Wearing a VR headset, I鈥檓 immersed in a virtual speakeasy of the 1920s. A strange-looking wooden protagonist, played by a human actor whose footage has just been recorded, chit-chats with computer-generated bar patrons.
The technology I鈥檓 testing was created by Technicolor and allows film directors to instantly see what a scene will look like with computer-generated imagery added in.
With a touch of a joystick I can 鈥渇ly鈥� around the room to get a different point of view for the perfect shot, or shrink myself relative to the room, Alice-in-Wonderland style, for a different perspective.聽 Where the jazz band in the corner seemed quaint when viewed from above, the bass player now fills the entire frame.聽 Viewed from below, he looks huge and intimidating.
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In the past, directors had to send their footage of human actors to collections of powerful computers, known as render farms, that would add in graphical elements, in a process taking hours or days.
Now, running on a stack of high-powered chips originally designed for gaming, directors can immediately see how a scene will look with the computer-generated elements added in. The director can be immersed in the 3-D world of the scene and seek out the most arresting camera angles.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e not making an order from a drive-through window 鈥� they鈥檙e sitting there and serving it up for themselves,鈥� says John Brennan, at the University of Southern California.
The technique is increasingly common in visual effects-heavy films, with Steven Spielberg an early adopter for the film Ready Player One. 鈥淪teven聽was crawling around on the ground to frame shots in VR,鈥� says Joe Henderson at Technicolor.
Virtual production
Similar virtual production tools to Technicolor鈥檚 have been used on the most recent聽Jungle Book聽and the upcoming version of聽The Lion King.
The technology can reduce the cost of visual effects by 15 to 20 per cent, says independent film maker Kevin Margo, by cutting the expenses of lighting and the process of combining the elements into a single picture.
Margo, who cobbled together his own virtual production system with a flat-panel screen in front of his face to shoot a 12-minute film about humanoid robots, says the real appeal is that it can make directors more creative because they can see the visual effects immediately.
High-powered VR headsets are still mostly a niche product as they are so expensive. While the technology is there for virtual production it is quite expensive, says Nancy Richardson at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The cost of a VR system can easily reach $10,000, so is out of reach for low budget films. But this cost would be a minor expense for a Hollywood blockbuster.
In the movies
Yvaine Ye
Volumetric capture is a new fad in filmmaking. It has already had a big effect on how films are recorded, but may eventually affect how they are watched too.
Scenes filmed using the technique are recorded in a studio installed with up to a hundred cameras, shooting from many different angles. The shots are then processed by a computer to generate a 3D hologram of the footage, and the director can choose what angle to use during production (see main story).
The first live-action Star Wars TV show, The Mandalorian, is being filmed this way, according to one of the actors聽. Films such as Ready Player One have also used the technique.
Usually, videos that can be watched with a virtual reality headset are filmed with a 360-degree camera. Viewers can turn their head to see all around them, but they can only do so from a fixed spot.
A VR experience recorded using volumetric capture, could in principle let viewers roam free inside the virtual world. However, VR headsets powerful enough to recreate the world are still very expensive.
