Insights From NAB NY 2024 & Virtually Everything Summit

Introduction

For regular readers of our blog posts and articles, you might be wondering, who is Peter Emery? I am a recent hire into the Labs department here at Puget Systems as the Technology Advisor for the Media and Entertainment Industry, and I’m looking forward to providing you with new content related to media and entertainment. Although I have only been at Puget Systems for a few weeks, I was given the opportunity to fly to New York with our marketing team to attend the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in New York and the Virtually Everything Summit. Both events were terrific, and I wanted to share my experiences.

For those unfamiliar with NAB, it is a show that occurs multiple times a year in different locations. It unites professionals in the broadcast, media, and entertainment industries to explore, connect, and learn about the latest innovations and trends driving content creation and distribution.

Prior to the start of NAB NY, Puget Systems also sponsored the Virtually Everything Summit (VES), hosted at Mediapro Manhattan and presented by Vū and AMD. At this event, influential members within the industry gathered to discuss workflows, cutting-edge technologies related to virtual production workflows, and the evolution of visual effects and their incorporation into modern-day virtual production.

Attending both events highlighted the importance of collaboration, adapting to new technologies, and advancing new practices in content production. At NAB NY, there was a focus on bridging the gap between on-prem and remote workflows. At Virtually Everything, there was a strong emphasis on utilizing virtual production to address creative challenges without sacrificing authentic storytelling. Even though both events had different focal points in addressing the challenges that the media & entertainment industry currently faces, they each highlighted solutions that will help the industry scope, scale, and distribute content to meet the demands of the industry.

NAB NY

NAB NY is a much smaller show than its counterpart in Las Vegas. However, there were still many exhibitors, panel discussions, and keynote sessions to check out. After walking around the show floor and attending several sessions, a few topic points stood out.

The first is that data is king. With content becoming more accessible across different platforms, there is a growing need for data to be stored and managed in a centralized location that allows for remote access and real-time playback with on-prem/off-prem workflows. One of the effects of shifting data into a decentralized environment is the emergence of new workflows that follow the data journey. Teams can work simultaneously on a project in one location and assign tasks related to that project in another location, knowing that the assets needed for the project are housed in one centralized location.

For instance, production teams can film remotely, where they rely on external teams to capture footage in a different location and upload that data to the cloud for other team members to access. From there, the data can be accessed by post-production team members, who can review, ingest, and piece together the content.

Another topic that stood out is the use of AI to streamline post-production workflows. When it comes to post-production tasks, such as editing, AI is helping editors work faster and more efficiently by automating certain clicks and tasks, allowing editors to stay in the flow of the edit and reducing time spent on tasks that interrupt their workflows. Moreover, AI is helping colorists match color and apply creative looks to footage with the single click of a button. Finally, AI is helping media managers with metadata and archiving. Instead of manually tagging media assets, AI can automatically tag assets for archival and storage purposes, making it easier to ingest and extract them for repurposing content.

Virtually Everything Summit

The Virtually Everything Summit had no shortage of speakers and industry professionals to share their insights into modern-day virtual productions. There was a mix of keynote sessions, fireside chats, breakout sessions, and panels sharing their experiences in virtual production.

Adapting to New Virtual Production Technology

Virtual production has existed since the beginning of film. No, Charlie Chaplin did not have access to tools such as Blender, Maya, and Unreal Engine. But he did utilize visual effects in-camera that made his viewers genuinely feel what they saw was real. Virtual production has continued to evolve since then, utilizing virtual sets and production techniques to process imagery that is either impossible or too costly to produce IRL.

However, pain points still exist, and the industry is adapting to new technologies in virtual production, such as using LED walls to produce creative content that is authentic and cost-effective. There are many benefits to using LED walls, such as generating environments precisely to spec. Art teams can access the tools and technology to help enhance and/or change an environment in real-time. Another benefit is that lighting can be more accurate. With traditional green/ blue screen productions, there may be issues with lighting where the light of the green/blue screen spills onto talent, which could complicate efforts to key out and match the color of the intended environment in post-production. With LED walls, the color from the LED walls reflects a more accurate representation of light, shadows, and reflections that makes the footage feel like it was realistically shot on location.

There are challenges that come with adapting to LED walls for virtual productions, such as shifts in workflows, resources, and costs. There is a heavier reliance on the pre-production and pre-visualization processes where concept art, grey-boxing, and blocking need to be locked in prior to production. This requires a lot of collaboration between the visual art departments (VAD), creative directors, director of photography, as well as internal and external stakeholders prior to shooting to ensure that production day is successful.

A big benefit of using LED volumes is the human experience. Cast and crew can immerse themselves in the final environment and feel as if they are on location, giving them a new perspective on set. Directors and cinematographers can evaluate the image they see in-camera in real-time. This provides them with real-time information that can guide the image they are producing, the technical directions needed to communicate to cast and crew, and any additional creative decisions that need to be made.

Virtual Production Workflows Using LED Walls

The workflow for producing content in a virtual production environment is still a work in progress. Industry professionals are testing many methods to evaluate the most sustainable and cost-effective workflows that include resources such as hardware, software, time, and labor. A common workflow that came up in conversation at the event was divided into three sections: pre-production, shoot day (production), and post-production.

Pre-production is where the magic happens. Creative concepts such as concept art, style-frames, and storyboards are developed in preparation for shoot day. However, a middle step occurs between the magic and production. This middle step of pre-production is where everything comes together, where VADs, CDs (Creative Directors), DPs (Directors of Photography), and stakeholders develop the art and technicals for production day. This step should be the most exciting as it is the day when everything gets to go on the big screen for the first time! It is the transformation of a concept into reality. If this step is not prepared in advance, then production days will be spent fixing problems versus producing content to its maximum creative potential.

Within this pre-production phase, there will be a need to develop assets such as 3D models, environments, lighting, camera tracking data, camera movement data, and final looks. In some cases, an editor will be available on-site to implement select takes into the edit timeline so that a rough cut of the edit can be seen in real-time. Within this workflow, hardware is essential for running software applications that can process assets, data, and other production elements in real-time. In addition to hardware, the software must also be able to playback the content running in the program in real-time.

Common software that is utilized throughout this pre-production process may include Cinema4D, Blender, Maya, Houdini, and Unreal Engine. Additional software such as Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Adobe After Effects, and Nuke may be used in post-production for final tweaks, polishes, and encoding.

Panel Discussion with Eric Brown

In one of the panel discussions titled “Inside the Tech,” Eric Brown, Marketing Manager at Puget Systems, and Abraham Islas, Sales Director of CPU Global Component Channel, joined Tim Moore, CEO of Vū Technologies, to discuss the collaboration between Puget Systems and AMD and how their technologies came together to help Vū power virtual productions.

Conclusion

NAB NY and the Virtually Everything summit was an amazing experience to learn about the latest media & entertainment industry trends and everything related to virtual production. The environment we immersed ourselves in for the week provided a collaborative experience that further enhanced our knowledge and brought us closer to the people at the forefront of the industry. We hope the conversations we had from both events further push the industry forward into new realms of content production and give this amazing community of fans, career professionals, and tech enthusiasts a sense that we are here to help provide them a helping hand in their content production journey.

Thanks to all of our partners who helped make both events a success! We look forward to seeing you all at NAB NY in 2025 and the next Virtually Everything summit.

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