DIT Peter Marsden on small-scale virtual production in „Retribution“ 

Peter Marsden is a UK-based DIT who has worked in the camera department his entire career, even before digital became the standard. Now, with many years of experience and an impressive list of international productions under his belt, Peter often had the opportunity to work on films using the latest digital film technology. In this interview, Peter discusses the use of small-scale virtual production in the action thriller ‘Retribution’. 

In Peter’s words, “Retribution is a movie about a man driving his car around Berlin, and he’s unable to get out of it because there is a bomb – so it’s kind of like a hostage situation.” As Peter recalls, most of the car scenes were filmed on location in the streets of Berlin, which made „that part of filming pretty straightforward”. The production used a so-called „buck“, a gutted car mounted to another vehicle, to shoot those scenes: „They went to the scrapyard and got a Mercedes-like SUV. It was a crashed one, so god knows what happened to it; maybe it crashed on the motorway or something. So, they turned it into a buck, and they put it on a loader to travel around the street. It’s very standard, really, for that sort of project.“ 

However, the script suggested a scene that couldn’t be approached in that same way. At one point, the main character, played by Liam Neeson, finds himself in a car chase through a tunnel meant to resemble Berlin’s Tiergartentunnel. While the shown tunnel entrance actually exists at Adenauerplatz in downtown Berlin, the inside was entirely recreated with virtual production. You can take a look at the finished scene here, starting at 1:51 minutes: 

VIRTUAL PRODUCTION VS. OTHER OPTIONS 

Peter points out that “it would’ve been very expensive to actually close off the tunnel and film in the street,” so they had to find a workaround: “One option was to do a back projection or green screen, but they ended up deciding to do virtual production.” Since Peter came on to the production relatively late, when they were already shooting, he wasn’t involved in the initial decision-making. However, he agrees that virtual production was the way to go. Peter sees clear downsides of using green screens or back projections for simulated travel, first and foremost the fact that „it’s just much more visible. We see it on television all the time, where a production has just been on the cheap.“ The limitations are especially apparent when it comes to perspective and interactivity. Working in an LED volume, on the other hand, allowed them to get a very realistic and more cinematic result: 

Most importantly, they were able to mimic the light effects that you would expect when traveling through a tunnel, such as light reflecting „off the tunnel walls, on the glass of the car, and on your skin.“ In addition to looking more natural, this also aids the actors’ performances, as Peter stresses: „With the virtual production screen, every pixel is a light source, so you can do more interactive lighting. The actors then have something to react to, especially if it’s a curved screen, so they can see where they are and get a real sense for the setting.“

Since we were doing simulated travel, there was a bit of supplemental lighting for the sake of interactivity.”

So, for this specific scene, what did the setup actually look like? Center of attention was obviously the car, which was placed right in front of the virtual production screen. The background plates of the tunnel were shot by VFX service company Brownian Motion. The LED panels including a ceiling piece were built with four Brompton processors. To add even more perspective, they also incorporated „two floating sections of the LCD panel. One of them could be angled, but it wasn’t a full 360-degree screen”. While they took advantage of the ambient light of the LED screens as their main light source, they also used additional lighting tubes to get the desired look and feel: “Since we were doing simulated travel, there was a bit of supplemental lighting for the sake of interactivity. We used Astera tubes that were mapped into the screen to mimic tunnel lights. The LED panels can actually be quite soft. So, having the windscreen in and having some tubes effectively mapped the ceiling lights of the tunnel as they passed by.” 

VIRTUAL PRODUCTION WITH LIVEGRADE STUDIO 

The LED panels were controlled via the Livegrade Studio integration with Brompton, which allowed Peter to make adjustments on the spot. At that point, he hadn’t even heard about the integration and was quite surprised by its possibilities. Asked about his favorite aspect, Peter didn’t take long to respond: „Using the Livegrade and Brompton integration allowed us to keep things straightforward on set, which was a huge time saver, and saved us from lots of potential misunderstandings.“ He elaborates: “The main advantage is being able to communicate so easily with the DP. You see, normally, I would ask one of the lighting technicians to make adjustments, but they may not necessarily understand the nuance of the DP’s technical language.” 

