Why is Active, Virtual-First Production Education Important?
ECA chooses to focus on the future technologies and techniques of virtual production because traditional production modus operandi that have been the norm, not just in Hollywood but in media industries across the globe is, in many senses, dead. Technology in filming, ranging from previsualization world generation to filming against LED walls, to cloud rendering and advances in collaborative tools such as Slack and Zoom are already making it possible for thousands of virtual productions to employ tens of thousands of people all over the world in the middle of a global pandemic. Virtual production methods, tools, and workflows now span across countries, time zones, creative departments, or even industries. Virtual production places heavy emphasis on pre-production and pre-visualization through new technological tools, often based on virtual world engines like Unreal Engine, for creatives to artistically collaborate across specialties.
Why is Virtual Production Already THE Standard in the Entertainment Industry?
Simply put, there is no production today that would make it out of the initial planning stages without discussing how much virtual production methodologies could be integrated. The problem, however, is not whether there are enough technological tools but rather, whether there are enough people who know this latest and greatest workflow? Do they have the experience and skills to basically create a movie or media before the traditional elements of money, space, and people enter the picture?
Right now, the best and brightest work and innovation is happening in Hollywood, and it can be seen with the globally streamed and consumed content at the highest production levels like Game of Thrones or The Mandalorian. Surely, there are elements to making that media that incur insane costs. It is said that each episode of The Mandalorian costs 15 million US dollars from start to finish, and there have been 16 of them. But what most forget is that the studio would never have begun work on such a project without first doing the most important parts of the creative process virtually, so that they would know that the end product would indeed be amazing. Only then could they spend even more money on the live action, traditional elements of creative creation such as on-set filming, etc. Even some of the most expensive equipment such as the infinity wall or LED set wall, are in fact, new elements of virtual production.
