Virtual Production - AriZona x Marvel
As a cinematographer/photographer, I like to view every project as an opportunity to push boundaries and try something new. Recently, I had the pleasure of working on a stills campaign for a Marvel-branded AriZona sports drink where we pushed the limits of still photography in some truly unique and innovative ways
At this point, everyone in the film industry is familiar with the shooting techniques pioneered on The Mandalorian, where a virtual environment is displayed on an LED wall behind the talent, producing a believable immersive world without having to rely on green screens or compositing. For photographers, this raises an obvious question: If an LED background can be used for motion pictures, what about still photography?
The obvious answer is YES, this can be done, but there are some unique limitations that should be considered when applying virtual production techniques to still photography. Let's dive into those:
1) Shutter Speed
Depending on the refresh rate of the LED wall, there will be a limit to what shutter speed can be used when photographing the wall. I found that on our particular wall, I could shoot up to 1/120 without noticeable banding. This can be a non-starter for many types of shoots that require fast-moving subjects (think sports, drink pours, etc.). Fortunately, for all our shots, our talent was able to remain fairly still, allowing me to capture clear images at 1/120.
2) Focal length
This aspect is not unique to still photography but is certainly a major consideration. In order to keep the shot within the physical dimensions of the LED wall, I had to use longer focal lengths to hide off-screen areas. I also had to hide the floor-to-wall transition and ceiling-to-wall transition to prevent the need for additional post-compositing. All of the shots featured below were shot with 70mm or longer focal lengths on a full-frame sensor.
3) Exposure
Typically when working with stills, it is easy to add more light with the use of strobes. Unfortunately, this is not an option when working on a video wall, as the maximum brightness of the LED display will be the determining factor for camera exposure. Compared to video, stills require shooting at a higher shutter speed, so right out the gate, we are already at a one-stop or more exposure deficit. We can make up for this by using faster lenses and by bumping up the ISO. Typically for stills, I would try to shoot at 100 ISO when working with strobes in a studio on a fashion or product shoot. Many major motion picture cameras have the luxury of working at a base ISO of 800. For stills, I typically try to stay well below that. For the AriZona shoot, I found myself keeping the ISO in the 400-800 range while shooting at f/2.8.
4) Depth of Field
Shooting with a shallow depth of field helps to blend the pixels of the wall together, making it feel like a real environment instead of a display. Wide-angle shots or shots where the wall is close to being in focus can start to reveal individual pixels, as well as moiré and other undesirable artifacts. This issue might not appear on a 4K cinema camera that has an effective resolution of 8 megapixels, but for a 61-megapixel still photography camera, the demand for higher pixel density on the background is much greater. Keeping the subject further away from the wall to increase the background blur can greatly help with hiding the individual pixels.
While the challenges above are real and should be considered as limitations for all virtual productions, that doesn’t negate the immense benefit that productions stand to gain from utilizing virtual production techniques. This shoot would have been unachievable with the existing budget and timeframe limitations if virtual production techniques had not been utilized. The deck called for 8 distinct lighting setups across 4 diverse locations while shooting both motion and still campaigns simultaneously. A shoot of this scale would have traditionally taken multiple location shoot days, studio shoot days, and additional pre-lighting days to achieve a similar result in the real world.
Although virtual production may not replace practical production entirely due to inherent shooting limitations and upfront pre-production costs, it will undoubtedly become a valuable tool for mid-large budget productions. As technology continues to advance, we can expect virtual production to become even more accessible and prevalent in the future.