【New Trend of Virtual Shooting: Adding LED Screen Technology】LED screen will replace the traditional green screen

【New Trend of Virtual Shooting: Adding LED Screen Technology】LED screen will replace the traditional green screen.New Trend of Virtual Shooting: Adding LED Screen Technology] LED screen will replace the traditional green screen

With the rapid development of LED screen technology in recent years, film and TV production teams have been actively replacing traditional green screen with the latest LED screen for virtual production, which has become a new mode of work in the film and TV industry. The epidemic in the past three years has indeed made it difficult for film crews to shoot outdoor scenes. Coupled with the economic downturn, many film investors have been discouraged from investing a lot of resources in overseas location shooting.

The development of mature LED screen technology is the key technology to solve this problem. It can play the background set by the drama in real time, and the actors can also perform in the virtual space, which greatly increases the creativity and flexibility of filming, makes impossible filming possible, and reduces the time and cost of filming and post-production.

Current Trends in Virtual Shooting

Virtual cinematography has become a major trend in video production, with many Hollywood and streaming platforms adopting virtual cinematography for their productions.

Industry reports indicate that the market for LED screens for virtual cinematography applications is booming, with the LED market more than doubling to about US$280 million in 2021, and the LED screen market growing steadily by more than 50 per cent to about US$430 million in 2022, even with the uncertainty in the global economy.

Many leading companies in the LED screen industry have co-operated with film and TV production companies to set up virtual shooting studios constructed with LED screens in major markets (e.g. China, the United States, Taiwan, Korea and Thailand, etc.), and the technology has already been used in the production of many movies and music videos. Samsung Electronics and the Korean entertainment company CJ ENM to build the virtual shooting stage is now in service, using more than 1,000 inches, diameter of 20 metres, 7 metres high oval main screen, the resolution of 30720 x 4320. the screen is connected to the camera, which can provide real-time virtual scene, reducing the need for video compositing in the film and television production, greatly reducing the time and cost of production. The virtual studio is equipped with a ceiling display and a plug-in screen, which, together with the main screen, allows for 360-degree video filming.

What is virtual photography based on LED screens?

Virtual Cinematography is the fusion of key technologies to project high-definition images onto a high-precision LED screen, which can be used to replace traditional green screen or physical outdoor cinematography for film and other video shootings. The gaming engine enables the LED display to directly show real-time background and visual effects.

LED screens can be used with Camera Tracking System and Real Time Graphic Computing virtualisation to facilitate film production, and can be integrated with remote controlled equipment and workflow to provide greater flexibility and stability for production teams when producing video programmes. Virtualisation also enables low-cost zoom and special effects that are difficult to achieve in real life, and has been widely used in many large-scale productions.

LED screens for virtualisation Requirements

The effect of virtual filming and the level of commitment of the actors are also very much dependent on the quality of the LED screens. Virtual shoots place a premium on LED screens with High Dymanic Range, High Frame Rate and High Grayscale images, with an emphasis on image quality, colour finesse and smoothness. Depending on the scene and budget, high-end virtual reality backdrop screen products require high brightness (>1,500 nits), high resolution (P1.2-P1.6), high grayscale (16 bits), high refresh rate (3,840 / 7,680 Hz), frame rate up to 60 Hz, and compliance with the DCI-P3 (Wide Colour Gamut standard).

Virtual Shooting: LED Screen vs Blue-Green Screen

LED screen can save a lot of filming budget and post-production time and cost for the filming team, and also solve the problem of the filming team to go abroad for filming during the epidemic in the early years. Shooting in front of the traditional blue-green screen, the director, actors, cameramen, lighting engineers and even makeup artists and other technical staff need to rely on the imagination to work, if the shooting results are not satisfactory and difficult to make up for the shooting, because it takes a huge amount of money, but only to rely on the later laborious and time-consuming post-production remedies.

Virtual Shooting replaces the blue and green screens with LED screens and uses a game engine to build real-time virtual scenes, along with a camera tracker, to create highly immersive, real-time interactive scenes that allow the actors to feel as if they were there and more involved in the performance, for example, actors fighting with tigers and beasts in the Amazon forest. Virtual set filming is also suitable for filming scenes that require quick scene changes, and it is easy to create different scene atmospheres regardless of outdoor seasons and weather restrictions.

In fact, the new technology has transformed the traditional post-production of special effects into pre-production work, allowing simultaneous viewing of special effects during filming, and if the director is not satisfied, he or she can immediately modify the details of the scene, lighting colours, etc., thus altering the inherent process of virtual production. In response to this new style of filming, Hollywood has also set up a virtual art department to assist the art team in the pre-production of the scene appearance and props.

Virtual filming has become a new trend in the entertainment and film industry, which is more conducive to creativity and reduces post-production costs and time than green screen in the past. Production teams can consider incorporating virtual cinematography into the filming process to inject more new elements into their films, while studios and workshops can actively consider upgrading their LED screens to prepare for the new generation and help promote Hong Kong’s film and television industry. To upgrade LED screens, studios and studios may need to consider the venue and suitable product options, and seek advice from professionals specialising in the design, production and application of LED products.

ME Lite – a Hong Kong brand with its own factory, develops and produces more than 300 high quality LED lighting fixtures and intelligent lighting products, offering a wide range of high energy-saving, high durability, high cost-effective LED lighting products, MELITE also undertakes lighting system projects, providing intelligent LED lighting system solutions, installation and maintenance services for schools, hotels, stadiums and public and private institutions. MELITE also undertakes lighting system projects to provide intelligent LED lighting systems for schools, hotels, stadiums and public and private organisations.

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