Although we are only 2 episodes into the Game Of Thrones prequel House Of The Dragon, I am deeply enjoying series with its high production values, beautiful cinematography as well as VFX ( visual effects ). The filmmakers now have a powerful new tool in their visual effects/cinematography kit, namely the massive virtual production set/studio made up of a huge array of LED screens that can very effectively reproduce a realistic digital back-lot/environment. This new technology first made headlines with Lucasfilm’s Mandalorian series, called Stagecraft by ILM.

While the volume used for filming House Of The Dragon isn’t ILM’s Stagecraft, the tech behind uses the same concept. Check it out in the making of video below –

There are several huge advantages of using the LED virtual set over the more traditional green/blue screen backdrop; 1) it gives the actors on-set something to act/react against, making their performances more immersive. 2) it provides a much more accurate and beautiful environment light to illuminate the actors, making the final composite frame much more realistic and 3) it removes the much dreaded “blue spill”, blue light cast by the blue/green screen onto the actors which previously must be despilled in post-production by compositors.

Digital backlots like these and Stagecraft are here to stay, and they are much welcomed because they bring such big improvements to the overall visual quality for filmmaking and VFX.


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