Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1527843
26 CGW J U LY • A U G U S T • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 4 t hroughout its 24-year history, Disguise's Emmy-Award-win- ning technology has been behind some of the most immersive visuals in lms, episodics and more. For the new feature lm Daddio, Disguise's virtual production work•ow helped produc- er, writer and director Christy Hall captivate audiences for 101 min- utes with only two characters. Starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn and featured as an o„- cial selection at the Toronto and Tribeca lm festivals, Daddio tells the story of a young woman returning home to Manhattan a‡er a trip. She grabs a cab from the airport and unexpectedly nds herself having life-changing conversations with its driver, Clark. Originally conceived as a stage play, the script was included on the "Black List" of the most-liked unproduced scripts in Hollywood before being de- veloped on an indie budget of only $10 million. At rst, Hall selected virtual production to capture the feature be- cause it would reduce the need to rig a moving cab or pay fees to shoot on location. The technology also provided other benets, including creating a safe, realistic set for the actors to perform in. "I was excited to use the technology," says Hall. "It created an immersive environment for the cast, so when Sean was driving, he kept almost being afraid he was going to hit things. And then Dakota looks out the window and cars are whizzing by. She could actually see the street and every- thing, so they're engaging with a real sense of time and place." Simulating Travel To capture the lm, Hall worked with 4Wall Entertainment's VPs of special projects Ben Danielowski and Mathew Leland, VP supervisor Julian Sarmiento and Disguise VP of virtual production Addy Ghani. First, the team mapped the taxi route Hall wanted Daddio's charac- ters to take on Google Street View. Then they worked together with Plate Pros to capture the route in the real world. They captured two hours of 4K car process plates within only one night of shooting. Once the route was captured, the team moved to production on 4Wall's LED stage. Using Disguise's GX 3 media servers, all the car process plates were reprojected and played back onto the LED vol- ume. A real New York taxi cab was then cut in half so the team could put the camera in front of Johnson to capture her performance. SPOTLIGHT DADDIO INSIDE THE INNOVATIVE VIRTUAL PRODUCTION WORKFLOW FOR A TORONTO & TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION.