V I RTUAL PRODUCT ION | POST- PRODUCTION
put back on to the performance, with actors able to take their time. But the biggest benefit for Bolter, who’s self-proclaimed to be “anti-green screen”, is the early collaboration with post-production. “When using green screen, we’ll set it up, and light and frame it in a certain way. Then, several months down the line, someone in a VFX studio somewhere is trying to figure out what that green screen should be – and usually, all the initial ideas we had on-set get lost to time and are gradually filtered down,” he says. “The beauty of virtual production is that all decisions, whether it’s the design of a dragon or castle, can be made together in the present.” KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS Nonetheless, virtual production is still very much a bleeding-edge technology and it’s not at the point where you could dump every project in front of it and expect success. Bolter says that when he moved the camera, he noticed a half-second delay before the screen caught up. “It’s only slight, but if you wanted to do a quick pan, it basically wouldn’t work. It also means that if you hold the camera handheld, with all those little micro movements, left, right, left, right, just as you’re naturally breathing, the screen will go out of sync with you.”
BELOW The wiring of an LED screen, as shown from behind, reveals the complexity of this technology
you’re asking the post-production team to adjust or change the colour of the lighting, which I appreciate some people would find quite strange.” MORE CREATIVITY Another drawback with using green screen is that it dramatically reduces the gear options available to filmmakers. Bolter used vintage anamorphic lenses to shoot Perciva l, but he says, “VFX crews notoriously hate these lenses, because they have to artificially emulate all the out-of-focus artefacts that are unique to them.” This makes effects-heavy shots look less real as a consequence, so, “VFX crews tend to want you to shoot clean, using modern lenses,” says Bolter. “Of course, this isn’t an issue when the effects are captured in-camera.” Bolter adds that if he wanted to shoot Percival on location, in a moonlit forest, it would have been a tiresome process. “We’d be restricted to only being there between 9pm and 7am, and if we didn’t get what we wanted in that time frame, we’d have to go there again another night. This is where virtual production comes into its own. Because, when you’re not reliant on time or travel, you’re able to capture scenes more efficiently,” he says. Although Percival is a fantasy production, Bolter believes that this technology is best served to shooting projects that are real. “If I was doing an emotional sunset scene in a desert with five pages of dialogue between two actors, we’d have to fly everyone to the desert, rehearse in the desert and then start shooting just as the sun’s in the right spot. Then, twenty minutes later, the sun would set, and we’d have to go away and shoot the scene another day. Whereas, if I had a good virtual sunset environment, I’d be able to sit down with the actors and shoot for a 12-hour perfect sunset.” In doing so, the emphasis is
LEFT The crew assemble a floor set that will blend seamlessly with the real-time screen visuals
JANUARY 202 1 | DEF I N I T ION 23
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