Virtual Production Growth in Focus at IBC Event

Virtual production seems poised to enter a new point in its tech evolution. While Hollywood is currently experiencing an overall production slowdown, a 360i Research forecast suggests that the virtual production business could top $8 billion by 2030.

The term virtual production broadly refers to a range of techniques used to “virtualize” parts of the production process, including previs, though it’s frequently used to describe stages with LED walls.

Numerous new developments aimed at virtual production, including those incorporating AI, will be exhibited this week when the International Broadcasting Convention opens Friday in Amsterdam.

For instance, Mo-Sys Engineering, a privately held, U.K.-headquartered virtual production tech developer, will use its IBC exhibition to showcase MoViewer, a new Al-assisted tool developed to support multicamera virtual production projects.

More notably, it announced on Monday that LG has acquired a non-controlling minority stake in Mo-Sys, with the investment aimed at supporting research and development in virtual production technology. “We’re excited by this new partnership, and by the unique value we’ll be able to deliver to customers through combining LG’s mastery of display technology with Mo-Sys’ expertise in virtual production,” said LG senior VP Ki-mun Paik in a released statement. (The value of the deal was not disclosed.)

LG isn’t the first consumer tech giant to enter the virtual production arena. Sony is also focused on the space with its own LED tech and will showcase a new version of its virtual production toolset at IBC, including an updated camera and display plugin and color calibrator.

Visual effects Oscar winner Ben Grossmann, whose company Magnopus has helped pioneer virtual production pipelines for Jon Favreau’s “The Jungle Book” and “The Lion King,” as well as the Amazon series “Fallout,” tells VIP+ that creating the content that plays on these displays — particularly when VFX artists are generating a fully CG real-time environment — can be “one of the bigger costs and friction points for virtual production.”

And he believes AI can help. “We’re starting to get to an inflection point where Al can reduce the cost of putting content into that wall; that makes it more economically viable,” Grossmann says. “You try to do something simple, you can run it right now. But if you’re trying to do more complex things, then it’s not quite there yet, but it’s right on the edge. And when that happens, then you can start capturing 3D environments and using Al to optimize them.”

An important piece of tech in virtual production workflows are real-time game engines such as Epic's Unreal Engine, which continue to advance. This space is also evolving with new options, such as German visualization tech firm Chaos Labs’ “Project Arena,” a developing real-time rendering alternative to game engines that uses “ray tracing” — what Chaos’ director of special projects Christopher Nichols believes is a more accurate tool for representing lighting and cameras.

The goal of the new renderer is to help productions more quickly move 3D-created scenes from popular creation tools such as Maya and Houdini onto LED screens.

Expanding use of new tools and workflows (particularly at studios that might be risk averse in the current production climate) also requires education, which has been a goal of stakeholders, both for professionals and students.

For the latter, this semester NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts opens its Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center, made possible through a major donation from the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation by Mellody Hobson, co-CEO of Ariel Investments, and filmmaker George Lucas.