​If you build it, they will come: why VP stages are all the rage

The age of the virtual production (VP) stage has dawned – an historical moment now easily capturable on a curved wall of LED panels – with the ARRI Stage London and Garden Studios two VP stages touching down in the UK capital. 

In downtown LA, Synapse operates virtual productions from its stages at Center Studios, while Fold7’s latest campaign for Carlsberg's 1664, decamped to Denmark to recreate Haussmann’s Paris in full VP, complete with physically impossible angles, a balcony scene that sweeps back 30 metres to accommodate camera angles, and everything you see in front of you caught in camera, rather than layered up in post. 

VP feels like having a live set around you, with a certain freedom in finding shots, the way you do on location. 

For Fold 7 creative director John Yorke, VP liberates filmmakers from green-screen dictatorship. “Green screen has lots of production complications, and creative complications for performance and imagining the world,” he says, “but VP feels like having a live set around you, with a certain freedom in finding shots, the way you do on location. It opens up more of that exploration, which I love about location work. Green screen shooting makes it very difficult to do that.” 

For a balcony shot, we were able to move an entire block of building 30 metres to make the perspective correct.

Yorke can be seen in a behind-the-scenes short on the VP set, Paris stretching away from him, talking about VP’s malleability and immersive potential. “A piece of green material is definitely going to be less used,” he says, “If you have an LED with the virtual environment, why would you use anything else? We built this big Paris street, with streets off the main street we shot in. It’s much more fluid than green screen. You can get to impossible places – it makes the impossible possible. 

"For a balcony shot, we were able to move an entire block of building 30 metres to make the perspective correct. We created a world upfront, with a brand palette in the real Paris – a blue cafe, a blue bike. On a VP set with a client, they can be reassured in the moment.” 

Fold7 and Kind created an immersive Parisian experience with impossible buildings for a Carlsberg spot. 

Which is all well and good, but VP doesn’t come cheap, and depending on the worlds you’re building, may still need lengthy work in post. “It is luxury to use it on a lot of things at the moment,”agrees Yorke. 

One thing that’s exciting is its environmental impact.

Adrienn Major, Founder of post house POD LDN, has dipped her toe into VP but not yet dived in. “We’ve scoped VP projects, but the client didn’t realise how expensive it was going to be. Costs will come down, the more studios there are, but there aren’t that many worldwide at present.” And while she confirms it will see the end of green screen, for her virtual production’s major benefits are in the real world “One thing that’s exciting is its environmental impact.” 

Flo Clive, head of production at Prose on Pixels, agrees: “the key takeaways of VP are its sustainability and volume aspects. We want to make sure that we, as an industry, are working toward Ad Net Zero.” It’s a streamliner on which big ambitious productions can flourish. She points to the Uber One spot featuring Robert De Niro and Asa Butterfeild. “By using VP they can be in a pool bar, the back of cab, on set, looking at a view, all of which would have worked out to multiple locations shoots with limited time with artist. So it’s a perfect problem-solve.” 

Using VP on this Uber One ad meant a major celeb with limited time could appear in a variety of 'locations' on one shoot. 

Over at Imagination’s offices in Bloomsbury, Anton Christodoulou traces a line from VP’s call to duty during lockdown and remote working, although he names the fabled Mandalorian series as the true harbinger of VP, albeit overlaid with a tonne of post. “But it was still incredible, because for the actors, it enabled them to feel like they really were on Tatuin.” 

And while Adrienn Major sees the costs of VP excluding 30-second spots on budget grounds, Christodoulou predicts the opposite. “Once you’ve built the assets, you can reshoot, recreate multiple stories, create adverts for multiple audiences, or a series of ads, or across a number of locations. And at a much lower cost than before.” 

By the 2000s a lot of filming moved further and further away from what was in camera. VP is bringing a lot of creativity back in to the camera. 

He points to a recent McDonalds’s spot featuring two people heading through the golden arches for a Big Mac over the decades from the 60s on. “That was such an effective use of VP – it looks like a real McDonald’s in the 1960s and 1970s, and you can do all that filming in a shorter time at a much lower cost. Ethically, sustainability, it’s a better way to do it. 

“It feels so super futuristic,” he adds, “but actually so much of it is going full circle. When film first started, everything you saw was what they could achieve in front of camera. Like the train coming towards you in early cinema. By the 2000s a lot of filming moved further and further away from what was in camera. VP is bringing a lot of creativity back in to the camera.” 

Over at AMV BBDO’s in-house content division Red Studios, MD Mark Graeme sees VP as the pill to dissolve a whole host of production headaches. “For some scripts and shots, it’s enabling the flexibility to create photorealistic settings or wild and wonderful imaginations,” he says, “all in- camera and from the comfort, control, and carbon-friendliness of a local studio. And it’s not, he emphasises, just about mimicking the real-world in a photo-realistic fashion. “VP can open a Pandora’s box of creative opportunities once creatives team up with talented Unreal artists and the right production teams to collaborate,” he says. 

Red Studios’ own Healthy Planet, Healthy People for BUPA is a dazzling case in point – and won the Best Use of Virtual Production at the APA’s Future of Advertising awards last year. “It gives you flexibility, control, increased sustainability, and while it’s not right for everything but as the tech, the familiarity, and the industry experience grows, it’ll continue to grow in usage.”