way to 160 million views. Named Bilibili's Top Creator of 2020, the platform's most-viewed creator that year.
MrBeast's Squid Game: 350+ VFX shots in ten days for what becomes YouTube's most-watched video in a single week. Virtual production for Twenty One Pilots' "Shy Away." Brought on by HBO to previs The Last of Us.
Streamy Award winner, Visual & Special Effects. Tubefilter ↗
The Last of Us premieres on HBO. Awarded an Epic MegaGrant. SIGGRAPH 2023: the remote real-time previs pipeline is published and presented in Los Angeles ("Using Pre-visualization to Bring HBO's The Last of Us to Life," Wickert, Malinics, Forde), later a SIGGRAPH Spotlight episode. MrBeast Olympics: 350+ VFX shots for a video that set YouTube's 24-hour record for a non-music video. Tesla Robots vs. Cybertruck goes viral and draws a reply from Elon Musk. Guest lecture at Chapman University. Streamy nominee.
Unreal Fest Seattle: presents "Turning Millions of Viewers into Players: Converting Our Viral Series into a Game," later published on Epic's channel. Watch ↗
Beast Games Season 2 on Prime Video, previs and VFX. TED2026 main stage in Vancouver with a live AI filmmaking demo. Speaker at AICP Week. Debuts Chalk Warfare, the game, at Unreal Fest Chicago with Puget Systems; Chalk Warfare 4.5 reveals it to the audience on July 31; the Steam page passes 100,000 wishlists in October.
Visual & Special Effects. Nominated 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2023.
The platform's most-viewed creator of the year.
Two consecutive wins for the studio's virtual-reality films.
Live AI filmmaking demo with Bilawal Sidhu, Vancouver, April 2026.
Remote real-time previs for HBO's The Last of Us, with Micah Malinics and Brendan Forde.
Epic MegaGrant recipient for high-end VFX and interactive work in Unreal Engine.
On AI in production, and how a small studio punches above its weight class.
Seattle 2024 session on turning Chalk Warfare into a game; Chicago 2026 playable debut with Puget Systems.
Sam Wickert is a director and VFX supervisor and the founder of SOKRISPYMEDIA, the studio behind Chalk Warfare. He started the channel in 2009 with Eric Leigh, put out the first Chalk Warfare at sixteen, and studied film at Chapman University.
His work runs from viral originals to television. For MrBeast he has delivered VFX on dozens of videos, including the most-watched video on YouTube's biggest channel, built the pipelines and the nimble, purpose-built teams that turn around hundreds of shots in days, produced marketing for Feastables, and handled previs and VFX for Beast Games on Prime Video. For HBO he led the previs team on the opening episodes of The Last of Us and built the remote real-time pipeline that was published and presented at SIGGRAPH 2023. He has directed and supervised virtual production for Twenty One Pilots, three VR films for Google, and campaigns for Epic Games, Samsung, Red Bull, AMD, Blackmagic Design, Universal Orlando Resort and Discover.
SOKRISPYMEDIA won the Streamy Award for Visual & Special Effects in 2022, was Bilibili's Top Creator of 2020, took Best in Show at the USC VR Festival in 2016 and 2017, and received an Epic MegaGrant in 2023. Sam has presented the studio's work at SIGGRAPH, Unreal Fest and AICP Week. In April 2026 Sam took the TED main stage to show, live, what filmmaking looks like when AI is a tool in the director's hands rather than a replacement for them. He is also a co-founder of Escape Velocity, a VFX and production services company.
