PRODUCTION/POST


VIRTUAL PRODUCTION


The shoot for DNEG and Dimension’s shor t , Fireworks, a test case of the possibili t ies of VP


you to take a much more iterative approach,” says Bajt. “Because you have a much fuller picture of what your final frame is going to look like right from pre-production.” It’s also a very controllable environment: “If a shot requires a sunset, if shooting on location, there is a very narrow window of opportunity to get the shot. In a virtual production stage, the scene can be set up and tweaked and then locked off giving the director the perfect sunset for the whole day.”


The bot tom line For producers, cost savings are an


obvious draw. Done right it can save significant cash by creating environments before the shoot, lower location costs, and make reshoots easier, for example. However, says Franklin “this needs


to be offset against the cost of creating all the assets needed by the LED stage and the cost of running it, which is not insignificant. Ultimately, the LED volume can replace green screen, but it doesn’t create set elements that are close to the camera - the limitations of the LED technology mean that the screen always needs to be knocked slightly out of focus at a minimum to avoid the problem of moiré, where


84 televisual.com Summer 2021


the grid pattern of pixels on the screen causes interference patterns with the grid pattern in the camera sensor.” “You will have to create the


3d content,” adds Pilborough- Skinner. “You really start to see savings if you’re doing multiple locations or themes.”


The r ight stuf f Right now, the biggest


challenge the development of virtual production faces is that of skills shortages. The process requires a variety of skills from a variety of distinct specialists. Virtual Production generalists, those who know enough of all of the aspects of the process, are still few and far between. “There’s nobody who just yet


has got all of the skillsets required to work on a VP stage,” says Pilborough- Skinner. “We’re lucky in that we’ve got people from the vfx industry, we’ve got people from a games background, we’ve got people from live events, and we’ve been able to collate all our different skills and knowledge, so we’ve cross trained with each other.” The challenge now is to develop VP generalists with education partners (the Met Film School has a course now)


but also the VP set ups themselves are pushing hard on education. Pitts says that the availability


now is to develop virtual production generalists


Mark Pilborough Skinner Garden Studios


The challenge


of talent “is one of our biggest challenges. Virtual Production is such a new thing that many of the skills required are just not there yet, and there is a huge skills gap that needs filling” so his company’s Mars Volume will act as a training centre for newer entrants alongside being an


operational facility. One of the biggest


pinch points is “the demand for skilled operators in Unreal Engine with vfx experience,” says Thomas. Much of the experience in


Unreal is in the gaming world, but VP requires both Unreal experience and vfx for TV and film experience and “films and games are quite different beasts so it’s not as straightforward as people might think to transfer across from one industry to the other,” says DNEG’s Franklin. All call for more training in higher education to bridge the gap alongside the efforts that Unreal developer, Epic Games, is putting in. And, says Jopling “as more vfx artists retrain in Unreal we’ll have a great pool or talent that can pivot to facilitate this.”


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