ROUND TABLE
VFX ARTISTS MAY FIND THAT keying, rotoscoping and tracking AREN’T NEEDED AS THIS DATA IS AVAILABLE” CC: It depends on which tools you’re using. Firstly, you may not need big flights with a whole crew and lots of materials, or trucks going for thousands of miles just to get the equipment where it needs to be – that’s a big plus. Secondly, new technologies can better optimise the amount of power you’re using. You can reduce the amount of materials needed to create a set, and the time it takes, focusing instead on what’s important like the foreground elements, and everything else can be created digitally. JL: VP in ICVFX is hardly the definition of eco-friendly, given the large amount of energy it takes to power thousands MC: It can have a direct impact on sustainability through minimising travel, which has a direct impact on fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Shooting indoors rather than on-site can also reduce the effect on the environment, especially in protected sites or buildings. Plus, using virtual scenes instead of real props means you don’t have to use materials such as wood, metal, plastic or paint. Of course, the downside is that it normally requires more energy for lighting, workstation power requirements and so on, but this can easily be compensated by all the above, not to mention reduction of post-production, which at the same time reduces power consumption.
the filmmaking process. Set designers need to go virtual as, in most cases, they must be involved earlier in the process so they can decide which elements and/ or scenes must be virtual or real, or how they will be combined to create the final result. DOPs now have more room to experiment on-site and have additional possibilities for tweaking looks for scenes. But, on the other side, they need to take the virtual imagery into account prior to post-production. When shooting in chroma sets in real time, both DOPs and lighting specialists must take care of the dynamic illumination the scene requires while ensuring the chroma is perfectly lit to ensure the quality of the real-time keying. Finally, VFX specialists may see that keying, rotoscoping and tracking are often not required as this data is already available from the shooting, allowing them to do the final touch – and therefore improving the quality of the shots with ease. JL: VP allows everyone to see and interact with the virtual environment much earlier in the process. Tools like Vcams can help cinematographers and directors block out their shots, and inform the virtual art department (VAD) and set designers on which areas of the scene to focus on. VAD and set design need to coordinate between them which parts of the set will be physical vs virtual, and agreeing on this earlier will help blend the illusion so there isn’t a
noticeable seam between the two. The production process becomes less linear and more iterative. Prelight becomes an important part of the process, where all the departments light and prepare the set for the shoot and start lining up shots. This is an important opportunity to make any last-minute adjustments, perfect the blending and lighting, and prepare presets that can quickly be restored for shoot day. This is something we heavily emphasise as a necessity for a successful ICVFX shoot. OS: At first, everybody was a bit irritated and afraid – they were just observing. Now people are getting more confident because more people are investing. It’s understood that it’s a real cooperation – between planners, content designers, set designers and so on – but we still need to grow awareness that it’s about cooperation. There aren’t a lot of occasions where those people can all work together. In expensive projects, where budget doesn’t matter, it’s fine – but it’s harder on smaller projects. So it can be a question of money. But I’m confident that we’re now growing into a cooperation phase: we’re getting more non-tech people, people from post, people from live, and everybody is thinking: how can we best work together? Def: How has virtual production contributed to a more sustainable filmmaking process?
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