Sound+Image

“With LED walls able to deliver such a live ‘final’ composite and reduce the need for post-production, they could change the ways in which films are made...”

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looking to employ this kind of filmmaking, Mayeda recommends “using extremely high-fidelity digital environmen­t maps like those available from companies like Quixel. Photogramm­etry can also work well for recreating real-world locations.”

That near-perfect seam between set and the CG environmen­t on the LED screen is made possible thanks to colour-correction in Epic’s Unreal Engine technology.

“This is typically done once per environmen­t when a new scene is brought up for the first time,” explains Mayeda. “The Unreal Engine operator can first make a broad colour correction to the overall area where the CG environmen­t meets the set, to get it as close as possible. Then more localised changes with colour correction volumes can be made that apply further tweaks within a simple piece of geometry which can be positioned to affect specific areas and ensure a perfect blend.”

While the resulting in-camera VFX shot has the advantage that it’s ‘in the can’ with no post-production work required, work will, of course, have to be done up front for the imagery on the screen.

Neverendin­g magic hour

With LED walls able to deliver such a live ‘final’ composite and reduce the need for post-production, they could change the ways in which films are made, by doing more of the heavy lifting upfront in pre-production — something visual effects teams don’t often get to do — and also freeing up time in post.

“The goal of virtual production in its many forms is to restore more creative control to the director of photograph­y [DP] and director, and increase collaborat­ion on set,” says Mayeda. “DPs and crews have access to much more flexible and realistic lighting for VFX, and are no longer beholden to what time ‘magic hour’ is or how long it lasts.

“With the initial introducti­on of digital filmmaking and visual effects, technology moved many creative processes off of the set into the post-production silo. This new real-time approach helps restore that responsibi­lity to the filmmakers and opens the door for creative discovery and happy accidents when the DP and director can collaborat­e on new looks in real time.”

 ??  ?? Roger Dean at his art showroom at Trading Boundaries in Fletching, East Sussex,
Roger Dean at his art showroom at Trading Boundaries in Fletching, East Sussex,

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