How is Virtual Production going to evolve in 2024?

Virtual production isn't just a buzzword anymore, but an evolution reshaping the marketing and advertising industry. In this article we'll delve into where the industry will develop in 2024, to facilitate the accelerating adoption of virtual production and its transformative impact on brands, CMOs, marketers, creative agencies, and production companies.?

Here's some of the key features we're going to see this year:

What is the next 12 months for R&D in VP?

We've been working in Virtual production for over 3 years. We've seen and been involved in advancement after advancement... So, what are we likely to see in 2024 as this amazing technical production approach becomes more mainstream?

1. Taking VP on the road. With remote rigs, variable scaled volumes, and more flexible methods of producing contextual surroundings.?
2. VP & AI. We will see a lot of this in commercial action next year, but in R&D we're looking at how this truly integrates into the production process. Stabilising UX, increased flexibility to LED, increased speed, ethics, and IP security.?
3. Radiance Fields. We're expecting this to be a huge influence on the VP industry. The speed, realism, and small file sizes allow this medium to really shine through.

How are clients using VP in 2024?

Sustainability

There is significant pressure on the macro industry and brand perceptions surrounding sustainable production methodology. As content teams move to a tracking and measurement routine in production, it will become very visible how creatives, brands, and producers choose to develop their content.??

In the past 12 months, we've been heavily focused on defining process management, logistics, and expectations in VP - which will lead to more teams (inhouse and agency) adopting a form of VP across their content streams.?

Cloud & Digital doubles workflows

Whether that's working across 3D, 2.5D, Photogrammetry, or simple bgd plates - we're integrating these options into single pipelines at pre-production. We want clients, artists, directors, and storytellers to be immersed in their worlds long before they reach the set.

We're facilitating digital doubles frameworks for brands. Allowing productions, locations, props, and even talent to be capture and used across physical and digital VP sets.

IP & stable 5G workflows

Thanks to improved comms and network technology, IP has become a flexible solution for live / remote productions, with more access to broadcast control systems which make local and remote production more efficient and sustainable - across LIVE, ATL, and BTL content streams.?

5G transmission will also contribute to the ability to "take VP anywhere". As the availability of 5G networks continue to grow, it lowers network latency, and opens the door to interesting other fringe use cases with network slicing.

Photogrammetry takes centre stage

We've seen a lot of interest and development in Point Cloud data, NERF's, Gaussian Splatting across 2023, the integration with AI has enabled this technology to develop into a potential primary solution for contextual Virtual Production interactive backgrounds.

We are likely to see the process and pipeline of capture > distribution appear in commercial settings in 2024. We will be using photogrammetry data as augmentation to location shoots as part of EST (Establishing shots) as well as digital set extensions. Where 'digital doubles' rely on the recreation of a physical location or set, photogrammetry is the non-geometric representation of volumetric space. AI, Trips, NERF's, and G-Splats have created opportunities in adapting and "art directing" these spaces to support creative application.?