The Importance of Virtual Production with David Long

by Cat DeLaus

The film industry is constantly evolving, and the next step in that evolution is the field of virtual production. Since it’s such a new process to the entertainment industry, now is the perfect time to start learning about how virtual production works and how it can be implemented on different sets, especially if you’re early in your production career. RIT Certified is offering a Mastery Certificate in Virtual Production course in partnership with Synapse VP and RIT’s MAGIC Center, and we sat down with David Long, the director of RIT’s MAGIC Center, to discuss the upcoming course.

Why is learning about virtual production important for those starting their careers in production?

Virtual production, as a television and cinema production workflow, is hugely popular right now. It has accelerated as a preferred technique very quickly, inspired somewhat by the pandemic, but also I think because of all the very, very cool things you can do creatively when you adopt these types of workflows for film and television. We will teach this course attracting professionals who are aware that this is the case and are aware that proficiency in virtual production, both from a tech and a creative side, are the future of the industry.

You have to remember that cinema and television are very much freelancer-based industries. Any television production, any film that gets made,  a team is recruited to make that piece of content, and then that team typically disperses and goes off and works with other producers and other studios that are making other creative work. So these practitioners who are going to sign up for this class are free agents – that is the nature of their employment. They don't work permanently for studios necessarily. They don't work at a place that has open access to a virtual production stage where they can learn in off hours. They are trying to build resumés that will earn them a gig with a production where this is the predominant technical and creative workflow, and they need to know what they're doing to get their foot in the door.

There are so many people in the industry who were more classically trained and newer folks in the industry who came from film schools or media schools where they don't have the virtual production curriculum we do. They've only ever read about it or heard about it; they may not necessarily have been able to get the hands-on experience. So with this virtual production immersion, students will get a primer for all of the experiential elements that go into virtual production and that will be important for them to be able to claim on their resumés. They will be better able to earn a spot on a crew contributing in whatever area in virtual production they want to focus their career on. 

What makes this course different from other virtual production courses and programs?

I really think there are three groups or three pathways by which professionals in cinema and television can get education in these topics. Number one, I think you'll find people consuming educational content produced by vendors and manufacturers of the technology that enables virtual production. This is such a new and tech-intensive part of filmmaking that it's really those who are making the technology that are investing in educational outreach because, of course, there's a huge return on investment in gaining practitioners familiar with their gear. There's some good educational material out there, but it's traditionally meant for passive and asynchronous consumption, like YouTube tutorials.

Number two, there are some vendors who are doing a little more with an education mindset. They're standing up training, but some of them are in the form of more exclusive fellowships or bootcamps. There are some invitation-only types of experiences where you have to apply, so they aren’t available to everyone.

The third group is the emerging specialized training centers. There are some smaller companies where industry pros have realized their future is in education, and they've lifted up training businesses of one type or another.

For this program, we’re attempting to combine the best of the other models while putting our unique spin on it.  Number one, we have the savvy of a proper university, and we know how to create a curriculum that meets students where they are. Number two, we have a fabulous partnership with Synapse VP, a commercially capable group that is both creatively and technically astute in this topic. And number three, I think that RIT is inherently more capable in technical research topics, and we have faculty who aren't just teaching how to make great content. We are also actively involved in the research around what makes the technology better, what makes the software better, and what makes the workflows better.

Even if you are a student who's interested in a career related to the creative side of production, being aware of the technical aspects is really important. It’s important to understand the limitations and how things could or would get better.  And so many of the creative roles, such as the virtual art department or the cinematography team, rely on technology for execution.

What is the greatest overall benefit that students will gain from this course?

I think that students are going to benefit the most from the emphasis this course puts on actually doing, making, and understanding virtual production through interactivity. They’re going to be invited to contribute to exercises that are found in virtual production in the real world, doing pre-production and pre-visualization phases, and learning about optimizing the LED volume and the stage upon which the production is being shot. They're going to have to contribute legitimate expertise and they're going to have to showcase all elements from pre-production to physically shooting exemplary scenes on the stage.

What is the most important piece of information or skill that students will walk away with?

This class is meant to be comprehensive. There are three main functional areas whenever you talk about virtual production. There is what we call the virtual art department, or VAD, which are the professionals who deal in CG. These individuals make the environments that are in the video game engine or media server, that are computer generated 3D assets that are meant to go into the LED volume as the backdrop layer, and are meant to be interactive with the camera and foreground actors during the filming.

The second component is what's called volume control. These are all of the people and processes that operate the technology on the day of the shoot. This is not operating technology in the traditional filmmaking sense, such as lighting actors and operating the camera. This is managing choreography between the live actors and the CG elements and rendered content that are on the LED panels. Virtual productions require technically astute engineering-minded operators who are there to make sure all of the hardware, software, and technology works.

The third, of course, is creative. This is your cinematographer, your lighting design, your director. There are considerations in how you compose a shot, where you put the camera, how you light everything, how you establish that sense of immersion with respect to the view of the camera, what it looks like, what your frame looks like, and how your story is being told through the the frame of the camera.

So those three elements are distinct, and I wouldn't want to name one thing that you're going to walk away with because I think it's so important to recognize you're going to get exposure to all three of those components of virtual production. I would probably paraphrase to say that the single best result is that we're putting you on a real stage and we're really going to immerse in the process. Students will be shooting a scene and experiencing what it's like to make frames through a cinema camera in that configuration. It's the hands-on experience that I think is the single biggest takeaway.

Why did you choose to partner with Synapse VP?

Synapse VP is made up of extremely capable professionals who represent virtual production at a world-class level, from creative to engineering. Students are getting a chance to be exposed to people who are doing this for real clients and real productions when they’re not teaching this class. These are professionals who are taking time to help teach this class and then going back to the real, bleeding edge of virtual production.

It's a perfect partner for us to have with all of the academic savvy we have from a university perspective. I think the attendees of this class can feel very, very good that if they learn best by following along with functioning professionals, they're going to get that. Or if they learn best from traditional classroom settings and academic institution savvy, they're going to get that. Having a mixture of both is important, and we have that because of our partnership with Synapse.

In Conclusion

Virtual production is on the rise and learning more about it can help you earn a spot on set as a young production professional, whether you’re in your final year of film school or already have a few years of experience. If you’re interested in learning more about the upcoming runs of the Virtual Production course, you can learn more and enroll here.