Virtual Production Behind-The-Scenes | Robots, Unreal Engine & Crashing Cars

A note from our producer, Lei David Chen, with the real behind-the-scenes for what went into the virtual production shoot we're showing here:

This video holds a special place for me, because it was a year-long labor of love (and pain, they tend to go together) to complete. This didn't take nearly that long to shoot. No, we finished the first shoot in a matter of days, and if you looked at that version versus the one you see now, you wouldn't notice too many technical differences. Yet our CEO took one look at it and told us to do it all over again.

Why? Because we cheated.

- We keyed the animation data for our Quad gimbal system to simulate the car driving on a dirt road. That's cheating. So we redid the entire car rig, made the road structure more realistic and pulled the actual wheel data from #UnrealEngine to send to Quad.

- We were estimating where our Hilo robot arm would enter the car door and adjusted it to the right position on set. That's cheating. So we scanned the car, the arm and all the motion robots to have the exact dimensions for #techviz.

- In fact, we were wasting a lot of time on set positioning and adjusting all the equipment. That might not be cheating, but it's definitely expensive. So we reinvented our techviz methodology to finish all the testing and modifications in one environment and then only gave our production and robotics teams 24 hours to recreate that environment perfectly on set before shoot (not a lot of sleep happened that night).

We didn't spend a year chasing better results; we spent a year chasing a better process. We rebuilt our Turret turntable from using an external to an internal motor. We rebuilt our Gyro camera gimbal to be both lighter and faster. Our actress complained that she went through three husbands in one year as we kept switching the actor every shoot.

After a year chasing perfection, did we achieve it? Hell no, we didn't! There are definitely still some cheats in this video, and every post-production fix is a small sting to our pride. We conducted two post-mortem meetings after this project and recorded 12 pages of still-needed improvements. I'd never felt the need to put a table of contents on meeting minutes before, but this one called for it.

Nonetheless, I am still proud to share the final product with all of you, though I use both the words "final" and "product" with caveats here. The product I'm sharing is not just a short clip about how a dishwasher could've saved two people from a grisly death, but a better #virtualproduction workflow for shooting complex stunt and action scenes. As for final, it's only ever final for now, but we always continue chasing better.

#trusttheprocess

[anniedejavu]

Believe it or not, it’s even more fun watching this behind the scenes

[kathyllread]

Can't imagine how much development went into all the tools and processes on set. That’s amazing.

[lullyloogamers]

The amount of effort saved by this type of filmmaking… it’s incredible to contemplate. Congrats!

[puncture]

I really love the wide shot at the end. It sent chills down my spine.

[copilotco]

Wow! The Side-by-side makes this EVEN more epic than it already is! Well done.

[tillyjones]

I watched the original Car Crash video 4 times. Kudos on your achievements

[abhijeetjsawant]

Glad to see the level of what you're trying to achieve. The simulator that moves the car is what is giving away the magic, since it moves too much and unrealistically, giving you a feeling that the car is infact floating and not driving. But yeah kudos to the efforts.

[weizhenren]

Wow...I wasn’t expecting this to be so revolutionary

[dilithium]

Lovely. I like how it looks like one, continuous shot, but there must be cuts because the rear passenger door vanishes and then the bonnet/hood becomes crumpled. Well done.

[jessicazweig]

Thank you for sharing more of the process, including the creation of the process in your description. Very inspiring to see this dedication to exploring virtual production

[LeiDavidChen]

That's more like an essay than a note. I'm normally only that long-winded on LinkedIn. 😂

[maschinenfilm]

Amazing job! Thank you for sharing the vids as well as the notes about your process!

[chenyuwang]

You guys always surprise me with new things!!! Great job😍😍😍

[Lee-vgyk]

Cool love it keep it coming love to see more love what your doing

[Narsil]

The first half looks terrible when the car is driving, BUT the car crash moment is f'ing gold.

[letterl]

Without the side by side, I wouldnt have been able to tell lol

[cats]

Does anyone know where I can find the costs for this ?

[CaptainSnackbar]

the shot was done really nice, just one minor tinny mistake, when the car is flipped upside down in the final shot i've noitced the actors arms rested against the laws of gravity if that shot needed to be accurate :D

[fulanxi]

the concept is good. But the car is bounce a way too much on the road....

[SnoopyDoofie]

So in the end you still had to bash up a good car for real?