We just did a shoot for a short horror film using our virtual production setup, shooting about 15 minutes of script over 15 hours of production. We’re making this film for the Louisiana Film Prize, a short film competition taking place in October 2023.
One of the things that made the shoot go so smoothly was the fact that we made a storyboard ahead of time using MetaHumans. Most of the cast and crew was new to virtual production, and the storyboard gave them insights into what we’d be shooting and how it would work. We were also able to use the same camera setups from Unreal Engine to get the backgrounds up in seconds, and to pose the actors according to the storyboard.
Check out our video about the process:
One of the best aspects of doing storyboards and production with Unreal Engine and MetaHumans is the way the cast and crew responded. Everyone was excited to be part of this new technology, and many came up with creative ideas on the fly. Because it’s so easy to adjust the background, lights, and camera angle, we were able to try different things and get a lot of footage for the editor to play with.
We’ll have more as we get into post and complete the film.