An emerging technology that i grew very interested in throughout the past year was the use of LED Walls in a Virtual Production Setting and it’s use in the industry as of late. I Originally found out about what these were and how they’re used through watching Star Wars: The Mandalorian, as the director Jean Favreau chose to use this technique after his time and experience filming virtual sets when filming The Lion King: (2019) and The Jungle Book (2016).
LED VP Sets are first and foremost defined by software. 3D Environments are created using Epic Game’s Unreal Engine. 3D Artists can create realistic and easily editable virtual environments that can be changed on the fly with a stage manager who controls the backdrop then projected on to these LED Boards. The boards are set on to a large circular dome like stage in which anything can be placed on the screens.
One might wonder, why not just use a green screen? LED Board virtual sets are very expensive, while a green screen set can be much cheaper. However, the long term gains of an LED Board VP set can outweigh a green screen set in the long run. Greenscreening must be lit properly, chroma keyed in post production, and will often have despilled light on actors that will need to be cleaned in post production, as well as actors having to imagine what is going to be added in post.
The benefits of a virtual set using LED Boards are realistic lighting, as light is being produced from the actual boards and can be tweaked easily from a control panel, scenes can easily be changed instead of building new sets, there are costs saved due to filming all being in one location, and actors don’t have to imagine being in a location. As actress Neshe Demir explains in the RoeVisual article “Successful Virtual Production Showcase uses Roe Visual LED Screens”; “You’re directly in the right environment depicted in the scene, so you don’t have to visualize it. I could feel that my body reflections reacted to the environment shown, making the acting much more natural and easier.”
One of the main benefits of using this technology is that the Boards work in tandem with the camera whenever the camera moves. If the camera rotates side to side, the board will use the Camera’s info to move the image being projected on the board, creating a realistic parallax effect as explained in Vox’s video on the subject.
The question has to be asked as to whether or not this will remove the need for green screens entirely. In a video interview from Insider, Richard Bluff the Visual Effects Supervisor at ILM, one of the leading pioneers in this new form of virtual production, explained that “Eventually of course we hope to never use green screen, But i still see that there will be a future for it in the short-term, because there’s likely always a need to remove people, to add additional action behind them. But we are getting to the point where the amount of green screen that’s being used is massively reduced and the sky is the limit right now.” Green Screen can still be added on these sets, but can be targeted to certain areas, thus keeping the lighting data from the surroundings and keeping the green background. Time will tell whether or not this technique will overtake traditional green screen entirely, or if it will be used in tandem with green screen to create seamless backgrounds and sets.
Sources:
SEYMOUR, M.I.K.E. (2020) Art of (Led Wall) Virtual Production Sets, Part Two: ‘How You Make One’ [online]available from <https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/art-of-led-wall-virtual-production-sets-part-two-how-you-make-one/>
CADE, D.L. (2019) Incredible Real-Time Visual Effects Tech Replaces Green Screens with LED Walls [online]available from <https://petapixel.com/2019/08/22/demo-of-incredible-real-time-visual-effects-using-massive-led-walls/>
Anon. (n.d.) Roe Visual LED Screens for Successful Virtual Production Showcase [online]available from <https://www.roevisual.com/nl-en/news-and-events/news/successful-virtual-production-showcase-uses-roe-visual-led-screens>
Insider. (2020) YouTube. available from <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufp8weYYDE8&ab_channel=Insider>
Vox. (2020) YouTube. available from <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yNkBic7GfI&ab_channel=Vox>