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April 19, 2022

Construction Begins on LED Film Stages in Vancouver

Versatile Media Ltd. announces its Premiere LED Stages, Film Centre and Global expansion.

Versatile Media Ltd. Vancouver, Canada has confirmed the location of its new Vancouver film studio, which will include multiple soundstages, both traditional and LED, totaling 43,000 square feet purpose-built for live-action filming. The film complex is strategically located in South Burnaby near Marine Way, but more importantly it will house Versatile’s first permanent virtual production LED volume in Canada, which is promised to be one of the largest feature-rich LED stages in North America.

Versatile will take occupancy of the building in December 2022 which will provide a traditional soundstage as well as coinciding amenities including paint and sawmill, dedicated costume areas, general offices space, and parking to accommodate a full production. The new building will complete the full-cycle virtual production pipeline service that Versatile Media has been developing over the past five years.

In 2021 Versatile opened its Canadian headquarters on Pandora Street offering performance capture and visualization stages embracing the industry’s drive towards real-time production. Services offered include virtual location scouting, previz, techviz and stuntviz enabling full editorial of sequences and camera blocking for principle photography. The Burnaby location will complete their services offering an end-to-end virtual production and LED stage workflow to the global industry.

Steve Read, VP and Head of Studio for Versatile Media Ltd, Canada explains. “Filmmakers are embracing Virtual production to better serve the creative process. We want to empower filmmakers and expand the limits of what is possible with our technology. Our ultimate goal is to accelerate and nurture great storytelling and allow film production to catch up to the tremendous changes of distribution demanded by its appetite for global content.”

When founder and CEO of Versatile Media, Leo Lee, completed his first feature film as a director, he began developing solutions for filmmakers to release the creative process from any technical limitations. The company began to invest heavily in technology that would augment the filmmaking process. At first these tools were created for internal use and to make the film process more efficient, but after experiencing the creative freedom and success these advancements provided, the company’s endeavors turned outwards.

Not just another LED stage. Empowering Filmmakers.

Versatile’s Vancouver LED volume will comprise of 12,000 LED panels creating a 270-degree cylindrical volume spanning nearly 90 ft (27.5 meters) diameter with a connected flat ceiling at 30 ft (9 meters) and will integrate Epic’s Unreal Engine and powered by NVIDIA GPU technology. More importantly Versatile’s research and development team worked tirelessly to fully resolve the moiré effect allowing the Versatile LED panels to be filmed from any angle while in focus and up to 6 ft (2 meters) proximity of the panels. Other core cinematography features include, low latency camera tracking, filming up to 8k resolution at 120 fps, integrated virtual and physical DMX lighting console for creative lighting and colour management as well as integrated camera focus pull allowing DPs to adjust focal length as part of the brain-bar system.

“After we developed the technology, we realized how it could empower filmmakers everywhere. Film is a collaborative art. Going global is about making it possible for the best talent everywhere to work together to create better end products. We are breaking down the barriers between animation and live action workflows so that talented artists from both industries can cross over and participate, to create more potential for storytelling. I look forward to seeing exciting creative work produced in our Vancouver studios and seeing our global industry embrace new filmmaking techniques.” – Leo Lee, CEO & Founder, Versatile Media Ltd.

The building complex that is being developed by Beedie will be completed by late 2022 and ready for productions by early 2023.

Founded in 1954, Beedie is Western Canada’s largest private industrial developer and property manager, having completed more than 35 million square feet of new development, with an ever-expanding industrial portfolio of over 11 million square feet. With over six decades of building for good, Beedie has traditionally specialized in the development of state-of-the-art industrial business parks and build-to-suit facilities having customized space for both national and international companies to meet its clients’ present and future building requirements.

“Versatile Media’s LED sound stage centre represents the first purpose-built LED film stages in Beedie’s portfolio. With the continued growth of film in BC, we’re very excited to welcome Versatile and look forward to supporting their continued growth.” – Blake Asselstine, Vice President, Asset Management with Beedie

Versatile Media’s Global Plans

In addition to Vancouver’s stages, the global initiatives will also see the construction of a 12 acre film base in Hangzhou where, among other installations, 5 LED volumes will be built, in addition to their 2 existing LED stages, as well as capture and visualization stages.

