Disguise Services Takes The Audio\Visual Crew Through Five Locations in One Day with Seamless Virtual Production

For their latest spot promoting mental health resources for veterans, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs worked with The Audio\Visual Crew and Disguise Services to film five locations in one day, using virtual production. 

The Audio\Visual Crew chose virtual production for this project to quickly film multiple scenes across various locations while delivering a cutting-edge solution for their client. The virtual environments ranged from a backyard birthday party to an office setting, a community center, and a battleground to the Grand Canyon.

From day one, our virtual art department worked closely with the director, production designer and DP to create these environments in Unreal Engine. Our team started designing the virtual environments from reference images and the storyboard and met the production team via Zoom on a consistent basis to reiterate scenes and make changes to the environments in real time based on feedback. 

Once the virtual sets were nearly dialed in, our virtual art department worked with our in-house virtual production specialists to start testing the scenes on an LED Volume. While optimising the scenes, colour grading, lighting and shots could be pre-visualised and locked in “on-set” to make sure there were no surprises on shoot day. 

The shoot itself took three days and took place at XR stage in LA. On the first day, our volume operations and creative teams ran through the scenes with the production team to make sure all physical sets aligned with the virtual sets in terms of positioning and lighting. Our team colour-calibrated the stage and ensured the virtual scenes were running smoothly.

On shoot day, everything was ready to go. Starting with the backyard birthday party scene, the midground elements worked in harmony with the virtual background. Physical elements, such as the table, seats, and some additional props added depth to the scene. 

Next off were the indoor scenes, the office environment, and the community center. With the colors and lighting pretty much fine-tuned in the pre-production process, shooting the scenes was a breeze. 

We then pivoted towards the outdoor scenes, the battleground scene which required a bit of setup, and the Grand Canyon scene to finish off. The bedroom scene was a physical set that was constructed in the studio and shot on the same day. The entire shoot was wrapped in about 8 hours. 

Day three took place at a physical location and made up scenes mostly used in the second spot. 

Following the shoot, Carlos Fueyo, VAD/VP supervisor overlooked the post-production process, where only minimal adjustments were made, such as painting out practical lights we used for sunlight and an LED panel. By working fully in-engine, we achieved photoreal, final pixel ICVFX.