American Cinematographer - March 2021 - 42

ACCELERATED EVOLUTION

" We're always tracking early adopters. "

will diminish once the pandemic finally ends, Carrier suggests Mels is all
in for good. " A DP we recently worked with in the [virtual-production]
volume said, 'At the end of the day, I can see exactly how each shot is
going to look, which I would never get on a greenscreen.' It's tough to
go back to the past because artists put their signature on their work and
they want to have confidence in the image. "

screens are increasingly chosen for this application, but we also hope to
see our other business areas return. "

Brompton Technology: Remote But Controlled

DNEG and Dimension Studio Extend Reality

By Iain Marcks
In early 2020, visual-effects supervisor Paul Franklin (Interstellar, Inception, The Dark Knight), co-founder and creative director of DNEG, began
work on a short feature that he intended to direct as an immersive, extended-reality experience. Through the U.K. nonprofit Digital Catapult
- a government agency for the early adoption of advanced digital technologies - he connected with Dimension Studio's joint managing director Steve Jelley, who helped Franklin develop the project as a virtual
production using Epic Games' Unreal Engine and LED-volume technology, with Dimension Studio acting as a virtual art department and managing the real-time on-set workflows in collaboration with DNEG's own
virtual-production team.
To Franklin, the partnership seemed like a natural fit. " Dimension
has masses of practical, hands-on experience in putting things together
for live performance and virtual reality, " he says. " DNEG has experience
in making sure the digital content is fit for production, and that the color
science, the cameras and the lenses are all working in concert. "
At the heart of Franklin's production is the idea of blending two different locations: an interior physical set and a wide-open landscape.
" Virtual production allows me to do this on set with LED-volume technology, and the benefit of doing it that way is that the cast gets to see
the visual effects with their own eyes, " he says. " It impacts the way you

PHOTOS BY JACKIE ROMAN, COURTESY OF GUM STUDIOS.

By Noah Kadner
Brompton Technology develops and manufactures video-processing
products for live events, broadcast and film. Video processing plays a
critical role in LED-wall virtual production by providing the bridge between the engine rendering game-engine footage in real-time and the
LED wall, which displays the footage to then be captured in-camera.
Brompton's global team includes Los Angeles-based regional technical manager Sean Sheridan and U.K.-based technical solutions manager
Adam Callaway, who are integral to the company's VP efforts and have
worked steadily with customers during the pandemic. " Covid has had
a massive effect on the positive trajectory of virtual production, " says
Callaway.
" As we're a tech company, we quickly found solutions to continue
supporting our customers in the pandemic, " Calloway continues. " A
prime example is that we now run training sessions on our processor
features completely virtually. We have a remote studio station setup in
London that our technical team can access from anywhere in the world.
For example, Sean can control it from L.A. and give a demo to someone
in Australia. [The pandemic] has changed the way we operate and created new challenges, but we've risen to the occasion. "
Adds Sheridan, " It's been more of a shift in mindset to support the
new VP and film markets. We expect that work to continue as LED

Left and right: 4Wall Entertainment deploys Brompton Technology
processing at Gum Studios. In addition to the vertical wall, an array
of LED panels on the ceiling provides toplight and reflections.

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American Cinematographer - March 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - March 2021