As a filmmaker who has worked in the entertainment & advertising industry for over 30 years, CEO and Founder, Leo Lee has served in many capacities, from CG artist to cameraman, director and screenwriter, and thus brought his varied experience into the design of Versatile’s technology.

The goals for the company are to contribute to the technological transformation taking place, empower filmmakers everywhere and to bring audiences completely new experiences.

We look forward to sharing and being a part of the revolutionary transformation in filmmaking with producers and studios, across the globe.

Behind the scenes on Versatile LED stage set

About Versatile Media Ltd.

Versatile Media Ltd. is a global media company founded in 1993. The company has over 450 creative and technical artists and R&D staff, globally. The newly created North American virtual production studios are headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. The company has built a full cycle virtual production workflow for both servicing the film and small screen film industry as well as producing its own IP and co-produced projects.

For more information please contact:

Roula Lainas, Marketing & Business Development Executive
Versatile Media Ltd.
Vancouver, Canada
roula@versatile.media

versatile.media
#filmversatile #versatilemedia

April 13, 2022

Meet Us In Las Vegas

We have 3 exciting presentations, networking and news on our global expansion.

Saturday, April 23rd @ 2:40pm

Kicking off NAB 2022, this years’ Devoncroft Executive Summit, in its 12th year running, will showcase many of the industry’s market research and the latest trends. Our VP, Steve Read is honoured to join industry veterans on a panel talking about virtual production and the future of filmmaking.

Sunday, April 24th

By invitation only, this year at NAB 2022 Absen, Versatile Media, and NVIDIA are co-presenting a virtual production solution unlike any other – The Versatile Stage.

We are presenting a new excellence in virtual production solutions and are excited to share the stunning results. From precise set-up of NVIDIA GPU power, customized Absen LED panels, to Versatile’s patented brain-bar solutions that, together will set new industry standards. We are excited to share with filmmakers our innovations empowering the art of film.

The presentation will feature the debut of the sci-fi short film shot within The Versatile Stage, followed by an in-depth demonstration of how the film was shot in an immersive LED volume.

Directed by Leo Lee

On a distant planet, human explorers are forging a new future on a brutal, resource-scarce world. A mother and her young daughter battle for survival together, and sometimes against one another, as they fight to stay alive with humanity’s punishing new rules. How far will mankind go to forge roots in a new, untamed environment? What endures when civilization is gone and survival is all that is left?

“Together with two of our key collaborators, Absen and NVIDIA, I’m very excited to share with everyone two of Versatile’s creations: our film and the technologies and workflows we designed to empower the art of filmmaking.” – Leo Lee, Founder and CEO, Versatile Media

Our collaboration with both ABSEN and NVIDIA are key elements to our LED volumes.

“NVIDIA has been working since our inception to empower artists with advanced technology to bring their visions to life. We’re excited to join forces with Versatile Media and Absen at NAB to showcase the very latest breakthroughs in real-time production that will enable the next generation of creativity.” – Rick Champagne, Global Media & Entertainment Industry Management, NVIDIA

Even though Sunday is an exclusive showing, the presentation will be open to the public on Monday, April 25 9:30AM at the Absen booth. Catch us in person or online live streamed via Absen channels at YouTube @Absen and on Facebook @LEDAbsen.

Monday, April 25th

Glimpse of our Virtual Production workflow

The Dell Talks @ NAB 2022 is an open presentation hosted by Dell Technologies, NVIDIA and IABM. We are excited and honoured to be part of this series taking place at IABM’s BaM Zone in N116, off the central boulevard of the Las Vegas Convention Centre. Join our VP for North America, Steve Read and both our Virtual Production Supervisors, Chelsea Shannon and Raphael Gaudin where they will present A New Era of Filmmaking covering our production workflow focused on the foundation of real-time filmmaking and moderated by Lorenzo Zanni, Head of Knowledge at IABM.