We’re doing what we normally do, but we’re doing it to the environment rather than just the camera.”

Peter stresses that this is, by no means, meant disrespectfully. It rather speaks to the fact that collaboration on set is sometimes challenged by differences in expression, technical lingo, or simply personal communication habits. Since Peter spent a lot of time with DP Flavio Martínez Labiano, he was quickly able to read between the lines: “After a few weeks, I had developed a relationship with Flavio. I was able to walk over to him and understand when he said „cool” it meant that he wanted the image to be more green or cyan.” With Livegrade Studio, he could then immediately implement the changes, which was pretty straightforward, according to Peter: „We’re doing what we normally do, but we’re doing it to the environment rather than just the camera.“ Even with virtual production, at the end of the day, “you’re still working with an image.” 

Sometimes, especially when lots of different people and workflow steps are involved, maintaining the DP’s creative vision for those images becomes hard. For example, neither Peter nor Flavio were involved when the virtual production plates were prepared. This created some challenges on a second virtual production set: “The opening scene is set in an imaginary apartment building that’s supposed to be some fake skyscraper in Berlin that overlooks the typical scenic attractions. The plate was completely CG’d and had gone around the globe a few times to some different visual effects companies. By the time they got back to us, Flavio wasn’t pleased with the color. So, we visited Lutz Forster, a colourist in Berlin, to make sure we had the right starting point on set.“ Next Morning, firstly, the lighting was adjusted to get the atmosphere closer to the desired look: „It’s supposed to be a beautiful sunrise. So what we did was remove a small portion of the LED panel and put an old 300-tungsten lamp in there to get the sunrise.” The LED panels were then further adjusted with Livegrade Studio, which shifted the creative control back to where it belongs: the DP. 

Rather than having to leave Livegrade to go to a different software, it’s all there in front of me.”

Experiencing how seamlessly Livegrade Studio integrates into virtual production environments definitely simplified Peter’s life on set. Being able to not only control the LED screens but also facilitate other standard DIT tasks within the same software was „a big bonus“, as Peter describes: „Rather than having to leave Livegrade to go to a different software, it’s all there in front of me. That’s surprisingly important. I can control the router, record video, pull up references, and have color grading all in the same place.” Livegrade Studio stores all information in a central library, keeping things organized and transparent – even after a project is finished: „Being able to keep the whole project in a library is a big thing, especially for referencing. At the end of a project, I hand everything over to production, and they probably never use it. But, if any reshoots are happening, hopefully, they’ll remember to give the DIT that hard drive with my library on it and all the folders full of reference material. That’s actually happened on a couple of projects for me where I’ve had to take over, and I could just load the references into a library slot and start working with them. It makes things easy.“ 

You want simple day-to-day so that you don’t need to worry about it when things suddenly do get complicated because of other, unexpected factors.”

As an experienced professional in the camera department, Peter knows just how important straightforward workflows and user-friendly tools are: „One of my things always has been to try and keep things simple on set. Because, you know, you want simple day-to-day so that you don’t need to worry about it when things suddenly do get complicated because of other, unexpected factors.“ 

CONCLUSION 

As outlined in this article, virtual production has great potential for creating very realistic-looking environments when locations are inaccessible or fully fictional. Due to constant technological advances, Peter also notes that virtual production is truly gaining momentum: „It’s a new tool, and the screen technology is getting better and better. That’s one of the reasons why virtual production is now a big thing.“ However, he also stresses that virtual production should be treated as one tool among others, not as the solution to everything. Sure, virtual production can be more feasible, faster, or cheaper than shooting on location, but that’s certainly not a given. In fact, it can be quite the contrary when we think of the large-scale game engine workflows we’re seeing lately. To let the technology shine and add true production value, a careful and honest evaluation must happen on a case-by-case basis. Make sure to also check out this interview with virtual production specialist Peter Canning for further perspectives on the topic. 

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