Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1487667
54 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Winter 2023 film Oblivion. If you are a cinephile and have not seen this film, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Almost a decade later, the visuals are still nothing short of breathtaking. For the film, Local 695 member and Lux Machina President Zach Alexander designed and operated a 360-degree projection system in order to create The Skytower—a futuristic science lab located miles above the Earth's surface. By using a media server system and stitching together images from twenty-one projectors, the team was able to create a fully immersive panoramic set that allowed the cast and crew to feel as though they really were miles high in the sky. This advanced process subverted the need for the costly and time- consuming visual effects required by a green screen setup and post-production artists would no longer be required to remove the green hue from objects reflecting the color or from the actors' skin tones. Moreover, the actors were able to fully bring themselves into the film's world when they could see the scenic backdrop all around them. The benefits of this workflow are too numerous to count. Following Oblivion's success, the team at Lux Machina continued to innovate and refine their workflow, bringing their talents to productions like The Titan Games, The Academy Awards, The Emmys, multiple Star Wars films, and this year, the Sony Pictures film Bullet Train. I had the privilege of sitting down with one of the team's best and brightest, Local 695 member Jason Davis, Lux Machina began as little more than a group of programmers with a dream to transform the production world by developing and engineering cutting-edge technical solutions for their clients. In time, the company developed into a team of bold industry explorers, nerdy systems architects, and seasoned expert technologists. Today, they are responsible for some of the most impressive and jaw- dropping virtual productions in Hollywood and, at the core of their team, are members of Local 695. Virtual production as it currently exists is a combination of techniques developed for VFX workflows and in-camera SFX techniques that have been developed since the creation of motion pictures. In-camera visual effects (ICVFX) is a subset of virtual production that is the natural evolution of the rear-screen process shot work that Local 695 engineers have done for decades. In its most primitive form, the process shot involves shooting an actor or actors in front of a translucent scrim, which is then hit with a projected image from behind to create the illusion of a three- dimensional background behind the talent. The process was first developed by Harold V. Miller (who was the first in what is currently a three-generation Local 695 family) and the process shot's first known use was in the 1930 science fiction film Just Imagine. Though crude at the time, the process allowed filmmakers to create a believable illusion in-camera and, with almost ninety years of innovation, this practice has grown much more sophisticated. Lux Machina has pioneered its development, which can be seen in the 2013 Visualization of Virtual Production Stage on Bullet Train.