Yolanda Lam

Opinion | Emerging tech like virtual production is evolving rapidly. Is Hong Kong ready?

Virtual production is gaining industry and government support as it is safer and more time- and cost-efficient than traditional filmmaking methods

That interest extends to Hong Kong, where the government needs to explore funding and support to keep pace with emerging technology and nurture local talent

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

A virtual set at Vu Orlando is built around a massive LED screen that can be manipulated with virtual cameras and the Mo-sys camera tracking system. Virtual production is gaining popularity in film and television as it increases the amount of work that can be done in a single location instead of needing to move to different sites. Photo: TNS

Yolanda Lam

Published: 3:45pm, 14 Apr 2023

The cultural and creative industries have for a long time used innovative technologies to create content. From artificial intelligence to virtual reality, the use of such technology in the industry evolved even more rapidly during the Covid-19 pandemic.

With the return of live audiences and countries reopening their borders, some technologies have faded into the background. However, others have not only stayed but continue to disrupt traditional workflows, ushering us into a new era of content creation.

Virtual production is one such technology. It has gained a strong foothold in film and television in the past few years, as seen in hits such as Top Gun: Maverick and House of the Dragon, as well as the screen industries in general.

Virtual production is when creators use real-time game engines to create interactive virtual backgrounds and put them on large LED volumes – a system of linked high-end LED panels used to display video footage or 3D content – to create a realistic film set.

Special effects that are normally added in post-production are instead brought forward to pre-production. In essence, virtual production enables physical – that is, actors and props – and digital elements, such as special effects, to come together in real time.

Compared with traditional methods of filmmaking, this can be more time- and cost-effective. The workflow allows for on-the-spot iteration and modification of scenes without posing too much risk to the production timeline or budget. Lighting, colouring and other background visualisation can all be altered in real time. A sunset could become a sunrise in an instant, for example. This can shorten week-long, multi-location shoots into several days in a studio.