Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521956
T E C H 42 C I N E M O N T A G E That means pre-computing all the lighting across an entire environment so it will run efficiently (at the correct frame rate in real-time) on the LED screens. Toonen said, "Sometimes the images are 28K resolution when displayed on the entire surrounding screen. These gigantic images need to run at 48 frames per second (fps) or higher. If it runs less than 24 fps (the camera frame rate), then you can't use any of that footage. So when preparing these environments for the virtual production stages, we need to be very intentional about what we're trying to bring to life so that it renders all in real-time. That's probably the most overlooked part, and it's the thing we have to fight with the most." REAL-TIME CHANGES Toonen started his career as a visual effects compositor, working on Hollywood blockbusters like "Alien: Covenant," "Dead- pool 2," "Captain Marvel," and "Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker" at visual effects studios such as Industrial Light & Magic, Framestore, Luma Pictures, Pixomondo, and MPC (a division of Tech- nicolor Creative Studios). Initially, he used traditional visual effects software, but discovering Unreal Engine changed everything for him. "In traditional visual effects workflows for a Hollywood movie, it can take anywhere from one hour to 24 hours to render out a single frame. On an animated movie, you might wait a whole day to get one single frame of footage. Visual effects studios use render farms — thousands of computers just rendering one frame at a time. With Unreal Engine, you have real-time rendering. You don't wait for anything. The coolest part about UE5 is that you can make creative changes in real-time on set; you can literally change the entire background, or rotate the entire scene, or change the lighting," he said. For Toonen, being an Unreal Operator is akin to being a " live" compositor — someone who makes creative visual effects changes on set as opposed to in post. "It's a very different pace, one that I enjoy. As traditional compositors, we would have days or weeks to finish one single shot in post, but on set we have to finish an entire sequence in a single day," said Toonen. T h e b e n e f i t s o f u s i n g U E 5 d u r i n g production even carry over into post-pro- duction. As Toonen explained, "In the Unreal scenes, we can take snapshots of the exact setup of the lights and the exact camera position used for a shot, and export that to the visual effects studios. Now, they can start with that same setup and then add in whatever they need, pushing things further in post." According to Toonen, LED Volumes and Unreal Engine are best used for achieving in-camera final visual effects on medium close-ups and tighter shots. Wider shots benefit more from visual effects in post. "Seventy percent of the shots on a virtual production stage are close-ups with an out- of-focus background," he said. "Those are very forgiving. You're relying on an inter- esting-looking lens to do most of the work for you. And honestly, those are often the most successful shots. Filmmakers should lean into making those close-ups look really great to get those in-camera finals. Follow- ing that methodology will save money for those wide shots at the end." U E 5 i s a l s o a p ow e r f u l to o l fo r t h e pre -production stage. For "Dune: Part Two," cinematographer Greig Fraser used Unreal Engine to pre-plan shots based on the natural lighting conditions of the film- ing location in the Jordan desert. "Instead of going out to locations to scout them, you can import Google Maps into Unreal and see a 3D model of the location," explained METAL Shots from "War of Being," a music video for the rock band TesseracT, that Toonen helped make. Opposite page: Screenshots from UE5.