Cutting-edge virtual studio prepares UT students for future film careers
TAMPA, Fla. - Film students at the University of Tampa are preparing for the future with hands-on training inside a virtual studio on campus.
Hidden inside the college campus is a jungle, a mountain range, the flight deck of an aircraft carrier and the surface of the moon thanks to a partnership with Vū.
"It’s a piece of cutting-edge technology that would have been unthinkable for me when I started," exclaimed Aaron Walker, associate professor and chair of the department of film, animation and new media at UT. "I started editing film and now it’s much more difficult to train students for the world because you have to know how to do these 3D elements as well and these other sorts of digital tools. You have to know how to integrate it all."
The studio is relatively small. It’s about 1500 square feet, but one wall features a 30-foot-long curved LED wall that’s basically a gigantic computer monitor. It’s also integrated and connected to a computer that has trackers that are hung and suspended in space that attach to the camera itself.
"So, when you’re actually moving the physical camera, the background will shift and it will match exactly what’s going on within the space because of that camera movement on the track. That’s actually the special secret sauce. That’s the thing that makes it completely professional. It allows you to have a wrap of the image and it makes it look real when you see the final shot," Walker explained.
The goal is to engage with the newest, most cutting-edge form of film and video production, which is called virtual production.
"In the space, we can put any image we want behind an actor and have actually real-life actors and props in front of it and we can change the background to fit whatever we’re doing," Walker stated.
Walker says the benefit to students is unmeasurable.
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"It’s really cool because I get to actually see what the profession I’m going into is. It’s an emerging media," said Hannah Sam, a junior at U.T.
The ability to immerse the actors into the landscape helps sell the overall production.
"By having our own virtual production studio this allows up endless possibilities by having our actors in any location and also them being able to see the locations they're in," stated U.T. senior Hunter Dombroski, "Rather than with green screen you can't see where you are. You kind of have to imagine it and have your actors imagine it to put them in that mindset."
"Having the ability to spend time, class time, hours over the weekend to build your own projects in this space, to dream actively in this space means that when they go into the professional environment they’ll have already worked out all of these very complicated, very difficult to integrate techniques and skills, which makes them employable immediately for the future," Walker said. So, the things they are going to learn here are going to go on their resumes and get them jobs for the next 15 years and that’s extremely important."
Click here to learn more about Vū.
Learn more about UT’s film and media arts program here.