VFX TRENDS
ADVENTURES IN INDIE VIRTUAL PRODUCTION By IAN FAILES
Around the world, excitement continues to brew at the filmmaking-related possibilities offered up by virtual production and realtime rendering. This includes independent filmmakers, whose projects might be on a much smaller scale than high-profile virtual production shows such as The Mandalorian and The Lion King. Indeed, the availability and democratization of LED wall technology, game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity and real-time tools have given indie filmmakers the chance to experiment widely in this new virtual production paradigm to produce high-quality content. At the same time, they’ve been able to offer new filmmaking techniques in an age of social distancing requirements. Several creators, including VFX artists and cinematographers, explain here what they’ve been experimenting with in the area of virtual production. LED WALLS: NEW STORY TELLING TECHNIQUES
TOP: On the set of Last Pixel’s test-shoot with crew member Ian Rogers in front of the LED walls and a projected background. (Image courtesy Last Pixel) OPPOSITE TOP: The Granary’s LED wall test-shoot included an ‘outdoor’ car scene. (Image courtesy The Granary)
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LED walls, coupled with real-time rendering tools, can offer up alternative ways to provide for virtual backgrounds, which might normally have required greenscreens or rear-projection techniques. Plus, they can provide final shots ‘in-camera’ and benefit from interactive light on your actors. Independent filmmakers, motivated by what they have seen on large-scale productions, have found that LED walls can be incredibly useful in their projects. One outfit that has been experimenting with LED walls, for example, is Last Pixel, based in Perth, Australia, headed by Rick Grigsby and David McDonnell. Having produced visual effects, animation and visualization for several projects including Netflix’s I Am Mother, Last Pixel had already been dabbling in real-time rendering with Unreal Engine. As the coronavirus pandemic hit, Last Pixel partnered with local events company Mediatec, which owned LED screens, to produce a couple of test shoots. According to McDonnell, the initial areas of LED wall shoots
“I definitely think virtual production is the future of filmmaking. For VFX, the larger promise of virtual production for me is about returning to the discipline of planning and committing to a vision early, rather than deferring decisions to fix it in post. The more we can see live and share in a common artistic vision either on set, or in pre-production, the more effectively the post teams can execute on that.” —David McDonnell, Co-founder, Last Pixel Last Pixel needed to get a handle on included utilizing Unreal’s nDisplay for pushing imagery onto the screens, and configuring a HTC Vive as a tracking solution to enable the imagery on the walls to change depending upon the camera position. NVIDIA graphics cards were also part of the equation. “Apart from the back-end tech side, we tried to focus on the craft and strategies of how you would shoot a real project on an LED stage, so we set ourselves a few goals to shoot coverage on some made-up scenes,” says McDonnell. “I definitely think virtual production is the future of filmmaking. For VFX, the larger promise of virtual production for me is about returning to the discipline of planning and committing to a vision early, rather than deferring decisions to fix it in post. The more we can see live and share in a common artistic vision either on set, or in pre-production, the more effectively the post teams can execute on that.” Another independent outfit that has jumped into the world of LED walls is Wellington, New Zealand production company The Granary. Founders Amber Marie Naveira and Victor Naveira have backgrounds in visual effects and post-production. They started the company looking to realize high-concept shorts and commercial work for lower budgets. Then the virus struck, forcing them to look at alternative filmmaking options. “I had come across The Mandalorian, of course,” details Victor, “but
prior to that, there’d been a Quixel video that’d been released, which was photorealism using Unreal Engine 4. It all just sort of went from there.” Avalon Studios, where The Granary had set up a work space, connected them with Streamliner Productions, which owned some LED screens. “We thought,” recalls Amber Marie, “if we could prove the concept [of virtual production with LED walls] that it could be a game-changer for our local industry. It would mean people in our local film industry could get some ideas out onto the screen and we could help them with it.” Some of the principal issues The Granary faced in their testing included the size of the screens, dealing with screen tearing, which camera was best to use, which graphics card would best enable real-time rendering of the imagery they had generated, and how much dynamic lighting could be part of that imagery. However, with some to and fro, the tests proved successful. “What’s really liberating is,” suggests Victor, “since Epic is making all of this available through Unreal, it is democratizing the process and making it possible for a massive audience. So, indie filmmakers like ourselves can try and make productions which are higher caliber or have bigger concepts.” Amber Marie agrees: “I’m super excited about where we can go with it, how much we’re learning and what opportunities are out there.”
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