Tapping NantStudio’s advanced LED stage powered by Unreal Engine for its ‘auto demo’ project, the studio demonstrates the sustainability impact of harnessing the cutting-edge technology, both in financial and environmental costs.
Los Angeles-based creative studio, Impossible Objects recently filmed several projects at the facility of its LED stage partner, NantStudios, a virtual production and visual effects stage provider that boasts a 24,000 square-foot LED stage powered by Unreal Engine. The facility houses some of the industry's most advanced and established technology, including Brompton’s Tessera SX40 LED processors, ROE Visual’s Black Pearl BP2 LED panels, and Carbon CB3 LED panels.
Founded by Joe Sill and Jerad Anderson, Impossible Objects specializes in virtual production for commercial projects and original IP while seeking to define the future of film and entertainment by embracing real-time technology to blend the physical and digital worlds. The company has established key relationships and partnerships across film, games, and technology and built projects and workflows for clients, including Blizzard, Google Play, Western Digital, Honda, and Toyota.
One of Impossible Studios’ projects recently filmed at NantStudios is an automotive demo for the Polestar 2 electric vehicle, created to convey the potential of virtual production to automotive marketers. In the demo, a driver heads out of town, taking her Polestar 2 through the city and into the distant mountains - the light and reflections change throughout the film matching the surrounding environment and time of day. All environments were created ahead of time in Unreal Engine and shot on the NantStudios volume.
“With each production at NantStudios, we can rely on their experienced team and the outstanding visual performance enabled by Brompton processing to deliver exemplary results,” shared Sill. “Especially for automotive projects, we’re aiming to achieve a very seamless photoreal look, and Brompton helps us deliver that. With the Polestar shoot, we came in with our environments, and with Brompton’s Dynamic Calibration technology and the 3D LUT feature, we were able to see our footage in the camera exactly as we had built it in Unreal Engine. We were very happy with those results.”
Impossible Objects’ head of technology and virtual production supervisor, Luc Delamare, added, “Brompton’s Extended Bit Depth capabilities were also a huge benefit on the Polestar project, as we had a lot of ambient light and reflections that all needed to be accurate. The added precision you get with Extended Bit Depth, especially on the low-end brightness levels, makes a significant difference compared to what we’ve seen previously.”
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The Polestar project helped provide those involved with a better understanding of virtual production's possible creative and sustainability impact. For example, being able to film multiple environments from the same set can be more efficient and streamlined, potentially reducing travel's financial and environmental costs.
“What we were able to achieve on this project, thanks to virtual production innovations, has really energized the automotive advertisers,” added Sill. “It has opened up a whole new world of creative possibilities while also achieving greater sustainability in the production process – something that’s particularly important to electric vehicle makers like Polestar.”
Source: Impossible Objects
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
