Broadcast Bridge
Stargate Studios is developing virtual production techniques which will enable producers to create “Avatar on a TV schedule” according to founder and CEO Sam Nicholson.
The LA-based visual effects facility is partnered with vfx tools developer The Foundry, pre-visualisation tools developer Ncam and Flemish research institute iMinds on R&D project Dreamspace which will have spin-off applications in the creation of virtual reality content.
Similar to the techniques pioneered by director James Cameron to shoot Avatar, Dreamspace is exploring methods of combining visual effects, virtual lighting and virtual environments with live on-set production.
“We are researching and developing how to shoot, finish and distribute enhanced reality in all forms of entertainment,” explained Nicholson. “Can you do Avatar on a TV schedule is the question. You can and we are.”
The European Union co-funded project runs until 2018 based at Stargate Germany in Berlin and the Baden-Württemberg Filmakademie.
“Footage is composited in near realtime and sent straight to editors which cuts out tremendous amounts of time and cost,” Nicholson continued. “It eliminates motion tracking and it eliminates pre-compositing which are two huge time-consuming and costly production methods. That's why this is such a fit for episodic TV.”
The project uses extreme high resolution omnidirectional background material which is a staple of Stargate Studios' Virtual Backlot post production process used to support the production of shows including NCIS, The Walking Dead, Grey's Anatomy, Episodes, ER, Dr Who and House of Lies.
Stargate crews shoot background plates of locations ranging from Cape Town to Cairo from rigs mounted with up to 14 synchronized 4K cameras. The images, including establishing shots, aerial and car views, are stitched together to form a horizontal resolution of between 32K-56K and rendered over Stargate's high-speed cloud network. It is able to use the combined computing resources of facilities it operates in LA, Malta, Atlanta, Berlin, Cologne, Mexico City, Toronto and in Ealing, London which opened this week.
The sequences are often made to order for producers wanting a cost-effective alternative to physical location work. Actors are composited from green-screen into the virtual environments which are output at broadcast-ready resolutions of 5K, 4K or HD. Stargate has amassed a stock footage library of 6000 hours or nearly 3000 clips from over 800 productions since launch in 1989.
"Most of our clients want shots turnaround in ten days," he said. "There are very few facilities capable of completing a thousand shots in 10 days. I would consider us the fastest and highest quality system out there."
Now the facility plans to use its expertise to create live action virtual reality content.
“VR is a big opportunity for us,” said Nicholson. “We are creating extremely high resolution spherical images and plan to back that onto immersive entertainment like the Oculus Rift.”
Stargate is also a part of Canon's Mixed Reality project which is investigating ways to overlay computer generated content within real-world environments. Stargate is investigating ways the technique could be used to enhance pre-visualisation on visual effects intensive projects.
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