Virtual Production Trends to Watch: NantStudios, Dreamworks, and Unreal Engine Updates You Need to Know

Exciting virtual production trends! NantStudios has created the world’s largest virtual production site at Docklands Studio in Melbourne. Can you imagine a stage with a radiused wall of 6,000 panels measuring 40 feet in height?

Also Unreal Engine’s version 5.2 bringing in the new MetaHuman Animator feature is a big deal for animators and game developers who want to create realistic human characters.

We at Vitrina AI, the global sourcing hub for the entertainment supply-chain, strive to keep you informed of the latest happenings in the industry, so you don’t have to spend countless hours researching and keeping up to date.

Check out the other exciting updates we have in store for you below!

Know more about Vitrina’s partner and content discovery here.

Launch and Expansions of facilities, studios, services & technologies

Sohonet has acquired 5th Kind, a cloud-based video collaboration platform that offers a secure asset management and discovery platform. It facilitates global collaboration, simplifies workflows and optimizes the entire content lifecycle 🇬🇧
Jellysmack and Pocket.Watch announce a $25 million fund to support kid-friendly content creators. The fund will be financed by Jellysmack and exclusively available to Pocket.Watch’s content creators 🇺🇸
Hello Sunshine, a part of Candle Media, announced the launch of Solar, an in-house social agency helping brands connect with women through story-driven advertising 🇺🇸
Fremantle’s Documentaries division has introduced a new label, Undeniable, focused on developing high-quality feature docus and series in collaboration with renowned talents and project commissioners

Adobe has introduced a new family of AI models called Firefly, to incorporate AI into its range of apps and services
Nvidia has revealed its latest cloud services aimed at training generative AI models on customized data. The cloud services include Nvidia NeMo for language models and Nvidia Picasso for generating image, video, and 3D content. These come with pretrained models, data processing frameworks, APIs, and support from Nvidia’s engineering team
Filmustage an AI platform secures $550,000 in funding from Flyer One Ventures, Geek Ventures, Vesna Capital and Imaguru. The platform provides first-of-its-kind service that streamlines pre-production in the film industry providing the ability to break down scripts, and categorize them into scenes, elements like props, costumes and characters 🇺🇸
RED, a high-end digital cinema camera manufacturer, has introduced the RED V-Raptor S35 camera that comes with a Super 35 Sensor that enables full 8K resolution capture, even at 8K 120fps, without downscaling.
UK-based Digital Camera Systems has launched the LDT-V2, a wireless lens encoder that streams frame-by-frame lens data directly to production units 🇬🇧

Anuvu announces three new content partners, Mindvalley, TheSoulPublishing and WaterBear Network to bring creative content to aviation and maritime clients 🇺🇸
Anna Valley and Garden Studios are partnering to create a virtual production studio in central London. The new studio will offer a 150sqm+ volume, crew, and technology at Garden Studio’s premises 🇬🇧
Planetcast Media Services has invested in Desynova, a cloud-native content lifecycle platform, to expand its cloud-based content management capabilities for the global market 🇮🇳
London and Paris-based VFX studio One of Us has formalised its partnership with Doncaster based VFX Roto and Paint team Firebrand VFX to come together for prestigious VFX projects. 🇫🇷 🇬🇧

Banijay Belgium will produce a local version of Banijay reality format SAS: Who Dares Wins, known as Special Forces: Wie Durft Wint, for Belgian broadcaster VTM 🇧🇪
Apple Studios to develop Cesca Major’s novel Maybe Next Time as an Apple Original Film, with Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine as producer and the author as executive producer 🇺🇸
ITV Studios America has acquired adaptation rights to three romantic comedy novels – Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune, Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop and Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club by Canadian author Roselle Lim 🇺🇸 🇨🇦
Warner Bros. to adapt the Spanish version of the ITV franchise Reality Queens (Echte Meisjes) for European markets. To be called In search of Nirvana the show will air in the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Finland 🇳🇱 🇩🇪 🇩🇰 🇸🇪 🇫🇮
Conqueror Entertainment to produce a Mandarin adaptation of Liu Cixin’s sci-fi novel Supernova Era as well as an English Movie & TV series in the US 🇨🇳 🇺🇸

Turkish-German director, Ilker Çatak, announced his next feature, Yellow Letters, a tense drama that explores the moral dilemma faced by a Turkish artist couple who are forced into exile 🇩🇪 🇹🇷
Agustina Chiarino’s new prodco Bocacha Films to co-produce To Say Goodbye, a documentary based on women’s friendship along with Brazilian outfit, Syndrome Films 🇺🇾🇧🇷
Korean actors Kang Ho Dong, Lee Seung Gi, and Bae In Hyuk to star in Brother Ramen, a new reality TV show co-produced by TV CHOSUN and Discovery Channel Korea 🇰🇷
Israeli network HOT has commissioned a romantic drama series from Banijay-owned prodco MoviePlus Productions. Corduroy, follows the story of forbidden love 🇮🇱
Chicken & Egg Pictures and Netflix to launch the Chicken & Egg Pictures R&D Grant, that will provide funding and mentorship to 30 filmmakers for their next documentary 🇺🇸

