NAB Amplify
If you’ve got $15 million then you can make a 35-minute
VFX-driven drama on par with The Mandalorian but most producers will
be lucky to be making an entire series on that budget. Fortunately, the virtual
production technology and techniques with which Disney+ wowed the industry is
coming on tap fast thanks to COVID-19. Virtual production happens to be the
form of live action production most suitable to COVID safety.
“The pandemic forced a lot of companies that had been unwilling or unable to work with remote artists to do have to do so in an instant,” says Adam Maier, producer at LA’s ReelFX.
“That broke down a ton of boundaries. We’re seeing a huge
acceptance of virtual production and sudden interest in what it can bring in
terms of remote collaboration.”
A year ago, Maier was working at “transmedia” studio Brud
and part of a project organized by the Entertainment Technology Center@USC to
road test Covid-safe procedures and affordable virtual production on a
live-action short called Ripple Effect.
The results, exhaustively detailed in a white paper,
are a blueprint for how producers anywhere might resume production on more
virtually than before.
“Virtual production brings together the best of traditional
film with the best of video games with graphics and VFX to be able to do a lot
more than on a traditional film set,” Maier added.
Katherine Billhart, exec producer and director VP at ETC,
said, “The goal is to walk away from each of our setups with final visual
effects captured in camera.”
This “Fix it in Prep” philosophy in which a production
re-allocates at least two-third of its post VFX resources to the pre-production
stage is a key difference between virtual and traditional production workflows.
“We planned out shots ahead of time to cut down time spent
on stage which makes people safer and saves studios money,” Billhart said.
“Ripple Effect” was made with the participation of Stargate
Studios which did a lot of the mapping, geometry and playback work, XR Stages
which provided the LED wall and visualization company ICVR which created the
virtual world and virtual assets in Unreal.
“Yes, you’ve got The Mandalorian on one hand, but
we’re were trying to look at how what a small production or a regular studio
can do,” explained executive producer Erik Weaver. “There are not a lot of
people familiar with VP so one change was getting people to understand how
virtual production works. The great thing is that once they do experience it
it’s not difficult to comprehend.”
While “Ripple Effect” was filmed in an LED volume, the
paper’s authors don’t dismiss greenscreen. It weighs the pros and cons of each
and suggests producers do this too before committing to one route. “‘Fix it in
Prep’ and ‘Fix it in Post’ are two different philosophies that can both be
applied to either an LED wall or traditional greenscreen workflow. There are
pros and cons for either which can impact schedule, cost, and savings. Virtual
Production workflows, techniques, and tools should provide a path toward
balancing the two philosophies.”
The paper concludes that VP should be considered an integral
part of “physical production,” rather than a separate entity. It reads, “The
concept of virtual production as a separate entity exists today because virtual
production tools, techniques, and workflows applied to physical production
require new skill sets, an adoption of computing and computer language on set,
and team leadership with a strong understanding of VFX.”
The goal for the industry should be to educate existing
departments to help them acquire skills in computing and real-time technology
and ensure that baseline VFX knowledge is a minimum requirement.
Safetyvis
In parallel to the short film, the ETC designed a separate
“Safetyvis” project in partnership DigitalFilm Tree and ICVR to develop
real-time production safety planning tools.
Weaver gathered 309 control practices from U.S. states,
various countries and the Hollywood unions and entered them into a spreadsheet.
“It’s hard to visualize on a spreadsheet,” he said. “So, we took it to
DigitalFilm Tree and brought it to a whole other level.”
ICVR simulated the virtual workspace in Unreal including
where things are staged and where people can walk. “We made Avatars using game
engine mechanics to work out what works from a safety point of view,” said
Weaver.
They scanned the entire stage using LiDAR for accurate
measurements. “If the idea of LiDAR on a phone catches on, it means anyone can
have an accurate environment that they can creatively iterate in,” said
DigitalFilm Tree CEO Ramy Katrib.
The scan also showed how many people could fit safely in the
space.
“In order to represent that, we developed ring lights,”
explained game engine artist Andrea Aniceto-Chavez. “Any time a person gets too
close to another, the ring lights turn red. We can see where all the
departments are and avoid the space getting too crowded.”
Key advantages from both cost and COVID points of view in
the use of volumetric capture techniques is that they productions can re-create
exotic landscapes or basic city streets while reducing the size of the crew that
travels to those locations.
Directors, production, department heads, and other
stakeholders can see the creative and understand its intent as it is displayed
on the LED walls with minimal latency, allowing for remote participation on
set. This positively impacts schedule as those working remotely may not need to
provide input all day, they may only need to join in at specific times.
However, the paper notes the currently limited amount of
operational smart stage LED volumes available for use, a fact that also makes
their rental costs very high.
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