Article on how virtual production and video walls facilitate shooting during covid

ahalpert

ahalpert

Major Contributor
https://nofilmschool.com/tech-stagecraft-changing-hollywood

These techniques were used extensively on the Mandalorian and other projects. Now a broader range of projects may implement them just to get rolling with smaller crews.

Kind of cool, but I hope this is not a permanent trend. A lot of inspiration and improv come from working in actual locations. In some ways, virtual production is just as limiting as it is liberating.
 
Funny, a client I am working with on an ongoing basis, who wants to build their own small studio in their warehouse for production was raving on and on about the Fox Sports setup he saw at NAB 2018. I researched it
and the Fox stage they built utilizes the same Unreal Gaming Engine that the Favreau is using for those virtual sets for the Mandalorian. I've been trying to explain to him that while yes, this is very
cool technology for green screen and virtual sets for Fox or for virtual locations via massive LCD walls for the Mandalorian, we are talking multi million dollar technology here that has not yet trickled
down to where mere mortals like us could own it.

Personally, I have shot some corporate and marketing projects with virtual sets and this was quite a few years ago when it was simply a three camera stage with an integrated motion tracking system and not the Unreal Engine
and I found it a sterile, pain the ass, lifeless experience as a director. We still had to worry about green spill and reflections off of numerous pieces of furniture and objects, the script called for a scene with a hallway with characters
walking in and out of various doors, matching the green screen footage with the virtual sets in post was a nightmare, the angles weren't quite right. Being a DP, I am all about shooting in real locations with real lighting, real talent
interacting in the real world. All of the digital whiz bang stuff looks sterile and robotic to me.

I shot a documentary with interviews in four different countries so naturally the producer wanted to ONLY shoot them on green screen. Here I was in some of the most beautiful countries I've ever been in and we are shooting interviews
on a stage with green screen, it was a crime.
 
As if by magic 30 seconds after reading the post above I got sent this link about the new unreal engine. V5
https://youtu.be/qC5KtatMcUw


I agree with the crime of using Green Screens in the three country interviews especially as usually the images put on the green screen are naff.
 
Last edited:
I agree with everything puredrifting said.

That being said, did you guys like the Mandalorian? I haven't seen it yet, though I badly want to.

It would be great if these tools remained limited in use, though...
 
ahalpert said:
I agree with everything puredrifting said.

That being said, did you guys like the Mandalorian? I haven't seen it yet, though I badly want to.

It would be great if these tools remained limited in use, though...
Click to expand...

I've seen it. The sets do look convincing and the the end result is impressive. If nobody told you, you wouldn't think it was fake. IMHO, that technology looks better than any green screen can look simply because it's NOT being composited, it's being
photographed in real time with the actors. No matter how good the composite, if you have an eye and shoot especially, there is always something just slightly off with green screen. The lighting doesn't quite match, the edges look weird, etc. A lot of times, I can't even put my finger on it, but it just feels fake.

With this Mandalorian effect, I saw the episodes before I had even read up on the technology and nothing struck me as out of place or weird with the "live" composites. I see this being used quite a bit in the post Pandemic world.
People are simply not going to want to fly and shoot narrative in exotic locations as much unless absolutely necessary and this technology makes staying in Hollywood or wherever and shooting in any location very viable. Like all of the other
new stuff, if it becomes popular, the cost will plummet and the availability of stages that install it will go way up. As much as I love shooting on location and real locations, I find this technology infinitely more interesting and "real" looking than
traditional green/blue screen. Real talent and props with a fake environment is infinitely better than real talent and props floundering around a green stage with nothing to put them there except their imagination.
 
Last edited:
puredrifting said:
Funny, a client I am working with on an ongoing basis, who wants to build their own small studio in their warehouse for production was raving on and on about the Fox Sports setup he saw at NAB 2018. I researched it
and the Fox stage they built utilizes the same Unreal Gaming Engine that the Favreau is using for those virtual sets for the Mandalorian. I've been trying to explain to him that while yes, this is very
cool technology for green screen and virtual sets for Fox or for virtual locations via massive LCD walls for the Mandalorian, we are talking multi million dollar technology here that has not yet trickled
down to where mere mortals like us could own it.

Personally, I have shot some corporate and marketing projects with virtual sets and this was quite a few years ago when it was simply a three camera stage with an integrated motion tracking system and not the Unreal Engine
and I found it a sterile, pain the ass, lifeless experience as a director. We still had to worry about green spill and reflections off of numerous pieces of furniture and objects, the script called for a scene with a hallway with characters
walking in and out of various doors, matching the green screen footage with the virtual sets in post was a nightmare, the angles weren't quite right. Being a DP, I am all about shooting in real locations with real lighting, real talent
interacting in the real world. All of the digital whiz bang stuff looks sterile and robotic to me.

