Virtual production, when wielded with the right intention and proper understanding of its true might, is an unprecedented advancement in the content creator’s arsenal, says Matthew Collu in part seven of this series.
Filmmaking, over the course of its hundred-year history, has evolved exponentially with each passing decade, from different hardware techniques that changed how we captured the story to directorial and visual literacy that evolved our perception of the story, and more recently, software that has rearranged the very DNA of bringing effects to life during the story. The art form has seen more than its fair share of revolutionary and innovative storytelling solutions.
And furthermore, it has seen misconceptions on how those solutions can be applied effectively. Naturally, until a workflow is fully adopted and accessible to most of the industry, access to that information can be a little tricky.
No workflow innovation better represents this than the whirlwind that is virtual production. Given how pertinent it was during the pandemic, it’s understandable that its true application and power slipped through the cracks as wonderment and excitement shone through. So this time around, the aim is to not only further demystify this big, wide virtual production world but also perform some much-needed myth-busting to improve your understanding ten-fold. I’ll do my best to break it down within a digestible word count.
When a new solution arrives on the scene, the unfortunate reality is that the excitement of its arrival usually clouds the truth of its use case. Some even confuse what it can do with what they wish it could do. Virtual production is no exception. Before we move headlong into debunking, we need to first establish that virtual production is a tool. Much like any workflow adopted to effectively tell a story, and much how you wouldn’t use a hammer to screw in a lightbulb, everything has its place and its effective environment.
That established, we come to our first common misconception: Replacement. Just as CGI doesn’t outright replace practical visual effects and green/blue screen doesn’t outright replace physical sets, virtual production doesn’t outright replace any established tool in the filmmaker’s tool belt. Its many incredible efficiencies appear when it’s the right tool for the job.
A great example is car commercials. Having control over the entire environment in the comfort of a studio makes shooting close-ups, turntables and interiors a dream. Having the capacity for a multitude of set-ups, with the final image merely being what comes through the camera on shoot day, is certainly one heck of a triumph.
But what about movement? Everyone loves to see how the car looks ripping down an empty road at high speeds, and that isn’t something a few hundred LED panels can facilitate, despite their incredible capabilities. Despite what virtual production has allowed through its adoption in this case, it’s not a cure-all. The dialogue gets muddy when discussing its application.
Streamline elements of production: it certainly does this, but it does not replace all else. Thinking of virtual production as a one-stop shop is one of the largest myths I’ve encountered; it causes a lot of production confusion if not addressed or debunked before principal photography.
This mindset brings us to our second myth, the one most synonymous with a creative’s overflowing excitement about its potential capabilities, woven together with lack of access to the proper education on its practical capabilities. The myth that virtual production can do everything. Or rather, be applied to everything.
Remember the hammer analogy I used earlier? How many problems are solved if they are attempted with only a hammer, rather than the tool intended, or even a combination of tools? That’s this myth in a nutshell. Think of a production as a blueprint to a solid finished product. Each element of that blueprint requires tailor-made, established solutions to bring the entirety to actuality – plumbing, electrical, etc. All this serves the overarching goal of completing the entirety of the project. This can be applied to the workflows that come together to finalise a production – different solutions coming together in service of a final task.
Our hypothetical car commercial still needs a practical shoot day with the car on the road, so doing the entire wiring of a building with nothing but a hammer is not advisable. Virtual production is a workflow solution that shines when used in its designed context, even more when the intended content leverages its strengths and fully understands what it does best, rather than trying to retrofit things.
Virtual production can do a lot of incredible things and solve a multitude of production problems, but it still may not solve them all. Assuming that it can, however, can seriously hurt your introduction and execution, which is ultimately the opposite of what creatives should feel when faced with its amazing efficiencies.
This third and final myth on the chopping block has been floating around since the very first showcase hit the masses, and everyone could watch the YouTube video on repeat until their browser crashed: This is the unfortunate idea that virtual production removes all the cost of post-production. As touched on earlier, it doesn’t replace any facet of production, including post-production. Instead, it’s a shift in where and when that cost is allocated.
If a team of artists and creatives aren’t adding in that environment after principal photography, then it has to come from somewhere to be used during principal photography, right? Asset generation in this workflow is still extremely important, but moved further up the pipeline. This isn’t to say that the workflow can’t mitigate costs – it totally does, and it’s awesome. However, the idea that it removes the cost of having incredibly talented artists do what they do best isn’t accurate in the slightest.
The understanding that it’s more cost-efficient is correct, though the reasoning as to why is slightly off-base. We’ve touched on how virtual production saves money in earlier parts of this series, so I encourage you to see for yourself where the true cost efficiencies are.
Virtual production, used in its designed context to carry out its designated task and solve the problems it was created to solve, produces great results. This workflow truly shifts the tectonic plates of filmmaking. But sift carefully through the dust cloud of myths and mysteries before taking the leap.
