If you’re interested in virtual production and filmmaking, you need to get into the nitty-gritty of the process. And while the government of India is giving more funds to the media & entertainment sector, you must also recognise that there’s immense scope in this sector.
Get to know all about making a career path in virtual production by understanding the different roles to apply for below. If one of these roles fits you the best, get hands-on experience from an institute like Frameboxx 2.0.
Prepare yourself to stand the test of time. Get the best of your experience and knowledge from a diploma, degree, master's, or specialised course.
Know what will the interviewers expect from you. Nail the hiring sessions and build a portfolio that will speak for your work to exceed potential clients' expectations.
So, let’s get started to dive deeper into the virtual production career path post without delays.
4 Top Roles in a Virtual Production Career to Master Right Away in 2024:
Motion Capture Supervisor
A motion capture supervisor gets the data from motion capture graphics or videos. Actors or performers execute the motions, and different camera devices track those. So, a supervisor has a vast role in ensuring the agenda is met when motion capturing has to be done.
For example, a motion gets captured or recorded for a puppeteer virtual character to mimic those actions on the screen.
Either the character mimics the action live on the screen while the performer performs or acts after the shot is recorded under more complex settings inside an animated frame.
Motion capture supervisor ensures to capture the footage accurately with the help of videographers or DOPs on the set. They have to transfer the live footage to the virtual crew later.
Capturing motion graphics and videos requires real-world knowledge of architecture, elements to interact with, storyboarding, the mood of the frame/shot/sequence, etc.
The clarity of thought while capturing the motion helps animators, later on, to create more realistic frames in virtual production.
Systems Administrator
A systems administrator will oversee the IT department of the film or virtual production studio. They check if the management of the IT process and servers is up and running smoothly.
They constantly have to keep surveillance on the hardware and software used by the virtual filmmaking team and crew. Often, the processing and rendering of the film shoots are complex, time-consuming, and take up a lot of space in the memory of the computing device.
When the film editing, production, or even rendering goes on for hours, this will overheat systems and servers. At times, servers can hang or get hacked without proper audits and protection of the layers guarding the server from the backend.
So, systems administrators have really good knowledge of ethical hacking and protecting and maintaining the hardware and software applications. They have a lot of pieces of equipment, from cameras, repair tools, sound gear, communications support, etc.
Overall, they help to tackle the technical challenges and complexities when the creative crew is busy putting it all together behind the screens.
LED Engineer
An LED engineer ensures that all LED panels and lighting are fixed, repaired, maintained, and serviced on time. This helps to improve the quality and standard of the virtual production and the frames shot for the final output.
Lighting plays an important role in filmmaking. It can change the mood and experience of the viewer. Thus, LED engineers help to put up the lighting at a cost-effective rate for the studio and the production houses.
They also get in touch with the line producers to directly communicate the need for various types of setup for the lighting required by a scene or sequence.
LED engineers must have a strong sense of atmosphere, mood, storyboarding, lighting, background contrast, video frames, projection technologies, etc. They have to get smart in terms of communicating, procurement of the lighting equipment and gear, cable management, conflict management, maintaining the signal flow technology, etc.
They must know how to set up and dissemble the light set-up before and after the shot/shoot. After a while, these engineers have experience handling lights, even for a long shoot duration.
LED engineers will also be working closely with more technical people on the film sets like:
- DOPs/cameraman
- Lightman
- Spot boy/girl
- Motion capture supervisors
Video Engineer
A video engineer has to be smart enough to route and maintain video signals from one direction to another on a film set.
The live shoot of a film goes from render node to video processing tools to further get bounced to the individual panels on the shoot and create a halo or magical effect on the set.
This is a complicated process when shooting live-action moves or shots that need to be remixed and recreated in the virtual production process. It requires a strong sense of the geometry of the frames, video signal, and lighting bouncing back for a video engineer.
Such engineers help on the set to optimise the after-effect of the route that the light travels from. These people must know the best practices to get the most desirable output without wasting manpower, knowledge, time, or other efforts.
Professionals leverage video engineers when it comes to broadcasting live shoots for news, sports, or any other events. This is a job that video engineers can also do remotely if the shoot is not live.
The product becomes more interesting when the shoot has to be remodelled on the virtual production engine or studio. Then, such engineers have more time to patch up the work later on when sitting with editors, even from offshore locations.
Conclusion
The blog post talks about 4 top roles you can explore in the era and world of virtual production. Move a step beyond filmmaking with such kind of experience. Build your career and portfolio out of it.
If you’re ready to take the leap, get a diploma or degree course first. Frameboxx 2.0 is such an academy that helps you take virtual production and filmmaking courses online and offline with a blended training approach.