Planning on attending NAB? Drop by the Absen Booth #C8915 Central Hall and meet our team and learn about our LED and Virtual Production pipeline.

October 16, 2021

Virtual Production begins here

Vancouver is now home to Real-Time Virtual Production & Visualization Studio.

Versatile Media Ltd. has just announced the official opening of its premiere Performance Capture studios in Vancouver, Canada.

Located in the Ironworks building, Versatile Media studios’ 12,000 sq ft unique location houses 2 motion tracking stages running on an Unreal pipeline. At 3,500 square feet each and located in the Port Town district of Vancouver’s east side, they serve as the company’s Canadian headquarters.

Our Vancouver studio is a purpose-built virtual production facility that offers benefits to both live-action and fully animated productions.

The Performance Capture stages include 70 Optitrack cameras running on Motive 3.0 for ultra-precise camera tracking for next-gen filmmaking, integrated into the real-time engine Unreal. Virtual Camera Systems (VCS) together with game engine tech that replicates a physical cinematographic filming experience. Full pro-stunt rigs are also set up for extreme motion capture choreography within a 22’ ceiling clearance. A VR system for location scouting (HTC Vive and Oculus Quest), full body, face and intricate hand performance technology for lifelike animation. Ability to capture up to 6 performers at the same time in a fully soundproof sound stage, which allows for voice and audio recording.

The second stage was exclusively built for Visualization and Cinematography and also boasts a 22 ft. ceiling clearing and fully soundproof. This previsualisation stage is again equipped with Optitrack solution, real-time streaming into Unreal engine and a VR system allowing directors to shoot their scenes, explore and build their edit as a precursor to continuing the virtual production workflow to LED volumes.

For live-action projects, our motion capture stages are designed to Pre-Vis complex shots or sequences enabling directors and cinematographers the freedom to explore and resolve the editorial process ahead of principle photography. Our workflow can deliver exact camera movement and lensing information to live-action crews reducing time and risks when on-set and on location. This gives assurance to producers, directors and on-set crews, who can now deliver the complex sequence with efficiency.

Due to the recent advancements combining game engines with other technologies such as photogrammetry, the virtual world can replicate the real world with such accuracy that it offers significant advantages to the whole filming process. Starting with ‘virtual scouting’ where scouts can plan locations using digital photogrammetry data. This same data can then be repurposed to create the photorealistic digital sets for use with LED technology during principal photography.

For 3D animated productions, we introduce live-action workflows that benefit animated content including cut sequences for games. The advantages of such a workflow promote faster creation of content and enable your creative leaders the ability to explore the story and editorial processes in a real-time environment. This leans animation productions towards a live-action on-set workflow that will drastically increase the efficiency of the creative process.

Integrated into Versatile’s studio is a team of senior digital artists that have developed creature tools, digital environments and have solved the virtual production key pipeline challenges. Having this team located onsite allows clients & creatives the assurance for on-the-spot interaction problem solving to meet the demands of production. The purpose built stages and artist pit are separated by a 30′ folding wall that opens to enable integration of the digital and production teams when needed.

The 12,000 sq foot studio also has a theatre room with a 172” screen for reviewing the daily output of production shots.

Our mandate as a studio is to provide filmmakers with our pipeline’s abilities without them needing to learn the technical complexities of the virtual world. Enabling them to use their experience and knowledge without being occupied by the technology itself.

– Steve Read, VP and Head of Studio

Consulting on the strategic development for Versatile’s technical services is Industry veteran Nancy Basi. Most recently, Ms. Basi was the Executive Director of media +entertainment for the Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC) where she worked strategically to promote and grow the digital entertainment and interactive industries for the City of Vancouver. Included in her file was film, VFX, animation, gaming, post production, music, VR/AR and esports. Her unique 360 perspective to screen based entertainment when applied to trade, investment and talent initiatives, developed new ecosystems and cross sectoral opportunities enabling business and job growth. Prior to joining the VEC Nancy had a 20 year career in the film industry in physical production, visual effects, animation and studio management.

