How do you explain virtual production to a producer who has never seen it?

You build a scene in front of him, one layer at a time

A film studio in Los Angeles opened a virtual production stage, talent on green, computer generated sets in real time, and needed a film that shows producers exactly what it can do

I produced and directed it, with the host presenting from inside my own VRset virtual environments

The host lives in the set

He walks through a broadcast control room that doesn't exist, a city at night with a giant glass cylinder, a studio with a branded logo wall, all composited live

That's the pitch right there. If the host looks like he's really standing in it, the stage works

Layer by layer

Then the demo. A baseball scene built in front of you. The empty field first, then the catcher added, then the batter, then the final composite, every layer labeled on screen

Here is the deal, producers don't trust magic, they trust process. Show them how the trick is done and they start planning their own shoot in their head

A cyclist on green screen dropped into a moving street, a host standing on a city boulevard that's really a backdrop, same idea, different job

Why a stage like this saves money

Why send a crew, a cast and a truck to a location when the location can come to the stage?

No permits, no weather, no losing the light at four o'clock, no company moves eating half the day

For a lot of shoots that's the difference between a two day schedule and a one day schedule

I've been doing this a long time

Virtual sets were my business long before the word virtual production got popular, network TV segments, product launches, presenters walking through rooms that were never built

Producer behind the lens

When the producer is the one framing, a mismatch between the talent's light and the virtual set's light gets fixed through the viewfinder right then, before it becomes a problem in the composite

More of this work in the Commercial gallery, and my studio fashion work in the Fashion Photographer gallery

Any location, same stage, same day

Length: 7 min 55 s · Producer & director: David Victory, VRSET video production, Los Angeles & Orange County

Key moments

  • 0:00 Virtual set opening
  • 0:59 Host in the control-room set
  • 1:38 Layer by layer: adding the catcher
  • 2:18 Final composite
  • 3:37 Stage introduction
  • 4:17 Branded logo set
  • 4:56 Cyclist on green screen
  • 5:36 City boulevard virtual backdrop
  • 6:55 Host closing on the virtual stage

See the matching photography in the Commercial gallery.

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Planning a video or a fashion shoot? Contact David Victory or call (310) 988-6575 in Los Angeles, (949) 873-4551 in Orange County. Free consultation and quote for first-time clients.