I shot a documentary with interviews in four different countries so naturally the producer wanted to ONLY shoot them on green screen. Here I was in some of the most beautiful countries I've ever been in and we are shooting interviews
on a stage with green screen, it was a crime.
Click to expand...

Are you referring to the one down here in Charlotte in the FS1 studios? It's not ready for "small players", yet. Honestly, there are still a lot of visual shortcomings of the system. Maybe some of it is just because of what I know and working in the business and I see things that the average viewer doesn't(or at least doesn't pay attention to).

And yes, I want to interact with something real and physical, as well. I think that's why I'm not a good drone pilot. My hands aren't actually on the camera moving it around.
 
Run&Gun said:
Are you referring to the one down here in Charlotte in the FS1 studios? It's not ready for "small players", yet. Honestly, there are still a lot of visual shortcomings of the system. Maybe some of it is just because of what I know and working in the business and I see things that the average viewer doesn't(or at least doesn't pay attention to).

And yes, I want to interact with something real and physical, as well. I think that's why I'm not a good drone pilot. My hands aren't actually on the camera moving it around.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the 60 x 60' one Fox Sports built. I saw some demo clips that looked interesting but more importantly, my client saw a demo at NAB and was very taken with it. I had to educate him about the financial realities of
the technology. We actually had a Zoom this morning with the client who asked if we could replace some panels on the back of the set with some green screen panels so we can constantly digitally update the set as our graphics
change bi yearly. Had to try to explain what motion tracking is, and what a PITA it is to work with and that without it, we could really only do locked off shots.

I shot a pretty large project for Disney over on one of the Quixote stages in LA off of the 5 freeway and we blended in green screen with a ton or practical props that we got from Disney. One talent, walking through the environments, talking, camera on a Fisher
11 tracking him through the various sets. We had the X markers and ping pong balls all over the cyc, I went through compositing and it was a royal PITA. It worked, just was super expensive and time consuming and required so many notes passes to get it how we needed to look.

I'm told the newer gen of software makes motion tracking BGs and elements much easier and quicker but I haven't wanted to be a guinea pig for it on a paid client job. I shot another video over at www.lacastlestudios.com
about five years ago and they had a motion control/tracking multi camera rig setup with Varicams. It appears that they have upgraded to the Unreal Engine there too?
 
As a WWII history buff, I hope CGI and video walls will make for a more accurate historical reenactment.

But it's likely to result in more "Midways".
 
DLD said:
As a WWII history buff, I hope CGI and video walls will make for a more accurate historical reenactment.

But it's likely to result in more "Midways".
Click to expand...

Ouch!

What did you think of 1917 and Dunkirk as far as war movies? I guess there are still a lot of stories to be told about the two wars but I am kind of exhausted by them.
I've seen so many of them, a few were great, a lot okay and a lot of them not so good.
 
DLD said:
As a WWII history buff, I hope CGI and video walls will make for a more accurate historical reenactment.
But it's likely to result in more "Midways".
Click to expand...

It is not the GCI that is the problem. It is usually the stories themselves that contain huge inaccuracies..
 
ahalpert said:
https://nofilmschool.com/tech-stagecraft-changing-hollywood

These techniques were used extensively on the Mandalorian and other projects. Now a broader range of projects may implement them just to get rolling with smaller crews.

Kind of cool, but I hope this is not a permanent trend. A lot of inspiration and improv come from working in actual locations. In some ways, virtual production is just as limiting as it is liberating.
Click to expand...

It's expensive. VERY expensive.

It will replace scenics and painted backdrops and roscolite.

https://us.rosco.com/en/products/family/backdrops-digital-library

I set up a medical show in Atlanta and it cost 200K to fit the stage with the backdrops from Rosco. We shot a skyline where we wanted out building to be located and stiched together a massive image that is essentially printed onto a fabric that's then hung. Perspective for the curves in the tage wall are allowed for. I think we 300' (x60') of backdrop across thee stages.

To do the same thing with a virtual wall like this would still be prohibitively expensive.

But I do like that it COULD be what you light with.

I do like that it's alive and interactive. (we used to have lights animated and places flying as VFX on our photo backdrops)

I think we're aways away from mortals being able to afford it.

I think we're aways from it being able to scale large enough to work well.

It's not exactly new conceptually either, it's been done with "pre-rendered" images for some time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx1U2VsCnLg

What IS interesting is adding the ability to track a camera, and alter the perspective for that camera (which makes things interesting for those standing in the room that aren't watching from the cameras point of view...hello vertigo !

