Why Virtual Production and AI are prompting ‘new old fashioned’ storytelling

Creative Moment sat down with Distortion Studios’ Ed Vosper and Stephen Boyd to discover the new world of creative possibilities Virtual Production brings to 21st-century storytelling.

Tom Hall (TH): How can Virtual Production and AI help unleash creativity?

Edward Vosper EV): The prospect of ‘perfect repetition’ is a game changer for content creation.

Creatives can load up the same set, with the same lighting, every time. Meanwhile, content creation is undergoing a radical reinvention thanks to AI tools like Midjourney and Firefly. They're making impressive moving images that are accessible on a small budget, so there's definitely a lot of scope for tools that will help creatives build things on demand, limited only by the imagination.

An advertising exec was saying a few years back that it would be great if you could just stand in an LED set and say “place me on a tropical beach with trees and water flowing”. He imagined a time when you could just speak a command, and then, prompted by his instructions, the world he described appears. This is now pretty much a reality thanks to these tools and Unreal software. It might not be perfect, but you can get 80% of the way there and finesse it.

Stephen Boyd (SB): An often-forgotten advantage of studio shooting is accessibility and sustainability. Flying crews around the world is costly and extremely carbon-heavy, this doesn’t fit with a lot of clients and brands these days.

TH: How can agencies get inside a brand’s mindset using this new tech?

EV: A good starting point is to look for inspiration from the aesthetics and narrative tropes that their audience consumes. For example, if it’s a high-end client, look at what Porsche and Ferrari are using.

There’s certain adverts that just stick with you because of the powerful and imaginative visual world that an agency created. In the 90s there were a lot of surreal ‘uppers’, like the Reebok, ‘Belly’s Gonna Get You’ advert by agency Lowe Lintas below.

I think advertising would do well to embrace being weird and provocative again and exploring Virtual Production will allow people to take a few more risks creatively, with increased potential for creative world-building around your brand.

SB: On TV, my favourite creative category has always been perfume ads. They’re trying to sell a scent, but you don’t get to smell it, so I find it interesting to see what they do, and I always enjoy the abstract ideas used. There’s a great Virtual Production ad for Nina Ricci in which she’s climbing apples.

TH: When shooting Virtual Production is the physical element still important? Having props and so forth.

EV: Virtual Production is a ‘new old fashioned’ way of approaching filming. 

It is certainly easier for actors to immerse themselves in what they’re doing if there are some visual prompts. If there's, for example, a motel room in America displayed on the LED screen, they've got something to go off visually to inspire them, as well as orientate them. An actor’s ‘eyeline panning’ is important for authentic visuals.

We did a shoot recently that was all green screen and we were struggling for one of the scenes with eyeline issues. The presenter had no reference point. They were just looking at a green screen.

TH: Are there fears that AI and Virtual Production will take away the role of creatives?

SB: It’s possible some specialisms will be impacted or will have to evolve, much like when CDs replaced vinyl. But this sort of technological revolution generally increases the demand to push what’s possible, creatively.

Work has historically expanded to fill the time saved, so people will get more and more ambitious creatively. Meanwhile. we’ll see more mind-blowing visuals and more creative work around us in our everyday lives.

Image credits: Distortion Studios