Swiss distributor, Lightdox, has acquired the global distribution rights to docu-movie Motherland, which is premiering at the CPH:DOX competition 🇸🇪, 🇺🇦 🇳🇴 🌐
DR Sales has acquired sales rights of Behind Every Man, an unconventional restaurant drama from former actors and screenwriting duo Julie Rudbæk and Jesper Zuschlag 🇩🇰
Shloka Entertainments to release Rangamarthanda in the US, an emotional & heart touching tale from South India 🇮🇳 🇺🇸
Distributor Curzon buys UK and Ireland rights for Lois Patiño’s Samsara from Bendita Film Sales, which won the special jury prize at Berlin’s Encounters strand 🇬🇧 🇮🇪 🇪🇸
Syndicado acquires global rights to The Gamer, a docu following Verneri Bona Junkala, a 17-year-old aspiring to be the best e-athlete in Finland. The film debuts at CPH:DOX festival, screening in Nordic:DOX competition 🇨🇦 🇫🇮

MBC Group and NBCUniversal have signed a multi-year licensing deal to broadcast Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation titles on MBC2 🇺🇸 🇦🇪
Disney+ and Walter Presents have acquired Mobile 101, a Nokia Story, a six-part series about the Finnish phone company’s rise and fall. (Italy, Netherlands and Belgium, 🇬🇧 🇮🇪
Swiss network RTS has obtained the rights to the 3D-animated kids series Runes, produced by French studio Les Armateurs, based on a 12-year-old boy who is in danger of being assassinated. 🇨🇭
Marquee TV has partnered with The Washington Ballet and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to showcase new and exclusive content on its platform 🇺🇸 🇬🇧
FilmRise acquired exclusive rights to over 200 hours of content from National Black Television Media’s library for distribution in the US, and the Caribbean 🇺🇸

Zattoo, a streamer and technology specialist, has launched its first proprietary FAST channel, Netzkino, that offers a broad range of movie genres 🇩🇪
Amagi and Mainstream Media AG have partnered to launch “Starke Frauen,” the first female-focused FAST channel 🇩🇪
Blue Ant Media is launching Love Pets, a new pet-themed FAST channel that will be available on Sling Freestream in the United States 🇺🇸
DAZN Rise, a new free FAST channel devoted to women’s sports, is being launched by streaming service DAZN 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 🇦🇹
Rakuten TV added two localised FAST channels in Poland: Grjngo, the world’s largest western film streaming brand with localised versions in German, Spanish, and English, and Bjgtjme, featuring English content dubbed in Polish, both owned by Amogo Networx 🇵🇱

Dolby launched the Dolby Atmos Renderer that combines the functionality of the Dolby Atmos Production and Mastering suites into a single application to enable content creation across music, home theater, television, podcast, and gaming
Dynamic Captioning has partnered with AI-Media to offer their automated captioning solution, LEXI. This three-year partnership enables Dynamic Captioning to sell, bundle, and deploy LEXI as a LEXI Preferred Partner
A tool capable of producing dialogues for non-playable characters (NPC) has been created by Ubisoft, the French video game publisher responsible for popular franchises such as Prince of Persia, Far Cry, and Assassin’s Creed 🇫🇷
Telestream has unveiled PRISM MPP, a new line of multi-format rasterizers designed for post-production. It comprises three models – MPP 100, MPP 200, and MPP 300 – that support high-end video formats like 12-bit RGB for 4K/UHD applications in both SDI and IP 🇺🇸

NantStudios has created the world’s largest virtual production site at Docklands Studio, Melbourne. The two new LED in-camera VFX stages include a 25,000 sq.ft stage, featuring a radiused wall of 6,000 panels measuring 40 feet in height 🇦🇺
Vū, a virtual production service provider, is partnering with London-based video production agency Cube to expand its Vū Studio Network outside of North America 🇺🇸
Dreamworks Animation has made its in-house rendering software, Moonray, available to the public as open-source software 🌐
Unreal Engine’s version 5.2 is set to bring the new MetaHuman Animator feature that will make high-fidelity performance capture to MetaHumans very easy

Sesame Workshop will release its first digital collectibles based on Sesame Street, featuring the beloved character “Cookie Monster” as the first NFT on the VeVe app🌐
Sony has filed a patent to allow PlayStation gamers to trade NFTs across platforms 🌐
NounsDAO Web3 community approved Nouns: A Movie, an animated feature produced by Atrium, with continued production of episodic content. Multiple artists will contribute to create the first cinematic content introducing Nouns to the world 🌐
Geometry Ogilvy Japan has partnered with Alt.vfx, T&DA, New Holland Creative, and THINKR to create a virtually produced film for the launch of aU, a new Web3 metaverse platform brand created by KDDI and WPP 🇯🇵

Keanu Reeves’s franchise film John Wick: Chapter 4 gets a global theatrical release 🌐
Middle East streamer, Shahid, has launched Kamel El Adad, a Ramadan mini-series starring Egyptian actress Dina El Sherbiny and Sherif Salama 🇪🇬 🇦🇪
Recent highest box-office grossing Hindi movie Pathaan starring Shahrukh Khan gets its OTT release on Amazon Prime Video🌐
Japanese fantasy anime film Suzume gets a South Korean theatrical release 🇯🇵🇰🇷