In terms of the majority of production being multi camera, this means you HAVE to go to a single camera. You can't track two different perspectives at the same time.

Multi camera shooting is very well established now and I don't think many shows can afford the downside of more takes / more setups.

Very cool to have the option though and I'm sure will be super popular in the coming months for protecting actors.

JB
 
JAMedia said:
It is usually the stories themselves that contain huge inaccuracies..
Click to expand...

Stories are mostly made up.

The real stories are often more interesting or intricate but harder to make a satisfying piece of entertainment from.

Since when was accuracy ALWAYS the goal ? Not being facetious, but even shows that aim to be historical shows are still flawed. And in the end you're telling stories and entertaining. Not making a documentary (Unless you ARE?)

If the goal is to viscerally make the audience experience a reality that they wouldn't normally get to do, then obviously that's an important goal to chase. But should you be going to a 4D screening so they can blow air at your head and mist water at you ? Watch it in 3D ? Where do you draw a line at "accuracy" and "truth". It's impossible.

Having come off a show that made a very conscious decision to NOT be historically accurate, it becomes this rod for everyone;s back that makes things very difficult. I still saw many in the art department really struggle to come to terms with things being in service of story instead of historical fact.

And in the case of my show, there's some terrible rumours about a character that are widely debated as being untrue and yet the public still perpetuate the myth and when you bring up this particular character, it's one of the first "facts" that gets brought up about her. Who's truth do you go with ? The one the public all know and love to hear about and are expecting you to deal with ?

"same place the music comes from" is a stock answer on set when something story-logic wise doesn't make sense. I mean if there are STORYTELLING problems that's different to being historically accurate or not.

Is 2001 historically accurate ? It was made before man had stepped on the moon ? I mean here's a filmmaker that is famously fastidious about that kind of detail. I'm sure there were great lengths that were went to. (please don't let this become a thread about how accurate 2001 is)

It's still smoke and mirrors in service of story and entertainment.

JB
 
Last edited:
John Brawley said:
Stories are mostly made up.

The real stories are often more interesting or intricate but harder to make a satisfying piece of entertainment from.

Since when was accuracy ALWAYS the goal ? Not being facetious, but even shows that aim to be historical shows are still flawed. And in the end you're telling stories and entertaining. Not making a documentary (Unless you ARE?)
Click to expand...

I think all of John's points are totally reasonable.

At the same time, if JAMedia as an audience member goes to a WWII period piece with the hopes of reliving history (with fictional characters), I think it's hard to argue with his desires as a viewer.

It doesn't mean the film fails if it doesn't satisfy him. But he's entitled to have a bias against this type of film, and I'm sure he's not alone.

And the same will be true for The Great - although I'm sure that the proportion of potential viewers who give a damn about historical accuracy is very low (and they'll probably watch it anyway because they're history buffs and enjoy critiquing the inaccuracies).

[Though I actually think that with movies about wars where a lot of Americans died, there's a stronger emotional commitment to accuracy on the part of history buffs.]

I'm not sure it makes sense to bring up 2001 in this context, since he was roughly predicting the future. (Or are you saying his predictions were wildly inaccurate? I think he would have liked to get it right. He was trying very hard to imagine a realistic scenario. But ultimately, it's true, his vision was rooted in the space imagination of the 60s and the incredible technological leaps of the Apollo program. Space exploration did not continue apace.)
 
Last edited:
ahalpert said:
I think all of John's points are totally reasonable.

At the same time, if JAMedia as an audience member goes to a WWII period piece with the hopes of reliving history (with fictional characters), I think it's hard to argue with his desires as a viewer.

It doesn't mean the film fails if it doesn't satisfy him. But he's entitled to have a bias against this type of film, and I'm sure he's not alone.


[Though I actually think that with movies about wars where a lot of Americans died, there's a stronger emotional commitment to accuracy on the part of history buffs.]
Click to expand...

A lot of WW2 films portraying historical events and people often have huge inaccuracies in the stories. From Bridge over the River Kwai to Saving Private Ryan.
 
ahalpert said:
I'm not sure it makes sense to bring up 2001 in this context, since he was roughly predicting the future. (Or are you saying his predictions were wildly inaccurate? I think he would have liked to get it right. .)
Click to expand...

That was my point. We don't apply historical accuracy to future forward films with the same degree of rigour because, we are just guessing !

And yeah it's fair enough to be disappointed if the films MARKETING PROMISE is a historical depiction of an event that doesn't deliver.