Joining the Versatile team combined my passion for the screen- based entertainment industry and the technology that supports it. Versatile offers the complete solution from creative development, real-time previsualisation, motion capture to final delivery. Versatile choosing Vancouver as its North American headquarters to develop their virtual production workflow will be a huge asset to our film and animation industry.

Nancy Basi, Strategic Development, Technology

Our Vancouver Performance and Visualization studios are open for bookings, demos and tours by reaching out to our business development team or by emailing sales@versatile.media

About Versatile Media Ltd.

Versatile Media is a global film production studio founded in 1993. The company has over 500 creative and technical artists and R&D staff working together from its multiple international studios.

The company also has IP projects in development and is actively seeking co-production opportunities to produce within a virtual production workflow.

Vancouver’s purpose-built full service virtual production studios are located in the newly developed Ironworks Building in the heart of Vancouver.

For more information please contact:

Roula Lainas, Marketing & Business Development Executive

Versatile Media Ltd.

Vancouver, Canada

roula [at]versatile.media

June 29, 2021

Versatile Media Builds its 2nd , and Largest LED stage To-Date

As Virtual Production techniques hit the ground running with film makers across the globe, Versatile’s Hangzhou location has already completed construction of its 2^nd LED Volume.

The need for a customized LED panel with higher technical specs, translating into more complex shooting techniques, was built to accommodate the strong demand for virtual production shooting. The 14,000 square metre (150,000 sq foot) building of Versatile’s second LED stage was built to satisfy the growing need for incoming projects that include feature length films, series, virtual shows as well as servicing a vast advertising sector.

Our Hangzhou’s first LED stage is fully booked as virtual production gains popularity with directors and producers and the need for the 2^nd stage was set.

The newest stage stands at 8 metres (26.2 ft.) in height, 2 metres taller than the first volume, 24 metres (78.7 ft) in diameter and boasts 9,800 1.8-pixel pitch panels; 5,208 across the stages’ arc and nearly 5000 panels to cover the ceiling.

A wide gamut colour space of DC1-P3 that will support shooting at 120 fps, 1200 NIT luminance and 280 million pixels.

Leo Lee, Versatile’s CEO and co-founder has always seen technology as a means to express and advance creativity and ultimately communicate great stories.

“Film is an artistic medium build on technology – they cannot be separated. Were expanding our capacity to make more stories possible.”
– Leo Lee

Curious in seeing what nearly 10,000 LED displays looks like? Have a look here.

Versatile’s second LED stage is now completed and booking projects.

About Versatile Media Company.

Versatile is a modern media company producing content with virtual production technology.

It is a global film studio founded in 1993. The company has over 400 creative and technical artists and R&D staff working together from its Hangzhou, Beijing and Vancouver offices.

Versatile’s passion and purpose include bringing great stories to the large and small screens and creating a new generation of Sci-Fi focussed projects to the global market.

For more information on our technology or co-production opportunities. Please contact our teams in Hangzhou or Vancouver.

*****

In China:

Joan Xu, Creative Producer, joanxu@hezi.com , Hangzhou, China

In Canada:

Roula Lainas, Marketing & Business Development Executive, Vancouver, Canada

June 21, 2021

Setting Up Motion Capture Stages; a technical journey in real-time

The Beginnings of Something New

I first met Steve Read, our Head of Studio, in early 2020; that golden, pre-pandemic age where we were free to breathe closer than 2 metres from others and freely shake hands.

Our studio was in the very early stage of construction, and dodging contractors he enthusiastically led me through its empty concrete shell, painting the picture of what each area would become. A huge double-height volume dominated the center of the building with a serious steel girder crossbeam bisecting it in two.

Versatile Media (Canada) studios prior to build out

“This will be our performance capture volume, I’m wanting to make sure we get to use the full height so we can capture actors flying around” he told me, then passing under the steel girders – “And this will be the virtual camera volume. The actors performance will be digitally captured in full (pointing back to the other space) and in here you’ll be able to grab a virtual camera rig* and move around the space to film a digital performance in Unreal”.
Being on a fairly steady trajectory of disillusionment with how standard VFX was being run this was music to my ears.

