The Development of Virtual Production in Film Industry in the Past Decade

Haofeng Li, Cheng Hung Lo*, Arturo Smith, Zhiyuan Yu

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book or Report/Conference proceedingConference Proceedingpeer-review

    1 Citation (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Virtual production (VP) is a computer-aided production and visualization filmmaking method, which was first officially applied in “Avatar” directed by James Cameron in 2009. After ten years of development, in the “Lion King” directed by Jon Favreau in 2019, VP’s concept and technical level reached a new level, bringing a revolutionary impact to the film industry. This project’s research objective is to explore the development trend of virtual filmmaking from 2009 to 2019 and make a reasonable prediction of the VP’s future development in the film industry. This research selected four VP films as research cases: Avatar (2009), Jungle Book (2015), Ready Player One (2018), and Lion King (2019). The research method used is Historical Research (Longitudinal Studies), which collects secondary data in the form of text and videos related to the four cases in the database and other network sources for analysis and longitudinal comparison to conclude. After data collection and data analysis, three reasonable global production trends are drawn in the past ten years: The digital models and tools for CG scene and character creation are transformed from traditional animation software to game engines. The participation and collaboration of various filmmaking roles in VP have gradually increased. The combination of VP technology and traditional filmmaking culture has steadily enhanced. This research also made reasonable predictions on the VP’s future development prospects on “actor immersion and participation” and “popularization of VP.” This research can be regarded as an introductory guide and historical review of virtual filmmaking. It may inspire and support readers who want to contact and understand the VP industry. It also provides some information about the latest developments in the industry for filmmakers and virtual reality workers. This research can also provide an academic reference for filmmakers who want to make films through VP.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationCross-Cultural Design. Applications in Learning, Arts, Cultural Heritage, Creative Industries, and Virtual Reality - 14th International Conference, CCD 2022, Held as Part of the 24th HCI International Conference, HCII 2022, Proceedings
    EditorsPei-Luen Patrick Rau
    PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
    Pages221-239
    Number of pages19
    ISBN (Print)9783031060465
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2022
    Event14th International Conference on Cross-Cultural Design, CCD 2022 Held as Part of the 24th HCI International Conference, HCII 2022 - Virtual, Online
    Duration: 26 Jun 20221 Jul 2022

    Publication series

    NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
    Volume13312 LNCS
    ISSN (Print)0302-9743
    ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

    Conference

    Conference14th International Conference on Cross-Cultural Design, CCD 2022 Held as Part of the 24th HCI International Conference, HCII 2022
    CityVirtual, Online
    Period26/06/221/07/22

    Keywords

    • Historical research
    • Virtual filmmaking
    • Virtual production

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