ARRI Stage London Case Study

As a global technology leader in the film, broadcast, and media industries, ARRI Solutions designs, engineers, builds and operates cutting-edge production environments, including state-of-the-art studios for virtual production, broadcast, corporate and media applications. ARRI’s expertise along with a strong connection to third-party companies and specialised business partners, support the company’s efforts to deliver the most advanced products and services to the industry.

As one of Europe’s largest fixed virtual production facilities, ARRI Stage London provides a premium choice for high-quality feature, episodic television, commercial, and music video projects. Delivered as a collaboration between ARRI and Creative Technology, the facility showcases a state-of-the-art LED volume with creative software platforms, powerful media servers, and the latest ICVFX technologies, all within a dedicated 708m² studio space located at ARRI’s UK premises in Uxbridge, West London.

Project Background

Integrating LED walls in virtual production has brought a transformative shift in the filmmaking industry, however managing colour rendering, accuracy, and consistency is paramount for film production. Visuals that look great on a monitor during the design process can look different on the actual LED screen, which is essential in any film or studio environment where the director of photography and the colourist want to see their creative idea of the look and feel of a production translated into how this is captured on camera. Due to the dynamic nature of virtual production it would be beneficial if real-time adjustments to the LED wall’s output were possible, in order to maintain colour accuracy and consistency.

Project Approach

The LED volume at ARRI Stage London consists of a main in-vision curve, two mobile side screens, a dynamic height-adjustable ceiling, and back curve. The wraparound configuration can be programmed to display 360-degree imagery that even when not in frame, casts dynamic, fully integrated lighting effects onto the performers and the scene being shot.

Mixed reality studio setup at ARRI Stage London

James Willett, an experienced freelance colourist and technical consultant was invited by ARRI Stage London to investigate whether they could grade in realtime into the LED volume, to live grade footage and make on-the-fly adjustments in camera. For the trial James used a bespoke Scan workstation running DaVinci Resolve, powered by an NVIDIA A6000 GPU, AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3955WX CPU, 32GB ECC RAM with 5TB of NVMe SSD storage.

Scan 3XS workstation used for DaVinci Resolve LED volume grading at ARRI Stage London

With some workflow design, it was possible to grade the LED wall, adjusting a plate in realtime and looking at the result on a grading monitor, through the camera lens. Various lookup tables (LUTs - a predetermined array of numbers that provide a shortcut for a specific computation) could also be created and exported if required and on top of that it also acted as a playback station to confidently review the raw, unedited footage.

Project Results

After successful trailing, James reported “The idea of a colourist making adjustments to what is essentially the immersive light source - 'the wall' - in collaboration with the team on set, is quite the ride and the possibilities and workflows for the future very interesting indeed… and that's before we even start talking about the use of Unreal Engine and the world of colour in the virtual world”

DaVinci Resolve workstation setup for realtime LED volume grading

ARRI Stage London LED volume with real-time color grading workflow

The Scan Partnership

James contacted Scan, a regular supplier of his, to discuss his requirements for the LED wall grading workstation. The result was a bespoke workstation designed and built by Scan’s in-house system integration division, 3XS Systems, including a Blackmagic Design DeckLink 4K Extreme 12G SDI card for DaVinci Resolve software.

Project Wins

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Acceleration of workflows with realtime grading of the LED volume via the camera

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Successful proof of concept allows for further investigation for other virtual production workflows

James Willett

Freelance Colourist and Technical Consultant

"Getting in touch with Scan resulted in a DaVinci Resolve system speedily arriving to facilitate the process."

Speak to an expert

You’ve seen how Scan has helped Arri Stage London with their virtual production volume. Contact our team to discuss your project requirements.

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ARRI Stage London Case Study: Realtime LED Volume Grading with DaVinci Resolve