Heading up the design, installation and initial setup of our motion capture system has been incredibly satisfying. In past VFX jobs the on-site motion capture systems have often been shoehorned into a small corner of the building, or share the space in a “common” room that’s also used for sweaty lunchtime yoga and a place for artists to sneak off to and get a good cry in before beginning a new shot. Having our two dedicated volumes showed Steve was serious about what Versatile Media would be creating.

Technical Vibes
For the performance capture volume we decided on 38 OptiTrack Primeˣ41 cameras using their software Motive for solving actors’ body performances. With all the restrictions going on during the pandemic I decided that it was up to myself, Matt Welford, our Creative Director and Arturo Camacho, our Head of I.T, that would install the cameras.

With many forewarnings about how difficult it was to set up and calibrate a motion capture system from scratch I was delightfully greeted by a Motive popup dialogue stating “Calibration Result: Exceptional” on the first calibration run. Never one to shy away from jumping into new tech, Matt pulled on a mocap suit and, wanting to make sure the full height of the volume had good capture results, climbed aboard our scissor lift.

Every so often you get to witness something that pulls you towards the potential of what the future holds, who would’ve thought watching the 3D digital mannequin representation of Matt wearing a mocap suit as he rose skyward in a scissor lift would be one of them.

Matt Welford, Creative Director at Versatile Media Canada

Along with the OptiTrack system for body capture we’ve integrated StretchSense gloves for capturing incredibly precise finger movement, recording performance through their Hand Engine software. With the gloves offering a non-optical wireless solution all of the subtle movement of an actor’s fingers are captured without having to worry about optical occlusion from hand posing or interaction with props or a physical set.

Being non-optical with an excellent wireless range we have also started to look into using them to control cinematic and scene elements in our virtual camera volume through hand poses.

Versatile Media utilizes Hand Engine software

Now that the hardware installation of our performance capture volume is complete we’ll be starting the installation of our virtual camera volume soon. We’ve worked with OptiTrack again for this to design a system that has very high precision tracking for virtual cameras, VR/AR headsets, virtual controllers and any ad hoc rigid object.

This will be the space that real hands-on cinematic creativity will be brought back into digital filming, a cinematographer being able to grab a camera rig and move around the volume exploring the 3D scene through the monitor or an AR headset. And with the real-time nature of Unreal Engine it’s not just the virtual camera move that can be explored, one is able to interactively adjust the time of day for the lighting in the scene, tweak when a gust of wind comes through and time digital extras to walk into frame to set the composition. Soon, this will be the space that every single film maker that walks into our studio will say “Oh, damn that’s cool”.

Lyle Cooley is the Motion Capture Supervisor at Versatile Media, Canada. Here he is helping build the stage!

March 23, 2021

A Full Cycle Virtual Production Studio Opening in Vancouver, Canada

Veteran production and media company opens studios in Vancouver, Canada and their real-time workflow is just the beginning.

Versatile Media Ltd. is building a state-of-the-art Virtual Production Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia that will include everything from real-time animation, virtual production workflows to a permanent large format LED production stage installation similar to what Versatile already operates in its production studio in Hangzhou, China. The technology fully adopts all virtual production pipelines for the use of film, television and animation productions. In tandem, Versatile has created an IP division that will develop their own original content as well as strategic co-productions. The focus of projects will be in the SciFi realm both live action and animation.

The Virtual Production facility brings together all the latest technology and a core creative crew that will help directors fully utilize these tools and workflows to tell amazing stories. The Virtual Production hub at the Pandora Street location will be home of two Virtual Production sound stages with the latest performance capture volumes that allows real time animation capture, virtual cinematography, location scouting, 4D photogrammetry capture and all other areas that fall under the Virtual Production banner. To compliment the technology, the team includes a cutting edge AI / Machine learning research group focusing heavily on creating the next generation of digital characters.

