Dancers outfitted with motion capture sensors. With Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, motion capture technology could possibly render fully animated figures in real time.
Here, Josh Gold and Eric Shamlin, who work every day at the intersection of technology and video, explore how Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband could change how films are made throughout the production process.
INTRO
CHAPTER 1
JOSH GOLD
RYOT
Executive Producer
Preproduction
“Filmmaking is both the most rewarding and the toughest process to go through,” says Josh Gold, executive producer at RYOT. “To make a story you really want to make, you need to find the money for it, make a lot of tough decisions, and it takes a lot of time.”
New technologies allow studios and independent filmmakers to showcase the latest breakthroughs and improve their behind-the-scenes process — and now, thanks in large part to Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, we could see even more democratization of high-quality filmmaking. Creators of all stripes will have the tools at their disposal to produce and share technologically enhanced projects, helping them to realize their vision with less concern about cost, logistics and access. The only limitation will be their artistic vision.
Filmmaking as an art form is certainly more accessible to the audience of viewers than it is for those who make the films. Even with successful independent films, it takes a lot of human and financial resources to bring together support crews, actors, sets and editors, not to mention everything needed in postproduction.
The
Future
of Film
FAST FORWARD
TO 5G
ERIC SHAMLIN
MediaMonks
SVP of Growth
“Traditional location scouts take days or even weeks to complete,” Gold says. “The team of scouts and assistants goes out with a creative mandate and takes thousands of pictures, then brings them back and compiles them for the director.”
For emerging filmmakers who don’t have the means to secure a team of location scouts or purchase their own drone fleet, it’s not hard to imagine a future with “drone sharing” services akin to ride shares, or repositories of drone location footage based on region, topography or setting that anyone can access to determine where they might set a scene.
Whether it’s big studios or independent creators, everyone – including the consumer – will benefit. The faster that directors will be able to scout locations, the faster their production phase will be, resulting in more high-quality film available to everyone.
Drone camera technology has improved massively in recent years, but there’s no immediate way to download and analyze the high-resolution footage. With 5G mobile technology, the large file size and remote filming will be less of a barrier.
CHAPTER 2
Production
“When you do a large national broadcast or livestream, it’s very crew- and equipment-intensive,” says Eric Shamlin, senior vice president of growth at MediaMonks. “There’s usually an entire campground that you form with multiple trucks and trailers, all your cameras and gear. It’s become a cumbersome way of doing work.”
Shamlin explains that some days of filming could require significantly more setup and breakdown time than actual shoot time. And during the pandemic, safety and social distancing also become a factor. But with 5G, we soon may no longer need to transmit all of that data through hardwired connections. Lower latency, higher data rates and increased bandwidth could move production into remote mobile networks and the cloud.
Anyone who’s ever walked by a film set on the street or attended a live sporting event recognizes a production: an army of trucks, miles of cables and hustling assistants. While there’s a method to the madness, current sets are chaotic.
“5G and 5G-enabled cloud-based technologies could reduce the dependency on on-location or on-site technology, engineering and staffing,” Shamlin says. “5G will be able to handle all of that data, instead of lugging around cables and needing a big crew. Your cameras could be wireless. Your data could be wireless. But you need super high data rates, super low latency and a high level of stability to pull it off.”
While the increased safety and efficiency would be invaluable to studios, independent creators will be able to leverage 5G to collaborate virtually. The current process of film editing — clunky, largely because high-quality video files are too big to easily transfer — will likely become streamlined by the ease and speed of sharing files, edits and feedback, in real time, on a 5G network.
CHAPTER 3
Take green screens, which have long been used to easily substitute for backgrounds during postproduction so actors can appear as being filmed virtually anywhere in the universe. With this process, editors need to go back through the footage and painstakingly ensure that the actors appear naturally in front of the new background, including every strand of hair, costume fabric and tiny movement.
“Green screens and current postproduction processes require a lot of manual labor to get it right,” says Shamlin. “They’re extraordinarily time-consuming for a typical film.”
Soon, 5G adoption could translate into huge savings in time and money for studios, while simultaneously empowering the next generation of creative talent. All phases of filmmaking could level up, and old ways of doing things will evolve as technical constraints dissolve.
“In the next two-to-three years, this technology will start to roll out, become ubiquitous and disrupt even the indie filmmaker,” Shamlin says. “You're going to see cameras that are 5G-enabled, where you'll record straight to the cloud. You're going to edit in the cloud. You'll do distributed visual effects in the cloud, all through 5G connections. Independent filmmakers will be able to tap into technologies that even the big guys are using.”
