In nearby Hawthorne, camera-tracking company Mo-Sys runs what it calls “The Refinery,” to educate directors, cinematographers and others on the technology’s potential. Sony Electronics’ Bravia line of LED panels are also one of the building blocks for other organizations diving into the sector, including the nearby University of Southern California, which recently announced its School of Cinematic Arts is building an LED wall in its sound stages. The stage was built over the past two years in one part of an even more cavernous sound stage, part of those Amazon rents on a long-term basis at the MBS Group’s Culver Studios in Culver City, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb.ĭown the street, Sony Pictures Entertainment has outfitted its own production facilities with LED walls. Other facilities in Stage 15 will include a smaller second LED stage, a mobile LED wall, camera tracking, an engineering workshop and more.Īttendees at the event ranged from investor Robert Stromberg, who was director of Maleficent and production designer for Avatar, to the film and videogame teachers at Culver City High School among more than 100 attendees.Īmazon is far from the only company trying to integrate virtual production and cloud tools into filmmaking. “A large part of what they do (at the new stage) is provide education, mix the world of AWS and ASVP to really dream big.” “We’re trying to make a safe place for filmmakers to be ambitious,” said del Conte. The Stage 15 facilities also will include a “Sandbox” lab, a two-story building inside the stage that will include a virtual location-scouting space, performance capture area, tech scouting space, and a green screen simulcam stage where closeup shots can be layered into bigger LED walls. The mammoth Amazon stage can be enclosed with two large movable panels, or extended outward in a keyhole shape some 60 feet to allow for extremely long dolly shots, del Conte said.Ĭompany executives also emphasized they want to make the space available for directors, cinematographers and other filmmakers to try out the tools of virtual production to see what might be possible for their own projects. Del Conte said Amazon wanted to build on widely used tools already familiar throughout the industry when putting together its stage. The facility integrates the technologies of several partner vendors, including Unreal, Lux Machina NEP Virtual Studios, Fuse Technical Group, 209 Group, and Grip Nation. And it’s simple to change the light for a different time of day, or weather, or other factors, del Conte said during a demonstration.
of overhead lights in place of the hundreds of ceiling LED panels on the stage.īecause the system creates backdrops using the Unreal game engine from Epic Games, they are interactive, and can be controlled with the same hand-held device even as performers work. Lighting can be further augmented in the space with up to 350,000 lbs. With the Amazon stage, lighting and backdrops can be quickly changed, using a handheld iPad with a special external frame that allows its position to be tracked and matched onto the LED wall. With virtual production tools like LED volumes, “On-set direction, all production creatives, create in the moment.” With green screens, “Actors had to be told what they’re acting in,” Nakada said. Backdrops must then be added digitally after the fact, in a process that can take weeks or months of expensive work. The high-resolution backdrops provide much more realistic lighting than previous-generation green screens, which spill that green light on performers that must be removed in post-production, said Ken Nakada, Amazon’s head of virtual production operations. Evans demonstrate the LED volume's capabilities while actors perform in the background. Amazon's Dan Smiczek ASVP Virtual Productuction Supervisor (center) and ASVP Stage Executive Bobby.
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