PRG Upgrades LA Virtual Production Studio

	PRG's facility is located in San Fernando, California.

PRG reports that its virtual production studio in Los Angeles has recently undergone a significant upgrade and is now open for business.

With the explosion in virtual production that has happened during the pandemic, such facilities are springing up around the country. PRG, which was at the forefront for the trend, is keeping up with the competition by expanding rentable space in its studio to include plenty of room for production crews, dressing room areas, and additional workstations, allowing large-scale productions to spread out.

Addressing the twin needs of productions and safety protocols, the expanded LA facility includes 4,390 sq. ft. of HVAC-controlled stage space and 15,000 sq. ft. of rentable space; a private controlled entrance with temperature scan; on-site parking and cleaning services; flexible work zones; green rooms, catering space, and production offices; a 2.8mm-pixel-pitch LED wall measuring 18' high and 50' wide with a 105° curve; and a 4.8mm-pixel-pitch LED floor spanning 26' deep and 50' wide. The production workflow includes stYpe camera tracking, nDisplay, Notch, and Unreal Engine.

Jeroen Hallaert, vice president of production services, says, "In the past 24 months, virtual production has become a much-discussed topic. Its increase has undoubtedly been catalyzed by the pandemic. Controlled environments and remote production have become very desirable." He adds that the upgrade "is not just terms of size and amount of this or that product. We updated and upgraded the space with a few things in mind. It became an agile process characterized by starting VFX earlier and leveraging technology throughout the entire production life cycle to enhance the way content is created."

For example, he says, "Realistic real-time rendering for small and medium-size canvases is becoming more affordable, and technically and artistically viable due to new hardware and continuous software upgrades. We want to make technology viable for indie productions, too, not just the A-level stuff. Especially on the software side, we are looking at creating unified platforms. For example, we provide an in-house workflow with tracking and spatial, temporal, and color calibration in one tool set, streamlining the process and making it more budget-friendly."

The expansion of services is a response to a changing industry, he notes. "Producers are adapting to these new workflows. Clients are willing to consider new production technologies. Remote work is increasingly accepted; you don't need a full production crew on set anymore. And audiences, both on-screen and live, are more and more welcoming of these new formats."

Creating a unified workflow is also a strategy for dealing with the explosion of virtual production work, Hallaert says. "At this point in time, there are 120 major LED studio facilities around the globe and the number is increasing. So, it's less a question of if you'll ever find yourself shooting on one of these LED stages but when. In the beginning, when we did Katy Perry's "Daisies" performance on American Idol, it was groundbreaking, Now we're aligning our workflows, setting standards to make them more efficient and accessible to any budget range."

PRG's facility is located in San Fernando, California. "It used to be our demo space," Hallaert says. "We put up new soundproofed drywalls, creating new spaces for brain bar, cameras, and dressing rooms. Cleaning out the old studio footprint gave us a nice-size LED volume."

"We've updated our camera tracking with inside-out and outside-in tracking methods that can be tailored to what you need," Hallaert says. "We can also do motion capture with people and objects, integrating it into the overall production. We're offering the possibility to scan people, doing motion capture offsite, which we can then insert, virtually, into what's happening onstage. Again, we're making it possible for any kind of production to have the full range of services. It's all about offering a totally integrated workflow in one space."

The greatest advantage of this space, he adds, is its flexibility. "We can cover everything from a music shoot to scripted television, feature films, and commercials -- even corporate events, for example doing a presentation in front of a virtual background. Again, with our studio setup, we don't want to limit ourselves. Events have changed, but experience design has not. Creative leaders in film, episodic or other content creation have shown that virtual production can yield incredible outputs. Visualization, motion capture, hybrid camera, and LED live action are a few of the virtual production techniques that belong to the toolset of modern content creation. As with every new technology, there is an initial learning curve. Virtual production can be used across both high- and low-budget projects to improve quality, increase efficiency, and reduce costs. But at the end of the day, it's all about storytelling. On our side, our technology serves as an enabler."

To get a video walkthrough of the facility, click on www.prg.com/en/about/latest-news/virtual-production-walkthrough.