I wonder what we think of a film like Hacksaw Ridge. I saw that and was impressed by a story of someone I'd never heard of and yet found the REAL story even more heroic and compelling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2-1hz1juBI

I have zero clue as to how accurately the story was depicted. I mean you can get to the level of detail on what they wear. What their training was like. How they speak. Was the terrain as it was.

But what about what he looked like ? How he spoke to his friends ? To his wife ?

I did 2nd unit on an epic TV series about a 1st world war campaign that today only matters to Australians, known as Gallipoli. A 10 month lesson in how not to invade a country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_campaign

Pearl Harbour or maybe Iwo Jima would be the US equivalents here to the everyday Australian.

Often considered to be the first major military campaign that Australians fighting as Australians participated in, it was a total military failure and disaster conceived by Winston Churchill.

I went to the battlefields, in Turkey, considered by many Australians to be sacred ground. Turkish farmers in the area still dig up artifacts every single day.

I was there to shoot material for a multi part drama series that was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the battle, the most expensive australian drama made at that point in time.

The goal was to shoot VFX plates for the very many VFX shots in the show, in the actual location of the battle. This would provide a level of authenticity for the rest of the show...

Except....

It doesn't look anything like what it did when there were the hundreds of thousands of troops there. There are trees. In the decades since the campaign, the battlefield has become more or less a national park, and many thousands of trees now grow there. You don't get the same sensor of the topography because it's totally different. So is it more "true" to use the actual location that looks totally different or use other locations that look like it would have looked ?

Sorry to drift OT....

JB
 
Last edited:
puredrifting said:
... What did you think of 1917 and Dunkirk as far as war movies? I guess there are still a lot of stories to be told about the two wars but I am kind of exhausted by them...
Click to expand...

I disliked "Dunkirk" immensely. It wasn't that the story wasn't true - as it was on the grand narrative - but that it seemed fake. "1917", IMO, was overwhelmed by the early trench long take. Yes, it was cool but not needed. I stopped watching when it got better but due to time constraints, not the film's direction.

Here's the best WWII battle scene. Filmed by Josef Vilsmaier for the 50th anniversary of the Stalingrad battle on location in Czechoslovakia.


The full film is now on YouTube with English subtitles (the original is mostly in German).

PS. The "Downfall" (the source of countless Hitler parodies) was filmed in St. Petersburg. The exteriors looked real ... because they were. I didn't like most of the interior scenes, although they were historically correct in terms of the actual bunker.
 
Last edited:
John Brawley said:
That was my point. We don't apply historical accuracy to future forward films with the same degree of rigour because, we are just guessing !

And yeah it's fair enough to be disappointed if the films MARKETING PROMISE is a historical depiction of an event that doesn't deliver.
Click to expand...

Except that people DO mock old future-forward movies for getting things wrong and having crappier technology than we've already developed. But we're harder on period pieces because they can get it right if they want to.

Criticizing the audience for being unfair is a losing proposition. The heart wants what it wants.

For the record, I don't personally care too much about historical accuracy. Certainly not more than I care about drama or theme.

As for Gallipoli - we all remember it from the Mel Gibson movie. It's ironic that they chose to shoot there when it's changed so much. I think it speaks to this idea of sacred ground - like you're communicating something from the souls of the fallen. In a way, war films are almost religious.

(I'm not saying I personally would have chosen to shoot there.)
 
Last edited:
ahalpert said:
But we're harder on period pieces because they can get it right if they want to.
Click to expand...

But only by degrees. Where do you draw a line is what I'm asking....

ahalpert said:
As for Gallipoli - we all remember it from the Mel Gibson movie. It's ironic that they chose to shoot there when it's changed so much.
Click to expand...

That one was shot in South Australia on some sand dunes. The newer version that I worked on looked there but it too had changed a lot since that movie. In the end they opted to find some terrain that roughly matched it in a farmers paddock in outback victoria and then dig a bunch of trenches.

ahalpert said:
I think it speaks to this idea of sacred ground - like you're communicating something from the souls of the fallen. In a way, war films are almost religious.
Click to expand...

We went to shoot VFX plates and reference material of the water and plants and so on so they could use those elements.

BUT

What ended up happening is they cut a montage of about 2 mins of the CONTEMPORARY material I shot there as a kind of coda to the show, to show what it is today. Farmers doing the same thing they and their ancestors have been doing for thousands of years there. And old landscape that carries a lot of history is something that's familiar to Australians. This wasn't in the original script, but it's now the end of the series. So they did use the material and the real location as it is today.

JB
 
This is a bit of cheesy ... clip off a TV screen ... but it shows what a real WWII combat - at least, in terms of the US B-17's vs. the Luftwaffe interceptors - was like.

From the US POV.


And from the German.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top