Beginner's Guide to Virtual Production | Things You Need to Know

How do you even begin to conceive the benefits of virtual production? For a lot of filmmakers right now, it's hard to step onto an XR stage due to the costs and limited access to the technology. It doesn't mean that filmmakers shouldn't pay attention to this emerging tool in cinema, however, as it unlocks a level of immersion that performers and directors could implement into their work, on set in real-time.

We're here to show you how it starts, from the LED wall to the lighting. In this video, we'll go over the gear being used to topics like image-based lighting and parallax camera movement.

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Summary:
Aputure's YouTube channel provides free high quality cinematography, lighting, and filmmaking educational content to help you take your film projects to the next level.

[clearlyed]

It really a guide. No actual guidance as to how to do it apart from some top level products. But not even an outline of the entire pipeline. It’s like saying a guide to baking a chocolate cake. We used an oven and there was flour involved.

[demonhogo]

i can't imagine a less helpful beginners guide. Let's start with a million dollar led volume!

[CohenBrian]

Very interesting overview. If anything, it shows how far virtual productions still are for professional use outside of the high-end of the industry.
Having a believable background is really hard work, and if a brand like Aputure could only put together something like a town from a low poly game - glitching like the car at 2:35 - imagine what a small or mid production can achieve.
I know this is a bit subjective, but the lighting at 3:02 doesn't seem to match the scene for me at all - and again, this is Aputure doing it.
I do think this will eventually improve enough and become way more accessible, but for now it seems like, unless you have a big budget to do it right, this is just out of reach for most productions.

[anthonyburnett]

Wow this was a great breakdown. Awesome

[broadcastdoug]

Thanks for this guide. Really fascinating!

[raredreamfootage]

What's the camera tracking tool called?

[PALALALALALALA]

Cool project, and initative. But the exemple shown here, looks so fake....
But honnestly I don't know if anyone but Greg Fraiser managed to have a believible image. Even disney's Obi Wan feels plastic / fake / studio...

[TeddyLeppard]

Location shooting fast becoming a logistical nightmare of the past. And it won't be much longer until convincing virtual actors are able to replace lead characters also. Probably no more than 8-10 years from now.

[AnandaGarden]

Fascinating, but "Beginner's Guide" seems inaccurate. If it were truly a beginner's guide It would briefly show what's possible on a big-budget set such as you're showing here, and then it would tell beginners what they can do at their level, in language that they can understand. Otherwise it just comes off as Aputure flexing a lot fancy tech and gear. I assume it takes months or years to get to a point where we can become familiar enough with the VR tools to be able to manifest our ideas flexibly and without stumbling. IOW, don't talk down to your potential future clients.

[Vincornelis]

Honestly I've grown to hate virtual production very quickly. It is extremely easy and obvious to spot since the entire background is always super blurry and out of focus by necesity. Virtual production is in fact nothing new it's just a more high tech incarnation of rear screen projection and has the same obvious flaws. If what you're capturing on camera is a 2 dimensional screen that has no inherent depth then that's exactly what you are going to see. Green screen is fastly superior since you are directly editing your cgi render into the captured image rather putting your cgi render on a screen and filming the screen. It may be easier to get more accurately colored lighting in virtual production but it's just never going to look as good.

[PoxyBear]

Where is the acknowledgement to the Unreal Engine? Without it, this level of virtual production would not be possible.

[colourwavestudios]

I’m pretty sure this entire video was AI generated.