VIRTUAL PRODUCTION

If you are a Producer, Director, or crew member looking for ways to adapt in a post-Covid-19 world, chances are you’ve encountered the term virtual production. It became a household term for most of us after seeing either the behind-the-scenes video from The Mandalorian or Matt Workman’s Unreal Engine promo from SIGGRAPH. But what is virtual production?

David Stripinis (22-year VFX veteran, Avatar, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Man of Steel) gave me the best definition of virtual production I’ve heard so far, summing it up like this:

Virtual Production exists on a spectrum. It’s about the Venn diagram overlap between the physical world and the digital. You can push and pull whatever parts into or out of that overlap that you need/want/can afford. If you just want to get mocap or a virtual camera into a full CG scene running live in MotionBuilder, that’s virtual production.  If you want to live track a camera on a chroma stage and do live comp on viewfinder or video village, that’s virtual production. If you want to run full LED panels to give rear projection against live actors, that’s virtual production.

The programs, the hardware, will all continue to evolve. The core concept of virtual production is to bring the immediacy and interactive nature of the real world into CG, and bring the feedback of the CG world to key creative stakeholders so they can make informed decisions.

For a more in depth look into the different technologies that fall under the Virtual Production umbrella, check out the full post at Sam-Claitor.com.

Fable House is a video production company based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that specializes in production for film, video, commercials, and TV. Our team are experts in physical production, post-production, and VFX. We produce content for major brands, TV networks like Syfy and Lifetime, and provide production services to Louisiana’s never-say-die indie filmmakers.