Fernando Küfer on Revolutionizing Storytelling

Since its inception, technology has played a massive role in making businesses successful. disguise is a platform that has embraced advanced technology and revolutionized it to deliver best-in-class visual experiences.

Founded in 2000, disguise is an innovative platform for creatives and technologists to imagine, create, and deliver spectacular visual experiences. Born out of pioneering new technology, disguise was first developed to deliver show-stopping visuals at concerts for the likes of U2 and Massive Attack. Its software allowed the integration of lighting and video, while its powerful media server hardware handled live footage from four SDI sources simultaneously, which helped to composite them into a single canvas.

Today, with disguise, organizations can program each pixel of a visual experience in advance. Once a project is created in disguise’s Designer software, teams can validate ideas, align stakeholders, and deliver on schedule and to the maximum standard. Once a project is ready, show content can be effortlessly loaded onto a disguise media server and played back at scale.

Leading the Charge

With a mission to put disguise at the heart of every inspiring visual experience in the world and democratize the production workflow, Fernando Kufer serves as the company’s CEO. Fernando has led the company on a continuous journey of growth and expansion by opening several new company locations, growing the team every year, and recently attracting backing from the Carlyle Group with Epic Games taking a minority stake.

He started his career as a trainee at a Swiss multinational chemicals company named Clariant. Since then, he has held several roles for the likes of Lidl, The Body Shop, L’Oreal, and Ultra Motor Ltd. In 2012, he took his first CEO role at A2B Bikes. Later in 2015, Fernando took charge as the CEO of disguise. Fernando has a B.A. degree in International Business Studies and speaks seven languages.

Delivering Spectacular Experiences

While disguise may have a wide range of clients and users ranging from creatives and technologists working in live events to filmmakers and broadcasters as well as various corporate organizations, they all have the same goal of imagining, creating, and delivering spectacular experiences. disguise works to empower its users with the best tools, technology, and expertise to make that happen.

Fernando says, “This is why our user community is at the heart of everything we do. At all points, we work alongside our global partner community to ensure that we keep them front of mind for every new feature we develop.”

disguise has set up several Insider Groups for extended reality, color control, and live productions where Fernando and his team work with their clients and other industry experts on what features and improvements they need from the platform to keep on creating unforgettable experiences. The organization also uses these groups to beta-test new solutions before they are released.

These groups are mutually beneficial for everyone. “Our partners receive early access to our tools which they can use in their productions whilst we get the feedback, we need to ensure we are creating something of value for customers.“- adds Fernando.

Tackling the Pandemic

During the pandemic, the live events industry ground to a halt, so Fernando and disguise had to think fast and smart to continue operating and provide various new tools for their user community.

As productions like Star Wars: The Mandalorian were becoming popular, bringing new virtual production technology to the fore, the R&D team at disguise were already developing an extended reality solution. The new solution would empower creatives and technologists to use photorealistic, virtual graphics delivered in real-time and shot in camera. With Covid, the need to accelerate this development grew. The entire team worked hard and fast to complete two years of work within five months and quickly bring the new solution to the market.

disguise has enabled its user community with the tools to bring virtual production and extended reality productions to life. In 2020, disguise’s clients used its solution for several productions, including the VMAs, Latin Billboard Awards, Katy Perry’s American Idol performance, and various other virtual conferences organized by the likes of Siemens, SAP, and Walmart. The platform is currently powering over 350 xR stages spread across 40 countries worldwide.

disguise has also made its Designer software freely available for anyone who wants to learn to use the tool. With eLearning and classroom training, disguise is training the next generation of creatives and technologists to use its solutions.

In spite of the pandemic halting most live shows, disguise still earned a place in the Financial Times’  top 1000 fastest growing businesses for 2021. Since the pandemic, the firm has significantly increased its turnover and opened several new locations across the planet. Later in 2022, the organization won one of the most prestigious awards in the U.K. – the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation. Recently, disguise has also been awarded an Engineering, Science and Technology Emmy award.

Vision in Life

“My vision is to give anyone and everyone the tools to realize their creative vision.” – says Fernando.

disguise helps filmmakers, artists, brands, and broadcasters to connect with their audiences by creating amazing experiences. Fernando and his team at disguise work with several creative and technical teams from all over the world, helping them create the impossible.

He explains, “It brings me great joy whenever I see a game-changing production that disguise has enabled, whether it is broadcast coverage of the Euros or the Olympics, a Katy Perry performance, a Netflix show, or even a Beyonce concert. I am proud that disguise has been at the heart of the most amazing productions around.” `

Picture of the Future

Fernando believes disguise is a key part of a technology revolution that will change the media and entertainment industry forever. The organization is working to cement itself at the center of an ongoing reinvention of events, programming, and immersive experiences.

disguise also expects its xR technology to meet a growing, global demand with over 35 and counting countries opting for its technology. Currently, the software is available in 40 countries and in seven different languages. Fernando and his team are planning to further democratize the workflow to become the global gold standard in delivering memorable visual experiences.

Additionally, disguise’s acquisition of 3D content pre-visualization platforms, Mapping Matter and Previz will help disguise to empower remote and cloud-based collaboration.

With the recent launch of disguise’s Metaverse Solutions division, disguise plans to enable the next generation of extraordinary live, virtual production, and audio-visual location-based experiences for the metaverse.

Fernando says, “We will further leverage our extended reality solution together with our partnerships with metaverse event enablers Surreal and advanced content creators ZOAN while also combining our workflows and expertise with Epic Games’ suite of applications, such as architectural visualization tool Twinmotion, web 3D viewer Sketchfab and 3D photogrammetry software Capturing Reality. With this, we will build the capability to offer virtual production workflows custom-designed for the metaverse.“