Our Virtual Production studio at ITG Capture is changing the way brands create film and photography. By bringing any and every location to a single location, our clients cut down travel, reduce carbon emissions, and get the creative freedom (and control) they need to deliver game-changing content. Here, our Executive Creative Director, Andrew Park, takes a closer look at how Virtual Production unlocks true, unrestrained creative potential by removing traditional obstacles from your path.
As creatives, we are constantly plagued by a familiar question: ‘what if?’.
What if we had just a little more time? What if we had more budget? What if the client was braver? What if the brief wasn’t so narrow? What if the brand we’re working on was cooler? And the list goes on…
There’s an almost infinite number of reasons why something may not land in quite the way we’d hoped. We often find ourselves lamenting how our perceived creative excellence has been quashed by a variety of factors, all beyond our control.
But, for me, creativity by its very definition is centred around how we overcome all of the above. If the limitations are there, then we literally have to get creative in order to navigate a way around them.
Yes, your budget may mean an eight-day shoot is a pipe dream. The brand you’re working on might be selling sofas, not snowboards. But these kinds of constraints only become a creative dead-end when you’re stuck thinking in straight lines.
And that’s exactly why Virtual Production is so exciting.
Virtual Production’s foundations are heavily rooted in the gaming industry and creating those deep, multi-layered CG environments in which to shoot, and that means the only real limit to what you can do with it is your imagination.
Go where you like. Shoot what you like, when you like, how you like.
You’re not held back by the physical world in which we live anymore. Now, you can build the reality for the idea, and then shoot it. And that can be scary.
‘Safe and familiar’ are much more comfortable territories than ‘exciting and new’, despite the fact that our audiences are largely hungry for the latter.
Much like in the world of gaming from which it derives, Virtual Production forces you to ‘level up’ your creativity, from concept through to execution.
You can be truly original in your thinking, and you can do so every time you’re tasked with bringing a campaign to life. Your creative canvas is now limitless, so what are you going to do with it?
Want to shoot the splendour of a Greek temple on the side of an Alpine mountain without dragging your equipment for thousands of miles, only to be scuppered by the weather? Want to capture the claustrophobia of an orbiting space station without weeks of post-production? Do it.
Love the idea of shooting in downtown Tokyo at night on New Year’s Eve, but fear the client’s purse strings won’t stretch as far as shutting down a city? Simply build your own Tokyo.
The point is that, with Virtual Production, these ideas are no longer out of your reach, out of your timeframe, or out of your budget.
In short, you can no longer hide behind ‘what if?’ – because any restriction on your creative thinking was never there in the first place.
Want to find out more about our Virtual Production capabilities? Fill in the form below, or contact hello@teamitg.com
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