LED walls are revolutionizing the entertainment industry
Photos Courtesy of Ruth Daly
“The worst term in the filmmaking world is: ‘Let’s just do it in post,’” said junior animation and visual effects major Chris Perazzo. “If you can do most of your visual effects in pre-production, you’re going to get a better product.”
Step aside, green screens. The future of filmmaking is looking bright for LED walls.
A new method for creating virtual backgrounds in film and TV, LED walls are massive digital displays that allow for in-camera visual effects (VFX) to be done on set during production.
“It’s just expanded the creative horizons of what’s possible,” said Dodge College Associate Dean Dan Leonard. “The advantage of the LED wall is the actors feel like they’re in the environment and can see and react to elements. It creates a greater degree of realism while also allowing more expansive worlds and more shots within that world than you could get previously.”
Disney+’s “The Mandalorian” was the first notable project that brought LED walls to the industry’s attention. Since then, shows like “Star Trek: Discovery” and “House of the Dragon,” and movies like “The Batman” and “Bullet Train” have opted to work with VFX-focused production companies to utilize their LED walls.
“This opens up tremendous amounts of storytelling possibilities that wouldn’t otherwise be available,” said Dodge College Director of Animation and Visual Effects Ruth Daly. “In traditional VFX, you would have to composite all that stuff behind the actors afterwards, and it's very difficult for directors to work like that, and it’s also very time-consuming. This is considerably quicker, and it’s very hands-on, because what you see is what you get.”
Directors are excited about these pre-visualization possibilities, but because the technology is so new, it’s not easy for them to access an LED wall, let alone people who know how to operate it. So how do LED walls work?
First, a realistic virtual environment is created in a game engine. The current industry standard is Unreal Engine 5, the same platform used to develop video games like “Fortnite.” In production, a custom motion-tracking system in a sound stage connects the physical camera to the virtual environment being rendered on the wall. This ensures the perspective on the wall updates in real time when the camera moves around, as if the camera were in the environment itself, creating realistic backgrounds for the actors.
Unlike green screens, LED walls emit light that provides reflections off of surfaces, making the resulting footage more realistic and immersive.
“For your cine department, you’re getting real-time reflections, you’re getting motivated lighting and you’re getting an idea of what your set looks like in-camera,” said junior animation and visual effects major Chris Perazzo. “This saves you tons of compositing work in post that would be necessary if you were using a green screen. I definitely prefer an LED wall in a closed, controlled set.”
However, this doesn’t mean that green screens are going away any time soon. Depending on how much progress has been made on visual effects before production begins, it may be in a project’s best interest to go with the classic choice.
“(Using an LED wall) does come with some caveats though: all the imagery you put on the wall needs to be done in pre-production,” junior animation and visual effects major Alex Goena said. “So it saves you time in post, but it requires a lot of work during pre-production.”
Goena continued: “Generally speaking, green screen is still a very viable method for VFX because sometimes you don’t know exactly what your film needs going into it, so you can add it in later in post. I don’t think green screen will ever be replaced. They don’t replace each other, they’re just different tools.”
Dodge College is one of the few film schools in the country that provides its students access to an LED wall. Last January, Perazzo and Goena worked on both a junior and a senior thesis that were shot on the wall. Although principal photography was successful, it wasn’t always smooth sailing for the VFX team.
“Whenever something goes wrong on set, we have the ultimate task of trying to figure out this problem that nobody at Chapman has seen before, while communicating with our director and our cinematographer,” Perazzo told The Panther. “We had a couple instances where it got really stressful, and it’s just about keeping your composure. You’re basically reinventing the wheel whenever something breaks.”
Despite on-set challenges, all that pressure may be worth it, as gaining experience early on an LED wall can lead to significant opportunities.
“Because it’s more technically challenging, it’s harder for employers to find people with those skills because it’s newer and the interfaces are not super user-friendly,” Daly said. “So if you're able to work with it, you’ll be in demand. The people with these skills get paid very highly.”
Daly continued: “The animation and visual effects students are getting a lot of internships on stages in virtual production. There’s not that many universities that have access to a virtual production stage, and it really gives our students an advantage when they graduate. It really helps them to learn how to troubleshoot and handle themselves when they face technical difficulties and problem-solving. It’s a very hands-on experience for them.”
As the industry adapts to emerging virtual production technology, LED walls have the potential to expand on-set VFX teams, save time and labor in post-production and contribute to more immersive storytelling on the screen. As for what’s next, Daly is confident that LED walls will expand around the world and eventually become an industry-standard technology.
“It’s still very expensive to use them, but stages with walls are being built all over the world,” Daly said. “The technology evolves and becomes more user-friendly, and that’s what we would need to see for it to be widely adopted. I’m sure that’s what’s going to happen. Generally, that’s always the goal: to make it less expensive and more accessible.”