The Netflix series 1899 made full use of Dark Bay’s virtual production facilities to create a uniquely immersive series
designer, with virtual scouting. This meant collaboratively moving around a virtual set in VR and using this to plan the shoot on the big LED wall. During production, I took an on-set role, where I and the team at the ‘brain bar’ were running the LED wall – this massive, 52m-long, 7m-high curved display. After I finished that, I joined the studio Dark Bay, where we shot 1899 , as creative tech lead to work on one of the biggest LED stages in the world. Having the keys to a state-of-the-art studio was amazing, learning everything from the ground up about how to make Unreal work as a real-time engine for ICVFX.
you could use it for various projects with a fraction of the render cost and time it took traditional offline renders. I’ve always loved the fact that an engine designed for making games could be used to create linear content, too. I was later hired by Framestore to work on the Netflix series 1899 , which was shot on a big LED screen with in-camera VFX. They asked me if I wanted to be part of a small ninja team and essentially be boots on the ground in Berlin with the rest of the team based in London. Of course, I immediately said yes. My main role was to assist the director and main creatives, such as the DOP and production
included adding dials and controls, not having a teleportation function to force you to physically move around the room and no shortcuts like faster chemical processes. I also included real-life consequences: switching on the lights will ruin your undeveloped photos, for example. There’s lots more I want to do with it, and I hope I can dedicate more time to it. This was a fantastic use case for VR – I showed it at two exhibitions and it was well received, with people from far away travelling and queuing. In the VFX industry, real-time engines such as Unreal became relevant when render quality was good enough that
Having the keys to a state-of-the-art studio was amazing, learning everything from the ground up”
Dark Bay’s LED volume in Berlin is a hub for ICVFX work in feature films and high-end television
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