QUT film and animation students, along with creative industries staff, remain at the forefront of the immersive world of virtual production, with the most recent professional development collaboration between the university, the BMW Academy and Sydney company Vizion.
Hosted in the QUT XR Screen Futures Hub, production and acting students were given the opportunity to work closely with film director and owner of Vizion, Mark Grentell who now almost exclusively works in virtual production.
Launched last year, the XR Screen Futures Hub provides the film industry with more efficient production opportunities using cutting edge visual technology in virtual production, extended reality, and motion capture.
Professor Damian Candusso, Head of School, School of Creative Practice at QUT said as well as film and animation, he sees virtual production techniques being used across all areas of production, performance and exhibition including dance, drama, the creation of music videos, game development and the contemporary art.
“This is cutting edge filmmaking technology that has implications for our whole school, as well as offering new ways of imagining ideas for the School of Design through the BMW Academy,” Professor Candusso said.
“The XR Screen Futures Hub connects creative practice, creative industries, and design in its ability to work within the fields of virtual reality and extended realities. It allows us to bring together all those disciplines under the umbrella of those emerging and immersive technologies.
“It’s an acknowledgement we have moved beyond traditional screen content to a far more interactive way of working in and consuming media.
“As part of the Hub, the virtual production technology includes a giant LED screen made up of multiple tiny screens and uses a motion capture tracking system normally applied for animation and tracking characters, but the same technology works with tracking the camera.
“This allows a filmmaker to bring in actors, trackers, and a camera with trackers, to run real time live action shoots or even animation, with a director directing animated characters.
“It also provides options for the recorded data and assets to be used to create additional virtual and augmented reality outputs or other interactive experiences.”
“Vizion are leaders in virtual production in Australia so to have them come and work with our staff and students is incredibly valuable. They have a couple of other companies, one of which is Emergisim, which creates virtual reality simulation to train and develop first responder skills in high threat/low-frequency events.
“As a production technique, virtual production offers so many efficiencies for filmmakers because you can just swap out environments. As a school, we look at how we can capitalise on this, with film students, animation students and acting and drama students gaining valuable experience working with these leading-edge technologies.”
Jordan Domjahn, design associate with the BMW Group + QUT Design Academy said the work being done with the QUT XR Screen Futures Hub complemented some of the skillsets used across projects within BMW Group and the digital design expertise it has developed.
“The BMW M8 Competition Coupé is one of BMW’s flagship vehicles which we are very fortunate to have here at QUT for design teaching and research,” Mr Domjahn said.
It’s great to see additional value of the vehicle for projects like this where it benefits staff and students. The M8 is also a very good-looking car, so having the opportunity to show it off in front of the VP Screen was the ultimate opportunity to showcase it.”
Professor Candusso said there were plans afoot to increase the screen for the XR Screen Futures Hub to further facilitate learning, professional partnerships, and collaborations.
QUT was already partnered with organisations including Queensland Museum on a digital preservation and presentation of environmentally sensitive artefacts using best-practice photogrammetry and motion tracking.
“COVID has really accelerated this technology and from a research and staff development point of view, we’ve been very fortunate as QUT has had this technology available for research and learning and teaching for a few years now,” Professor Candusso said.
“Having a dedicated space with access for vehicles and other large objects is such a great resource for the XR Screen Futures Hub.
“What's interesting is the way that we're using the screen is a hybridisation between traditional filmmaking and game technology.
“We’re constantly looking at how we can increase partnerships with industry so that we can be the R&D arm of the industry, not just for filmmaking but in simulations of health scenarios, education, robotics, research and all sorts of sorts of visualisations where you need to interact with digital environments.”
Main image: QUT Film and TV Alumni Cinematographer Danny Haneman with QUT Acting students Lauren Harvey (left) and Molly Walker. Photo: Tony Phillips
Media contact:
Amanda Weaver, QUT Media, 07 3138 3151, amanda.weaver@qut.edu.au
After hours: 0407 585 901, media@qut.edu.au
