
Shailendra Mathur, vice president, architecture and technology, at Avid takes a look at how virtual production workflows, techniques and technologies are now impacting more of the filmmaking process, from pre- through to post production
By Jenny Priestley
Published: February 22, 2023 Updated: February 23, 2023
Shailendra Mathur, vice president, architecture and technology, at Avid takes a look at how virtual production workflows, techniques and technologies are now impacting more of the filmmaking process, from pre- through to post production
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin>
Virtual production is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating technology developments shaping the future of post production. It brings a huge number of efficiencies to VFX workflows, and not just via The Mandalorian-esque LED screens driven by game engines. Today, VFX supervisors and filmmaking creatives can turn to a host of complex toolsets to visualise landscapes and characters or any other on-screen element - both before and during principal photography.
But it's not just for post; virtual production offers clear benefits right across the production workflow. Set designers can easily see what locations might look like with a whole host of different colour tile or brick without having to build or draw options. Stunt coordinators can use previz'ed scenes to help block the action. And on top of all of that, producers can see how these efficiencies impact their bottom line.
But what about editors? How do we see virtual production impacting the people responsible for turning every crew member's contribution into a finished film?
Enhancing on-set editing One of the key benefits virtual production offers editors whether it's for film, TV or advertising production is the ability to be more involved on-set or on-location.
On-set editing is something many editors have long taken advantage of, since seeing action being shot and starting rough cuts as soon as rushes are captured enables them to ensure there's the right level of coverage.
VFX supervisors and creative directors say the true benefit of this is that it allows artists and filmmakers to make creative decisions earlier. This immediacy can have a similar impact on editors, taking on-set editing much further. With the right virtual production workflows in place, editors can start rough cuts straight away on huge VFX-driven shows. They're able to immediately see what the final images will look like, even if they feature fully-CG characters or entirely fabricated worlds; assets that they historically might not see for another few months.
Supercharging asset management Virtual production will also have a huge impact on asset management - which opens up the window for creativity wider than ever.
Asset management will no longer revolve around managing rendered or rasterised audio and video during the final editing stages, as editors won't need to wait to receive final rendered VFX shots. Instead, virtual production can enable a much more collaborative process between editors and VFX studios or artists.
With virtual production, editors can now manage in-progress visual assets, 3D models or VFX textures in context of the video they are associated with. Having access to all these elements, and the ability to render them throughout the entire post production process allows editors or filmmakers to make creative decisions later. This might involve changing a location via a virtual background or DMP, altering lighting, the time of day of a scene or even a camera angle.
This opens up the creative impact an editor can have in the editorial process. This is a gamechanger for editors, enabling them to have a serious creative impact on a project, without having to request reshoots or additional photography.
Playing with the timeline This opening up of flexibility to be more creative also comes with benefits to the time needed to create the biggest blockbusting films.
If virtual production allows VFX supervisors and creative directors to start making decisions much earlier on in previz and on-set, it also does for editors and post production supervisors. Add to that the ability to make changes to visuals later into the process, closer to a final render and we're seeing a real shift in the timeline being used in the creative process.
And to top this all off, these changes can be achieved without the time, personnel and power resources needed to constantly render shots to see how they look in a cut, and then send them back for amends, only to be rendered again. It's not just creative efficiencies we see from the deployment of virtual production, but practical and economic ones as well.
The bottom line
When it comes to virtual production then, what was the talk of just VFX studios and filmmakers like James Cameron only a few years ago, is now a much larger and more complex beast.
Virtual production workflows, techniques and technologies are now impacting more of the filmmaking process - from the earliest stages of pre-production to the latest stages of post production. And we're excited to see the flexibility and creative freedom it will continue to offer editors.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...