Video Games and Movies are becoming so alike these days. Shane has quite a say on those, and it seems like a lot of heist/crime movies play out like a video game. Press the Start Button, Collect the Cash, Hold X to Run, and a winner is you. Or perhaps are the other way around. Like using video game software to design film sets. That’s a possibility nowadays with the latest technology courtesy of Vancouver Production House. Having recently launched, VPH gives aspiring directors a chance to shoot their cool concepts with virtual backgrounds projected onto the wall. Because it’s not easy securing locations around here. I speak from experience myself on that. Luckily, virtual backgrounds and rotating sets are here to provide an interesting new shoot style that will make things more easy to work with.
Thanks to DGC’s virtual production training, you can experience that yourself as a Canadian director. It’s accessible to Vancouver’s film community and for people with any kind of budget in their filmmaker bank account. However, there is a time limit of 2 hours, so one must be mindful of how long their shoot and the setup will take. I spoke to Daniel Hsia who worked at VPH after he showed me a tour of the set and allowed me to watch filming of one interesting scene involving a blackout and Aurora Borealis. Now allow me to project this interview I conducted.
HNMAG: How long has VPH been running for?
Daniel Hsia: VPH officially opened on March 7th, so we’ve been open for 3 months now. In that time we’ve been servicing commercials and features and episodic of all sorts of different content writers.
HNMAG: Filmmaking in certain locations is one of the biggest hurdles directors and filmmakers face. While you definitely help solve this problem, what other problems do you offer to solve?
Daniel Hsia: Another key we’re looking to solve is driving scenes. Traditionally when you shoot a driving scene, what you have to do is get a whole parade of vehicles going. A process trailer which is basically a flatbed tow truck, a picture car which is what the actors drive which is loaded on the process trailer. Then you have to figure out where to put your cameras and your lights, and because you’re driving a tow truck around town with actors, cameras and lights, people are always looking to see what you’re doing and because of that it becomes a public safety issue. That means filming permits for streets and police for Intermittent Traffic Control, and at the same time you need to hire another driver to drive another car behind that car so you don’t end up with some loony-loo who’s driving behind you and waving at the camera. It’s really challenging, and I’m a director who has directed some of these driving scenes before.
Daniel then showed me a car system he mapped out that is used for such driving scenes. The picture car is displayed in a zone while a street footage captured from a camera car is played on the background.
HNMAG: Why do you use a virtual stage instead of a green screen?
Daniel Hsia: Greenscreen is a process that will continue to be valuable for lots of different reasons. The primary use case where you would want to use a virtual wall vs. a green screen is you need interactive light. This is light that comes from the screen and hits the actor, so that when you’re showing the close-up of the actors face you’ll see the lights play off of their skin. This is something much more difficult to do using green screen.
HNMAG: Technology is constantly changing. What kind of software is used to keep up with the constant flow?
Daniel Hsia: We use a lot of different types of software at VPH to make the system run. The key piece of it is Unreal Engine which is run by Epic Games, and originally envisioned as video game technology. But of course, as everyone knows from much bigger shows and stages than us, very smart people have found a way to use video game engines for filming movies. I think it’s totally appropriate because games these days are so much like movies in terms of stories. The cinematic, the cutscenes, even just the character’s journey from beginning to end, so I think it’s really great that video games and film production are really playing off of each other these days.
HNMAG: This service is open to productions of all budgets, but is there a limit to how low a budget can be to who is allowed to use it?
Daniel Hsia: Absolutely. We are a business and we want to be able to amortize all our equipment and we have a really great staff here so we got to pay to keep the lights on. There have been projects that have come to us and said, “Hey listen, we have a great idea but we don’t have a lot of money, if we could find a way to work this out together.” then we hear out their idea, and if it’s an idea we absolutely like, we’ll get to work on the project. But we can’t do that everyday, if we want to stay in business, we have to keep our focus on bringing in the clients who are making the movies or episodics or commercials in order to stay alive and keep developing.
HNMAG: With the strike going on, do you feel there will be more local filmmakers coming in to bring more work that isn’t big studio content?
Daniel Hsia: That’s a really good question, the answer is nobody knows, it’s too early. As of this day, it’s possible the SAG will go on strike, or the DGA or it’s possible that negotiations will be in a good place and we’ll be getting steady work within a month. So what we’re doing is spending this time focused on continuing to develop our technology and new location offerings that we can give to productions. Now we’re just making the industry aware we exist. Sometimes clients come in here and as we’re getting ready to go, we hear from a number of departments that had no idea virtual production was something we could get in Vancouver. Especially at the MOW budget level or IndieFilm budget level. There’s a common misconception out there that Virtual Production is only meant for the big sci-fi space operas and available at the big VFX houses with really massive stages. When in fact, the technology has come to where it’s possible to run a medium-sized stage and make it available to all kinds of productions.
HNMAG: So it’s a bit smaller but still a decent and workable size?
Daniel Hsia: Exactly. We’re very excited every time we hear a new massive LED stage is going up because we think that this is a very important piece of technology that needs to be brought to Vancouver and BC in order to elevate the virtual production market overall. We want all of the stages to have success and make all of these companies, us included, educate the filmmakers community: The directors, producers, DOP’s, line producers, and let them know this could be something very valuable in gaining efficiency, decreasing logistical and increasing overall crew safety.
HNMAG: Why are directors and crews only limited to 2 hours for a shoot?
Daniel Hsia: To be clear, the production house is hosting workshops, however the DGC designed the overall format of the workshop in terms of saying there’s going to 9 directors. 6 of them are from DGC and two are from out of the province. The way it was designed was that we had 5 days (Mon-Fri) to prepare, build the sets, the virtual locations, and the two days of the actual shoot (Sat-Sun). It’s a 12-hour day and each other director gets 12 hours to shoot, with 30 minutes between projects and reset for the next things.
HNMAG: It’s a bit of a distance out of Vancouver, but are there other locations you’re looking to secure closer or even in different provinces?
Daniel Hsia: Yes, that’s definitely one of our goals. VPH has a studio in Toronto actually, and it’s possible that production overall in Canada increases that we will have the opportunity to make other offerings or try to find more places to be.
This was the most interesting experience I ever had. While it was certainly trippy to be on a moving movie set, I enjoyed the efficiency of the team, and the VFX perspectives. Funny how the scene moves along with the camera, and while the entire crew mainly keeps their distance for the most part staying mostly seated, the director stands close by to monitor things. Quite a lineup of monitors to show the perspective of the land too. Check it out yourself, I recommend all upcoming directors to consider this. Your idea just might be cool enough.