PROVIRTUALPRODUCTION
VIRTUAL VS PHYSICAL: THE STRENGTHS, LIMITATIONS AND CROSSOVER OF CAMERA In the fifth part of this series, Matthew Collu explores how in-camera visual effects can be explored powerfully in a virtual production environment
Throughout the last 100-plus years of filmmaking, storytellers both big and small have always needed to flex their creative intuition and inventive problem-solving to ensure the fantastic can be properly captured through the lens of the camera. As we slowly moved away from stage play-like scene compositions into a much more dynamic framing standard, the notion of ‘playing to camera’ became commonplace. We discovered that what truly matters is what can be seen at a chosen time. The idea that if it looks good through the camera nothing else should matter was an incredibly simple yet art formdefining revelation, and one that opened the floodgates for visual effects practices to truly carve out a place in the industry. Incorporating the limits of the camera’s frame has
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made for limitless creative solutions and discoveries, and no innovative visual effects workflow better showcases this than virtual production and in-camera visual effects. For a while now, most visual effects have been achieved, built and implemented solely in a post-production pipeline, for both budget and time efficiency reasons. Aside from a few purists, the industry has migrated away from doing most visual effects directly through the lens; and beyond that, stories and visual demands have become much more complicated than ever before, as have turnaround times and content demands. However, with the advent of virtual production and incamera VFX, there has been a resurgence in having everything achieved during the production phase, not simply being fixed in post. With extensive experience in both the production