Biohackers – Netflix Series
Virtual Production
Mia goes to medical school to get close to a professor she suspects had a hand in her past family tragedy and gets tangled in the world of biohacking.
The new virtual production stage and workflow allows filmmakers to capture a significant amount of complex visual effect shots in-camera using real-time game engine technology and surrounding LED screens.
Under the supervision of CG Supervisor Nils Engler, we created a variety of CG content for an impressive 5 meters tall and 22,5 meters wide LED screen that enclosed the train set. Nils Engler ensured that workflows between the on-set team and the VFX artists went smoothly.
- The greatest advantage of NOT shooting with green/bluescreen is seeing the LED screen become the background and interact with the set. This reduces the time (and money) usually spent on mimicking lighting, reflections and refractions through various surfaces by a lot. Plus, it helps directors to see what they want to shoot.
The biggest challenge was to generate the digital landscapes of about 20 min of train rides without the possibility of testing the renderings on set with the actual LED screens. Due to the enormous set construction, timing was crucial – we only had two days for testing and adjusting.
Here’s the Making-Of:
ONE SHOT
The masterpiece for us was the creation of the train ride for the “one-shot”, when the virus starts spreading inside the train. We made sure the background enhanced the drama of the story by gradually narrowing the environment. The train ride starts in an open landscape, then we pass by the noise barriers and finally enter a tunnel.
Here’s the One Shot:
in-camera lighting
no post production
no grading
Unity3D – Digital Landscapes
The footage was pre-rendered using unity3D with a resolution of 11k pixels across. We ended up rendering each pixel on the LED wall to avoid any image artifacts. All this would have taken weeks to produce in a linear pipeline – but real-time enabled us to react to changes immediately.