Later this year, a permanent LED Virtual Production will be built to service the needs of the Vancouver production community. The 25 meter diameter by 10 meter high (82ft D x 32 H) LED stage facility will mimic the ones currently operating in Versatile’s Hangzhou studios.

The multi-faceted company is headed by CEO Leo Lee who is also a director and producer at Versatile Media and who embarked on adopting a fully virtual production pipeline 5 years ago.

“We want to work with the best talent around the world to empower filmmakers and expand the limits of what is possible in the medium of film with technology. With virtual production technology, we can change the way films are made, letting film production catch up to the tremendous changes in content distribution and consumption on the demand side. This is also a chance to redesign the filmmaking process to better serve creatives. The ultimate goal of virtual production is not to lead in technologies but to accelerate and nurture great storytelling.” – Leo Lee

The Vancouver division sees Steven Read as Head of Studio and VP. Originally from the UK, Steve started his career in the animation and VFX industry working for Softimage, a Montreal-based technology company that pioneered industry-leading animation software in the 90s. Later Steve worked on various feature films most notably the Oscar-winning animated movie Happy Feet. In 2008 Steve Co-founded One Animation Ltd. where he developed various animation series including Insectibles and Oddbods, the latter of which was nominated for multiple International Emmy Kids Awards.

“Our Canadian division is located in Vancouver where the independent and international film sector already thrive. We are excited to launch our purpose-built studio that houses two large sound stages, both equipped with the latest camera tracking and full body/face performance technology. Adopting and innovating technology allows Versatile Media to offer a true end-to-end virtual production pipeline. But our newly opened studio is Just the beginning of our plans, Versatile Media is investing heavily in a slate of Sci-Fi driven animated and live-action productions that are being developed for the global market.” -Steven Read

Read and Lee met over 10 years ago while working in Asia where they developed a business relationship built on a shared enthusiasm of embracing technology to enhance the creative storytelling process.

Matt Welford joins as the Director of Virtual Production and Creative Director for Versatile Media in Canada. Matt’s career spans over 25 years and has held both artistic, leadership and supervisory roles at some of the top visual effects companies around the globe including Weta Digital, Mill Film, MPC, Sony Imageworks and most recently Pixomondo. During his career he has been involved in some of the most iconic films including Lord of the Rings, King Kong and Avatar, many of which pioneered the use of virtual production to where it is today. He is also an experienced production side VFX Supervisor who has worked for studios like Sony Pictures collaborating with many directors and studio executives throughout his career.

“I am excited to be joining Versatile as we build a dedicated Virtual Production studio that will not only create our own IP content but also be available as the premium home for filmmakers and productions so that they can utilize the latest Virtual Production technology and workflows and elevate every project.

Our approach of making every production step in real time is at the heart of our philosophy. While many companies are focusing on just building another LED stage, at Versatile we are creating a complete Virtual Production ecosystem that covers every step of the production process that will also include a state of the art LED stage facility that compliments our full virtual production workflows. This is why I am so excited tostart working with directors, cinematographers and producers so they can experience the complete power of Virtual Production. “ – Matt Welford

About Versatile Media Company.

Versatile Media is a global film studio founded in 1993. The company has 300 creative and technical artists and R&D staff working together from its Hangzhou, Beijing and Vancouver offices. The new Vancouver site is located in the Port Town neighbourhood in the newly developed Ironworks Building and in the final stages of opening their 12,000 SQ FT purpose-build full service virtual production studio.

For more information please contact:

Roula Lainas, Marketing & Business Development Executive

Versatile Media Ltd. Vancouver, Canada

roula@versatile.media

#versatileinvancouver #filmversatile

Construction Begins on LED Film Stages in Vancouver

Meet Us In Las Vegas

We have 3 exciting presentations, networking and news on our global expansion.

Saturday, April 23rd @ 2:40pm

Virtual Production begins here

Versatile Media Builds its 2nd , and Largest LED stage To-Date

Setting Up Motion Capture Stages; a technical journey in real-time

A Full Cycle Virtual Production Studio Opening in Vancouver, Canada

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