Weta Digital, Streamliner and Avalon Studios have announced they’re teaming for a new LED-stage virtual production service in Wellington, New Zealand that combines live performance with real-time visual effects.
Essentially this is Weta, the VFX artists behind the “Avatar” and “The Lord of the Rings” franchises and multiple Marvel and DC titles, utilising the ‘StageCraft’ technology as seen in “The Mandalorian”. However, they’re going further by having all the established infrastructure in place, built to scale for anything from large international blockbusters to intimate local dramas.
This makes it much more ‘plug and play’ in style and thus easier (and quicker) to implement across film and TV productions of all sizes. It will offer large easily configurable LED panels able to display imagery far beyond 8K, via the real-time Unreal engine from Epic Games, as a way to augment practical sets and replace green screen shots for backgrounds and exteriors.
This effectively allows filmmakers to shoot final VFX imagery at the same time as principal photography. Also adapted to the COVID-19 world, the technology lends itself to easily combining footage from multiple stages – making it ideal to keep crew sizes smaller. That’s combined with the fact New Zealand has been a world leader in successfully controlling the pandemic.
Source: WETA
