Garden Studios explores the evolution, challenges, and future of virtual production (VP), five years after the Göteborg Film Festival report predicted it would be fully normalised by 2026.
VP is a filmmaking technology that combines digital environments with physical sets, allowing actors and filmmakers to see the end result in real-time. The 2021 Nostradamus Report: Transforming Storytelling Together forecasted that by 2026, ‘Virtual production methods, tools, and pipelines will have been completely normalised across the industry.’
The central London film and TV studio, Garden Studios, launched in 2021 and opened one of the UK’s first permanent virtual production LED volume stages. Five years on, Sam Kemp, the VP Supervisor at Garden Studios, weighs in on the current landscape of VP and offers predictions for the future.
Sam Kemp said: “Virtual production has become a part of most modern productions, at least in the context of simulated travel. Most High-end TV (HETV) and feature films use LED volumes to shoot driving scenes with their principal talent, due to the speed and ease of shooting compared to traditional low-loader methods.
“Advertising clients were some of the first to use VP to enable productions to continue during the pandemic, which has continued and been honed into further cost savings, while also increasing creativity with experienced directors writing treatments with VP in mind.”
However, VP hasn’t become completely normalised across the industry, with some knowledge gaps still present around how to run a VP LED volume stage successfully.
Sam Kemp continued: “Some poorly executed VP productions have given incorrect expectations to producers and creatives that VP can never deliver ‘photoreal’ environments or backdrops to match the quality of traditional greenscreen compositing. Productions need to bring in experienced VP supervisors early during prep to help advise how best to proceed.
Despite some challenges remaining, a recent study by Global Market Insights Inc reported that the VP market is forecast to grow from $3.3 billion in 2026 to $6.5 billion in 2030 and to $18.5 billion by 2035.
In terms of what key factors could drive this growth, Sam Kemp added: “The pool of experienced VP technicians will grow, giving studios more resiliency and the ability to hire day players to scale up and down as required for individual shoots. Juniors in the industry will climb upwards, taking with them the VP knowledge gained and an awareness of virtual production as an important tool in the production toolbox.”
Read the full blog post with more expert commentary from Sam Kemp on the current landscape of VP and future predictions here.
