Hostage

Soaring to next level filmmaking with Virtual Production

Hostage (Swedish title: Kapningen) is the brand new and second season of STHLM Requiem. During six thrilling episodes, we witness the events taking place throughout one day and one crisis – a plane hijacking. The hijackers demand the release of Said Kehlifi – a Syrian academic arrested under murky circumstances by Swedish intelligence. The plane becomes the pawn in a game between the deep state of Sweden, an unlikely team of investigators, and mysterious hijackers whose real motives are not what they seem.
In this article, we will elaborate on the use of virtual production during the filming of the series.

A pretty fly film set

Coming in from England, the mock-up airplane was imported from England to the shooting location in Brussels as the main set piece. LED screens surrounded the plane construction, extending the film set from the inside of the aircraft with infinite possibilities.

Now, let’s explain (or should we say: explane) where virtual production comes in. Virtual production is where the physical (plane model) and digital (LED screens) worlds meet; it allows for visual effects and animations to be assessed and modified live on set.

Benefits of virtual production

Firstly, with virtual production, the ambient light from the LED screens is cast automatically on set pieces and actors, giving the scene a natural feel immediately and eliminating extra work in post-production. So, no more green screen spill to take in consideration!

It also gives the actors the ability to react instinctively rather than by what they’ve been told will be happening in the shot. This elicits more natural performances.

In addition, it’s in some aspects less time consuming than it would have been when done it in post. In the specific case of Hostage, there were rain droplets on the airplane windows. Rain droplets are an artist’s worst nightmare in terms of keying. So, with virtual production, no keying was required. In addition, the rain droplets refracted the background correctly without having to do any extra work in post.

Challenges of Virtual production

Besides the many advantages that virtual production brings, there are also some challenges

First of all, it involves a lot of previz work. We built a virtual 3D environment of the film set, in which we placed a 3D model of the airplane and some virtual cameras. Looking through those cameras allowed us to make an accurate visualizations of the set; what was visible and what not, how far the camera could turn and move without breaking the illusion of the perspective (since we were still working with 2D screens),… We could then also make an estimate on the size of the LED walls.

Besides, the position of the camera often changed, so we had to make sure we had a fitting render to play on the screens for every position the camera could take up.

Furthermore, the clouds were a somewhat more practical take on virtual production. They were simulated with volumetrics. We ended up with a 16K image since it had to be suitable for print. This was then printed on a canvas of 3 by 15 meters before being hung on trusses. Behind the cloth, a spotlight was hung to position and represent the sun. This way of working ended up being a lot cheaper than a LED wall.

Indispensable in the process of virtual production is a realtime gaming engine. Over the years, the film and television industry have adopted said engines due to their fast render times. And it’s precisely those render times that come in handy during the virtual production, allowing the on-set artists to make adaptations in real-time. In the case of Hostage, we mainly had to use it to tweak the speed of the landing of the airplane live on set.

Example: Approaching the runway as seen from the cockpit.