“In the next two-to-three years, this technology will start to roll out, become ubiquitous and disrupt even the indie filmmaker,” Shamlin says. “You're going to see cameras that are 5G-enabled, where you'll record straight to the cloud. You're going to edit in the cloud. You'll do distributed visual effects in the cloud. All through 5G connections. Independent filmmakers will be able to tap into technologies that even the big guys are using.”
Postproduction
A drone outfitted with a camera hovers in Los Angeles, California. In the future, directors and creative leads could review footage as it’s captured, thanks to Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband.
A team deploys a drone to survey cell towers. The same technology used in environmental and maintenance situations today could easily be used for location scouting and footage in the future.
Camera mobility has already seen huge advances in recent years. With Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband and a reduced reliance on hardwired connections, it will expand even more.
The current process of film editing will likely become streamlined on a 5G network.
The prospect of 5G-enabled real-time collaboration on data-intensive projects could usher in a new way of thinking about how films get made. Even the idea of “postproduction,” which refers to all of the work done on a film after shooting, could evolve as editing and visual effects (VFX) increasingly happen in tandem with — or even before — shooting, not in a distinct and separate phase after.
Actors outfitted with motion capture sensors work with a production team at Verizon’s 5G RYOT Lab in Los Angeles.
In recent years, a new innovation has started to replace green screens: massive, high-resolution LED screens, which allow filmmakers to capture computer-generated backgrounds in camera. This means the original shot already includes the generated background, eliminating the need for lengthy postproduction editing work. LED screens add an artistic touch as well, since actors can deliver more realistic performances in front of the scene’s presented background, versus an emotionless green canvas.
An actor performs movements with motion capture sensors for a 5G-powered, animated virtual character.
Among the numerous ways 5G Ultra Wideband can change the preproduction process for filmmakers, location scouting might be the most ripe for disruption.
For each shot, directors and cinematographers might have a setting in mind, but finding the real-world location to match that vision is a time- and labor-intensive task. And most of the time, films require multiple locations to bring a story to life.
SCOUTING LOCATIONS WITH 5G-POWERED DRONE FLEETS
STREAMLINING SETS THROUGH 5G
Merging shooting and editing through powerful mobile networks
Courtesy of RYOT
Courtesy of RYOT
Courtesy of RYOT
Courtesy of RYOT
Courtesy of Ncam
Courtesy of RYOT
Courtesy of RYOT
CHAPTER 1
LED screens — which have been successfully deployed in several recent, massively successful franchises — still come with serious limitations. Due to the high fidelity required, the data transfer loads are massive; LED screens require endless cables and directors still struggle with latency issues.
To reach their full potential, LED screens will get a huge boost from 5G connectivity. You might be able to update, edit and change the background in real time, for example, such as adding in a crowd or removing a tree.
Other aspects of VFX — most notably motion capture, which is able to render animated characters instantaneously while an actor outfitted with sensors moves — will also become streamlined as 5G expands, and up-and-coming filmmakers and their virtual teams will have more powerful animation tools available in the cloud.
But when a scout is equipped with 5G-powered camera drones, they will be able to access previously inaccessible locations, survey more ground in less time and benefit from automated tools for better shots and faster clearance processes. Drones can also enable scouts and creative leads to review footage in the moment, removing several steps from the lengthy sequence.
“Traditional location scouts take days or even weeks to complete,” Gold says. “The team of scouts and assistants go out with a creative mandate and takes thousands of pictures, then brings them back and compiles them for the director.”
LED screens — which have been successfully deployed in several recent, massively successful franchises — still come with serious limitations. Due to the high fidelity required, the data transfer loads are massive, LED screens require endless cables and directors still struggle with latency issues.
To reach their full potential, LED screens will get a huge boost from 5G connectivity. You might be able to update, edit and change the background in real time, for example, such as adding in a crowd or removing a tree.
Other aspects of VFX — most notably motion capture, which is able to render animated characters instantaneously while an actor outfitted with sensors moves — will also become streamlined as 5G expands, and up-and-coming filmmakers and their virtual teams will have more powerful animation tools available in the cloud.
Courtesy of RYOT
An actor performs movements with motion capture sensors for a 5G-powered, animated virtual character.
Soon, 5G adoption could translate into huge savings in time and money for studios, while simultaneously empowering the next generation of creative talent. All phases of filmmaking could level up, and old ways of doing things will evolve as technical constraints dissolve.
“In the next two-to-three years, this technology will start to roll out, become ubiquitous and disrupt even the indie filmmaker,” Shamlin says. “You're going to see cameras that are 5G-enabled, where you'll record straight to the cloud. You're going to edit in the cloud. You'll do distributed visual effects in the cloud, all through 5G connections. Independent filmmakers will be able to tap into technologies that even the big guys are using.”
