SMPTE is staging what is probably the biggest virtual production showcase ever staged – and streamed – at the Garden Studios in London on Wednesday February 22nd at 6.00pm local time (1.00pm EST and 10.100am PST) until 9.30pm.

Tickets for this ambitious and unique live presentation have sold out but you can still catch all the action with a livestream from the SMPTE social media channels (on SMPTE’s YouTube channel or Facebook page).

Find out more at

https://www.smpte.org/section-events/smpte-uk-showcases-virtual-production?hsLang=en

This is a showcase like no other with a mix of live action within a purpose-built LED volume and presentations from some of the industry’s leading technology and creative professionals

This extraordinary event looks to inform a broad audience about the latest technology, applications and performance in a digestible and relatable way by showing what can be filmed and with an assembled panel of experts explaining the practical considerations behind, and the relevance of, each core process that combined delivers a complete photorealistic virtual production from pre-planning through principal photography and performance to seamless post production and VFX.

The showcase is a further example of SMPTE’s hybrid approach to knowledge sharing and underpins SMPTE’s on-set virtual production agenda within SMPTE’s Rapid Industry Solutions (RIS) programme. Reflecting SMPTE’s core values, this new agile initiative is creating a portfolio of essential educational tools, including the development and curation of knowledge resources, to help the industry tackle the complexities of emerging industry workflows and new processes.

The unique presentation is for everyone involved in film and drama content creation – from producers and directors to the technical and operational production and post teams to on set talent.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Produced by Christina Nowak, Anna Valley’s first ever Director of Virtual Production and SMPTE board member, SMPTE’s ‘showman’ presentation will walk you through a series of virtual environments with live performances by students of the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Arts.

With a panel including many of the UK’s leading practitioners the presentation will explore practical considerations and highlight what creative processes, technology or applications are being applied to deliver a fully immersive experience from the creation and management of detailed photorealistic virtual environments within Unreal Engine 5 to lighting effects, camera tracking, colour calibration and extended bit depth. The panel will also consider how working within the virtual environments impacts the actors’ on-set performance.

GOLD STANDARD PARTNERS

SMPTE has brought together some of the best creative, technical and operational suppliers in the business to stage this extraordinary presentation.

Anna Valley is custom-building a 20x5metres LED volume and motion capture stage within an empty stage at Garden Studios with the latest Black Pearl 2 LED panels as used in The Mandalorian and other HETV and theatrical features.

Brompton Technology is demonstrating their Dynamic Calibration technology. Brompton’s best-in-class LED processing products can deliver crisper, sharper images even in low light while seeing details in the shadows and retaining colour accuracy, especially within skin tones with a diverse cast reflecting multicultural Britain. Brompton Technology helps eliminate banding, unsightly artefacts and colour casts for a more convincing low light photorealistic look. Accurate colour reproduction at every brightness level is essential to a virtual background looking real

Creature Bionics has worked with the team to develop and supervise the creation of fantasy characters including the creation of skeletal rigs to support the actors’ live interpretation and performance while delivering data for VFX referencing and motion capture, supporting the virtual production pipeline in a practical and applicable format.

disguise offers a virtual production workflow that enables production teams to capture the creative magic of working together as they would with physical sets, while transitioning between virtual sets at the touch of a button and making real-time edits to content on-the-fly.

Epic Games is showing the extraordinary power of Unreal Engine version 5 which is the backbone for the virtual production presentation. Their latest flagship release includes Lumen, which offers real time simulation of the way light behaves in the real world with detailed light tracing of how light reflects and bounces off different surfaces and textures based on machine learning. Version 5 also includes Nanite to which enables more highly detailed models and Virtual Textures that offers greater photorealism within VFX environments. All fully controlled on set from an iPad.

ETC is showcasing their new lighting ‘deep red’ colour spectrum which delivers a rich, more lifelike colour palette with the deepest red – a red that is essential to accurately capture the warm glow of firelight, romance at sunset, and the most nuanced skin tones. All ETC fixtures are built with an intuitive UI and are NFC enabled, speeding up your workflow and giving you more options at your fingertips.

Final Pixel specialises in end-to-end virtual production for film, television and advertising from concept to Final Pixel.  Final Pixel develops, produces and co-produces film and television series using LED wall virtual production. pre-viz, tech-viz and 3D content optimised and ready for real-time use on LED volume in-camera VFX.  Final Pixel works from photorealistic environments to 2D plate capture and with international VP studios providing LED volume solutions, with experienced OSVP crews working on complex and cutting-edge projects. The Final Pixel Academy designs and deliver training in virtual production for producers, creatives, artists and more.

Framestore has mapped out, designed and created the LED volume VFX environments for this presentation within Unreal Engine 5, while managing the important links between the LED volume scene design, the on-set props and the performers for a believable live streamed performance on the evening.

Garden Studios has been an early adopter, innovator and pioneer in the virtual production space, housing one of the first virtual production stages in the UK. Garden Studios believes that virtual production offers filmmakers not only faster turnarounds, greater production flexibility and an ability to create unique photorealistic virtual worlds but also offers a greener and more sustainable production process. Garden Studios has three small virtual production stages on site to support training and the next generation of filmmakers.

London Academy of Music & Dramatic Arts is the oldest specialist drama school in the British Isles and a founding member of the Federation of Drama Schools. LAMDA has recently been awarded funding to install a motion capture studio and virtual production volume to enable their acting, directing and technical students the skills and experience they require for future film and drama production employment.

Mo-Sys is world renowned for StarTracker, a real-time optical camera tracking system as well as high-precision, responsive robotic camera heads and motion control systems. Mo-sys offers turnkey LED virtual studio systems within a complete LED virtual studio design and integration package including camera tracking, compositing, LED volumes, lighting rigs, integrated post production and rendering.

Procam Take 2 (PT2) is one of the UK’s leading camera rental companies supporting film, drama and broadcast. PT2 has been closely involved with virtual production for some years and has built an in-depth knowledge across the hire team of what is required from a rental company for a virtual production shoot and has actively promoted the possibilities virtual production offers by staging and supporting multiple education initiatives.

Rigger has supported AnnaValley with the rig for this unique presentation. Rigger is a specialist supplier to the M&E market with almost 30 years of experience working on some of the largest television shows and film productions.

Target 3D is supporting the realisation of Creature Bionics fantasy characters with innovative tracking solutions – the mechanics behind the content – that integrate the performance with Final Pixel’s virtual set supervision.

Televisual is delighted to support this presentation and SMPTE’s ambition to share knowledge and understanding about best practice across the film and television production community.

LIVESTREAM

You don’t want to miss this.

The biggest virtual production showcase ever staged is happening in London this Wednesday February 22nd.

SMPTE is livestreaming all of the action on all of their social channels (Go to SMPTE’s Facebook page or YouTube channel.)

With an exciting and immersive live performance and presentations from leading industry professionals, you can see how this innovative technology is changing the way films are being made now and will be made in the future.

The event and livestream begin at 6.00pm GMT (1pm EST and 10AM PST)

Find out more at

https://www.smpte.org/section-events/smpte-uk-showcases-virtual-production?hsLang=en

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/smpteconnect/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/smpte/

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGWzDvT6KmdSMBRsbcdToSg

Jon Creamer

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