Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1536513
www.postmagazine.com 8 POST MAY/JUNE 2025 BITS & PIECES SONY TARGETS VIRTUAL PRODUCTION WITH CAPRI DISPLAYS PARAMUS, NJ — Sony Electronics Inc. (https://pro.sony) is expanding its lineup of LED walls with the debut of Capri, a new Crystal LED series that achieves a maximum brightness of 1,500 cd/m2 with a 2.50mm LED pitch size. Capri is well suited for virtual production applications and is designed to compliment Sony's premium flagship Verona Crystal LED line, using the same controllers and featuring the same luminance as Verona. The Capri series, which is expected to be available this winter, made its debut at the June InfoComm show in Orlando, FL. Pricing has yet to be announced. "With the announcement of Capri, Sony is furthering our commitment to the creation of spatial content, such as virtual production, by giving a wider range of users opportunities for flexibly showcasing images in high fidelity," says Rich Ventura, VP for professional display solutions at Sony. "We've broadened our lineup to offer more cost-conscious choices, which expand the market in support of high-quality virtual production at every level and ensure the growth of Sony's distinctive virtual-production ecosystem." Key features for the Capri line include high refresh rates and brightness, a wide color gamut and anti-reflection. Additional benefits include installation flexibility, familiar structure and streamlined maintenance. The new models — ZRD-VS25FB and ZRD-VS25FM — are compatible with the Brompton control- ler and the Megapixel controller, respectively. Refresh rates of up to 7,680Hz help to reduce scanline artifacts and en- sure smooth, fluid motion. A brightness of 1,500 cd/m2, complemented by coverage of over 98 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut, allow the displays to accurately reproduce lifelike images. And the anti-reflection capabilities help mitigate the impact of reflection from lighting equipment. MUSIC VIDEO: AVIVA – IN TOO DEEP LONDON — Emo/pop artist Aviva uses music to create a bridge to the dysto- pia inside her mind, transporting listeners to the city of Metropolis, where she escapes the burden of reality. Blackout Studios' Lewis Griffin is part of a small team that supports the artist, creating music videos that visualize the neon-lit, futuristic city in which Aviva appears on its numerous public video screens. Most recently, Griffin — along with Aviva's manager MataisC — completed work on In Too Deep, but he also produced videos earlier this year for the artist's "Eyes Wide Shut" and "Fearless" tracks, all of which take on a similar visual style. "I have been the in-house visual guy now since about 2020," Griffin shares. "Originally, I was brought into the team to work on the albums — al- bum artwork — to sort of do all their production and manufacturing for merchandising." But once COVID hit, Griffin says the team was faced with producing music videos using their own resources. "I had little to no experience in video editing and production," he recalls. "I just went, 'I'll give it a go. I'll see what I can do.' And (it) spiraled out from there." He's since spearheaded a handful of visuals for Aviva, and says the workload represents around 60 percent of the business that comes through his Blackout Studios, which is based just outside of London. Much of Aviva's visuals begin with simple green-screen shoots of the artist, using an iPhone or DSLR camera. "In Too Deep was quite a unique project," he explains, adding its close relation to Eyes Wide Shut and Fearless. "They were made from elements and assets that were used to create the artwork for the singles, which was done months prior. We sort of made it without really thinking about the video at the time. So, when the artwork was made in the same three-dimensional style, jumping on three months down the line, we're like, 'We need to shoot a video for it.' I was like, 'Okay, we have a concept already. We had a space.' And the discussion then is, 'What can we do with that space? How can we fill that space?' We really landed on the idea of trying to insert Aviva herself into this virtual world, because it's a very sci-fi, cyber-punky space. It's quite a different space. How could we do that whilst running on what is effectively a very limited budget?" The live-action component was filmed while Aviva was in Australia and was then sent to Griffin in the UK. Portions were also finalized in the US, where Aviva has team member, but lacks the support of a major or independent label. For a number of years now, Griffin has been relying on Kitbash3D, an online marketplace of 3D assets and immersive environments. "I am in no way affiliate with these guys," he reveals. "I just love them to pieces because it's always been such a useful (resource). Throughout the years, the style, the genre of the music and the visual has changed. For every single album cycle we've done — we're up into the sixth now — it's changed almost year-on-year to be something different, so we've had to change that and we've got a massive, flexible library of all these different styles and assets in the same visual esthetic and properties. It's been quite easy for us to be able to quickly jump and transition." Griffin has also become more familiar with Blender and Unreal Engine for developing environments, and then uses the Adobe suite — including After Effects and Premiere — for editing and effects. In a clever way to engage with fans, Griffin created lines of text that appear as data in the Eyes Wide Shut and Fearless videos. Those who look closely will see that the information is actually an acknowledgment from the artist, who calls out the names of her biggest supporters. The idea is to get viewers to watch more often and even share the visuals. — By Marc Loftus