The Reality of Virtual Production

Michael Silbergleid, TVTech - February 03, 2023

Making the unreal look real while delivering cost and time savings.

Virtual production has been around for years: Rear/front projection, matte painting, blue/green screen, chromakey, motion capture. Its latest iteration took “The Mandalorian” to bring it to the forefront. In-camera VFX virtual production (aka “Mando Style”) using LED panels to project a background that not only reflects on actors and foreground scenery, but that actors can see and interact with. It’s a seamless transition between the real and unreal.

Research firm Research and Markets reported the virtual production global marketplace was valued at $2.4 billion in 2021, growing to $3.1 billion by 2026. That’s a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.3%. But that was in February 2021. By December 2021, CAGR was increased to 17.6%. By October 2022, estimating out to 2027, CAGR was 18.7%. 

Non-Virtual Savings
A term to know is “volume,” the space where virtual production happens. Volumes combined with the rest of what virtual production offers is a cost and time savings juggernaut.

According to A.J. Wedding, co-founder & director of virtual production at Orbital Studios, while the big LED wall is what amazes most people, with virtual reality headsets you can bring all department heads together to scout locations all in one place—saving on travel and time.

From a production cost standpoint, examine the FX series Snowfall, where Wedding served as virtual production supervisor for seasons five and six. The series realized a savings of $1 million per season. 

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