Diana Garle and William Forsythe’s characters were arguing about the seriousness of an onscreen crime when director Lou Simón yelled, “Cut!“这个场景的比例不对:演员们需要更靠近房间的后面. Instead of shifting the actors, crew, props, cameras, and lights, Full Sail游戏美术总监查德·肯德尔(Chad Kendall)和一名学生在附近的一台电脑上工作. With a few keystrokes, the living room set for 9 Windows 镜头拉近，演员们无缝切换到下一个镜头.

演员Diana Garle和William Forsythe在片场 9 Windows.

片场的调整曾经消耗了宝贵的时间, money, 在一个虚拟的制作工作室里，能量只需要几秒钟. Major players like HBO and Netflix have already built large studios and released virtually produced series like The Mandalorian与此同时，小型商业工作室也在全国各地涌现. Industry pros are saying that these studios are the future of filmmaking — and Full Sail University’s recently opened Studio V1: Virtual Production is bringing that future to students.

9 Windows, a modernization of the Hitchcock classic Rear Window, was the studio’s first production. 该项目是专业级虚拟生产的案例研究, and it’s the first of many films that students will work on to prepare for the next generation of on-set tech.

用虚拟制作技术增强真实感

虚拟制作将之前的特效技术打得落花流水. Instead of placing actors in front of a green screen and filling in the world behind them in post-production, 电影制作人在前期制作中与游戏美工一起在视频游戏引擎中构建一个场景. Any environment imaginable, from an office to a post-apocalyptic city on Mars, 会在演员身后的LED大屏幕上显示吗, putting them “on location” from a sound stage. 电影制作人为前景带来了道具和家具, but all of the background elements are digital, three dimensional, and so realistic that it’s impossible for audiences to discern a film’s physical elements from the LED backdrop.

Two of the virtual production components that create this striking realism are the parallax effect and built-in LED lighting. You’ve probably noticed the parallax effect when you’ve been a passenger in a car: As you’re driving, 窗外的物体比远处的风景移动得快. Filmmakers used to struggle to recreate parallax — running a camera across a two-dimensional digital background forces both near and far objects to move at the same rate, creating a flat effect. With virtual production, 游戏引擎中的摄像机与现场摄像机同步, 创造出你在三维世界中会注意到的同样的视角变化. 结果是一个真实的现场场景，被捕获在一个单一的镜头, giving everyone on set a real-time look at the film’s final appearance and saving time and money in post-production.

工作人员得到一个现实的平移镜头与视差效果在工作室V1.

虚拟制作也在改变电影场景的灯光游戏. The panels on the LED screen have built-in lighting that emits a more realistic glow than lighting that is added or changed in post-production. The panels also prevent color spill, which occurs when on-set lights bounce off green or blue screen backdrops and create tinted glares that have to be removed later. In addition, 导演可以使用游戏引擎通过增加或减少温暖来改变场景的情绪, shifting a light’s focus, 或者在几秒钟内拍摄从中午到黄昏的户外场景.

Green and blue screens and post-production effects will have a place in movies for a long time to come, but the industry is headed towards the next generation of special effects — and Full Sail is meeting those demands with a $3-million investment in its students’ futures.

Upgrading Film Education with Studio V1

Building an on-campus virtual production studio was the logical next step for a university that prides itself on prepping students to work on the post-graduation projects of their dreams. In this case, Full Sail is giving students real-world experience in creating imaginary worlds for their student films as well as any commercial and creative projects that come Full Sail’s way.

The studio’s specs are impressive: Top-of-the-line Brompton LED processors convey images from Unreal Engine onto the studio’s 40-foot wide and 16-foot high LED wall. Five hundred hyper-pixel LED tiles (with 410 tiles on the ground and 90 tiles across the ceiling) create crisp imagery for sets. All of this combines to make Studio V1 among the most technologically advanced on-campus studios in the country.

Students in film and television-focused degrees 会有机会在工作室工作吗, 但其他项目的同行也将从V1工作室获得经验. Game Art 学生将帮助在虚幻引擎中构建虚拟场景， Art & Design 学生可以对3D环境的外观和感觉进行输入 Full Sail’s Technology 节目将与最新的娱乐技术互动. The result is an interdisciplinary, hands-on training experience that prepares students from a variety of backgrounds to work in movies, television, commercials, and more.

Studio V1 has gotten plenty of use since its ribbon-cutting ceremony in early March: Students already put their skills to work on the studio’s first feature film, the 98% virtual 9 Windows.

9 Windows

9 Windows is an homage to Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Liza (played by Diana Garle) is a car crash survivor who watches nine continuously livestreaming videos as she learns how to walk again. 在她和杰夫(克里斯托弗·米兰饰)的家庭约会中，火花四溅。, her physical therapist, while Stella, an Alexa-inspired smart home device, acts as a digital nurse. Detective Boyle (William Forsythe of Raising Arizona and Dick Tracy) and FBI agent Larry Thurgood (Michael Paré of Streets of Fire and The Philadelphia Experiment) work with Liza to find a masked killer (Jason Hignite) who uses serial killer-inspired pseudonyms as he livestreams his murders.

Members of the 9 Windows cast and crew reset a shot in Studio V1.

9 Windows 触及虚拟生产的所有元素, 这使它成为该工作室第一部电影的最佳选择. The opening driving sequence gave students a firsthand look at creating the parallax effect in process shots for realistic car scenes. Students learned how to make “sunlight” from the LED tiles look natural as it streamed through Liza’s windows, 虚拟的树叶在虚拟的微风中轻轻飘动. Scenes in the killer’s basement taught students about the unique set dressing needs of virtual productions: Items had to be strategically placed to mimic the depth of a physical environment through the virtual and on-set cameras.

视觉艺术教育主任里克·拉姆齐与一名学生一起调整 9 Windows virtual set.

来自Full Sail电影专业的十几名学生在片场工作 9 Windows, 与额外的游戏艺术学生在Liza的家的虚幻引擎开发帮助, her family’s car, and the murderer’s eerie basement. 但是学生们在V1工作室的经历并没有随着电影的最后镜头而结束. Student projects will start filming later in 2022, Full Sail已经准备好让这些毕业生进入专业的虚拟制作行业.

Real-World Careers in Virtual Production

Students who work on their final projects or outside productions in Studio V1 will have plenty of help as they look for jobs at virtual production studios. Rick Ramsey, Full Sail’s Visual Arts Education Director, says that the school is already developing relationships with professional studios in a number of states.

“We partner with Vū Studios, who has spaces in Tampa. 他们正在奥兰多建一个新的舞台，在我们的校园里还有一个姊妹舞台. They have a space in Vegas, and they're building a space in Austin, Texas, that will be part of the Vū family. 我们正在与他们合作，用我们的学生填补所有这些空间. There's plenty of opportunities out there.”

Outside projects will also give students the chance to spread their virtual production wings and gain experience working with clients. A few days after 9 Windows 包裹好后，学生们帮忙制作了一个宇宙飞船的场景 Space Pups然后在本周晚些时候拍摄了一部关于夏威夷音乐家伊斯雷尔·卡马卡维沃·奥勒的纪录片.

“We definitely want to take advantage of giving our students real-world access by having clients come in with feature films, or shorts, or commercials, and [having students] work those as well,” Rick says. “这些机会绝对不会，也不应该局限于课堂.”

观众将会看到丽莎是否同时击败了杀手和她自己的恶魔 9 Windows is released in the fall of 2022. 但在那之前，一个充满可能性的世界将在Studio V1中找到一席之地.