LEDs have found a place in broadcast equipment and offer flexibility and performance to businesses and hospitality as they are forced to reach audiences in creative ways. Today, LED studios achieve dizzying Hollywood movie sets, TV documentaries and commercials, and large-scale movie experiences. When shooting large and complex movie scenes on busy streets or tourist hotspots, there is often a lot of planning and logistics involved: the desolate streets of New York City on Independence Day, or the pristine, empty shores of Phi Phi Island on the beach.
Negotiations, planning and significant funding were required to get the production team to shoot at these carefully selected iconic locations. Even without the big budgets of Hollywood directors to allow for on-location shooting, the production team would need to purchase a set for the shoot. They need to draft a full working part team to plan, build, travel and shoot the shots needed for their creative endeavours.
To get around these onerous logistics, there's another option that's already making waves in the TV and film industry: virtual production LED studios.
The technology is already being used in closed-door conferences for broadcast/hybrid event spaces for more corporate applications, and its far-reaching potential is being realized by documentary filmmakers, TV studios, and large-scale film sets around the world. Before offering LED solutions to customers, the scope of the project needs to be explained first.
Once the scope of the project is understood, the solution can be designed. All front-end details need to be discovered before the LED volume is designed, or an existing volume can be utilized to suit the needs of the project. Since the use cases for virtual production vary widely, you can create a small studio in an office building or a giant Hollywood studio.
This ground-breaking solution fuses the physical and virtual worlds in real time, a technological feat incomprehensible because it requires the integration of the entire ecosystem. “It starts with a medium or large LED back wall, then we add an LED ceiling to help create ambient lighting and reflections. Then use practical lighting to light (real) sets and props. Track camera positions in real time, utilize GPU systems Content is rendered from the correct perspective of the camera and displayed on an LED wall. With the extensive on-site skills and talents of cinematographers, lighting experts and traditional film production teams who will help create realistic lighting and environmental effects, the magic of filmmaking happens in in the lens.
As mentioned earlier, the ecosystem consists of many parts: camera tracking, video processing, synchronization, timecode, media servers, content asset storage, backup, video recording, audio recording, lighting, networking, power distribution, surveillance systems - the list Still going. A complete solution like a virtual studio does come with a substantial initial outlay for the filmmaker/producer, but it is this initial investment that offsets the large outlays and overheads during on-set and post-production work, which The cost must be factored into making it over and over again if shot in a "traditional" way.
This innovative virtual production LED solution didn't mean the death of live filming or visual effects as we know it, but it offered actors and creators more than what it could achieve before it was conceived. Actors are able to participate in the scene they are filming in real time, giving them an infinitely superior performance environment, rather than talking in the blanks of the green screen. Non-destructive production pipelines are now available, and the curator’s vision remains in one “engine” from the moment a film is conceived through to production – and of course, less waste from physical set construction.
Quickly changing scene conditions to suit the needs of real-time scripting provides unlimited options. Weather conditions can change - different seasons, countries, and even planets can be summoned in an instant. This aspect alone enables filmmakers to create work that is more sustainable, efficient and creatively free. MR series LED floors (MR2.5 and MR4.8) for virtual production stages can be easily connected together to create any size floor. Its high-strength frame design guarantees the safety and durability of the MR4.8 matte version capable of withstanding loads of approximately 2.5 tons.
Getting the setup between the LED screen, processor, and camera right is important, so the support and knowledge of the LED supplier is critical. A combination of creative and technical aspects come together to complete this type of production, and it's not something to be taken off the shelf. Using virtual backgrounds can not only reduce location shooting costs and post-production time, but also improve the performance of the actors involved. As actress Neshe Demir explains: "You are directly in the correct environment depicted in the scene, so you don't have to imagine it. I can feel my body reflexes reacting to the environment shown, making the performance more natural and easy".
Post time: Aug-09-2023