SXSW: An Idiot's Guide to Virtual Production

This webinar is not yet scheduled, but the following are summarized to partly address one of the assignment questions ("Who are the main companies using it and why").
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Mariana Acuna is the founder of Glassbox Technologies,  which integrates Virtual Reality into Virtual Production.
Drew Diamond is a consultant at the USC ETC, where he develops R&D projects implementing creative technology.  
Dan Gregorie is the owner and chairman of HALON Entertainment.  He has supervised the VFX for several oscar award films (Birdman, Life of Pi, Avatar) and is a frequent invited guest speaker on the topic of technology and storytelling.
Markus Ristich is the Pipeline Director at Third Floor (recognized for Previsualization) and has been a central figure in reorienting the VFX industry toward Virtual Production.
​As per the SXSW website, the date for this webinar is TBA, -but the guest panel is obviously quite impressive.

Unreal Engine:  The Virtual Production Field Guide

This 98 page text addresses probably everything anyone might want to know about VP.  Page 3 provides the following definition of virtual production (from the 'Moving Picture Company'):
      "VP combines virtual and augmented reality with CGI and game-engine technologies to enable
           production crews to see their scenes unfold as they are composed and captured on set. " 
...

Gabrielle Roberts: Hollywood and the Death of VFX

Gabrielle Roberts, w a degree in computer science and Film & TV, is the owner of her own virtual production (VP) company.  Her presentation provided a nice summary, w slides, of the basics of virtual production, prefaced by a lengthy discussion of the dearth of females in the VFX industry.  Key points from her lecture, which more fully address the assignment questions, include a summary of how VP uses a virtual real world scene placed onto a backdrop which would usually have been a green screen.  The projection is of high quality and can be used as the backdrop for the final scene in the film.  This process bypasses the need for extensive work in post-production (to address all the shortcomings of green screen; Gabrielle oversimplifies VFX as 'the green screen process').  An additional notable benefit is that actors can feel more immersed in a real world setting.  Perhaps the most notable benefit of VP is that it reduces the need to reshoot a green screen scene which might prove to be inadequate for the final production.  In other words, the green screen pipeline involves substantial effort relevant to optimizing camera movements, subsequent match move efforts, and a myriad of CGI details.  VP can circumvent that and allow the scene to be captured in its full state right on set.

Virtual Production and the Indie Film Maker

To address the assignment question "How will VP help the smaller guy", a blog entry from No Film School (Oakley 2018) reviews the relevance of VP for the Indie artist and cites Wess Ball, the director of The Maze Runner:
"The biggest benefactor may be the indie director.  'I want a kid halfway across the world to take their phone and populate a whole world on it with AR'  -said Ball, referring to the effect virtual production tools could (will?) have on the most low-budget, guerrilla filmmakers of today."
In other words, as VP technology continues to develop, low budget filmmakers will probably be able to achieve visual effects that might have otherwise been unattainable. 

Bibliography

Kadner N. (2019).  The Virtual Production Field Guide. pg 3, Epic Games.  

Oakley AM. (2018).  Here's why Indie Filmmakers should consider Virtual Production.
https://nofilmschool.com/2018/03/virtual-production-indie-filmmakers

Roberts, G. Virtual Production: The Tech Revolutionizing Hollywood. 
​https://maddoxevents.my.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/maddoxevents.my/recording/playba ck/c6dfc86559524202933fcf2a20a92727

SXSW, Idiot's Guide to Virtual production.  https://schedule.sxsw.com/2020/events/PP1129024
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