VIRTUAL PRODUCTION
photorealistic rendering, and soon we will see those results in realtime. Technology will become less of a limitation, but a vehicle to unleash new ways of creative storytelling. These are truly exciting times, and it is fantastic to see our industry evolving from ‘let’s fix it in post’ to ‘let’s go see the VP team’ to discuss a new creative solution. We are on a great path to becoming even stronger creative partners in the filmmaking industry.”
TOP: Framestore is providing previs, virtual production and visual effects for the Netflix series 1899, which is using a brand-new LED volume at Studio Babelsberg in Germany. (Image courtesy of Netflix) BOTTOM: The Light Box used by Framestore during the making of Gravity. (Image courtesy of Framestore)
Robert Legato, ASC, Visual Effects Supervisor “Right now, they ascribe more magic to virtual production than it is. You still need to know what you’re doing. What it really is... is prep. There is now an expression, ‘Fix it in prep.’ Yeah. That’s homework. That’s write a good script. Vet the locations. Pick the right actors. Pick the right costumes. When you show up on the shoot day it’s execution phase because you have vetted all of these things. Working out an action sequence in previs means that I’m vetting it in prep. I’m seeing it work or not work or stretching something I haven’t seen before. I need to lay down the foundation editorially to see if that elicits a response that I want. George Lucas did it when he got dogfight footage from World War II and said, ‘Make it look like that.’ That was previs. Previs is fast iterative work. “Because I had never shot a plane crash before, I had to practice at it so I didn’t embarrass myself on my first Martin Scorsese movie. So, I used the same pan and tilt wheels, animated in MotionBuilder, shot it live because that’s my way of working, and edited it all together. Before I spent money I shot it 25 times, re-jigged the pieces, found an editorial flow that worked, and that is now the script. I went out and executed that script in seven days. That’s the way to work, because when I’m done and reassemble it, as good as the previs was, it’s going to be 50 times better because the foundation and vocabulary are already there.”
52 • VFXVOICE.COM FALL 2021
PG 48-54 VIRTUAL PRODUCTION.indd 52
8/29/21 2:39 PM
