AN INTERVIEW W/ DPS INTERACTION ARTS ALUMNI, JAMES MEDCRAFT

James Medcraft’s personal and commercial work reflects his untraditional journey into the creative industry — providing an oblique perspective and approach to the avenues of his creative output. 

Schooled in 3D Design, Photography and Cinematography, James’ unique palate of experiences enable highly technical and creative concepts to fuse as an idea in both concept and creation.

Since graduating in 2005 from the London College of Printing in the field of Typography, James has worked with the likes of Neville Brody, Why Not Associates and RSA Films before joining United Visual Artists in 2004 where he worked as designer, cinematographer and photographer until 2010.

James has since set up his own practice, concentrating on lens based methodologies to explore his creative ideas. Take a walk through a few of James’ many creative highlights, in this exclusive feature for DPS WOW.

DO DIRECTORS DREAM OF VIRTUAL SHEEP?

“I had to be part of this project, a necessity for myself as a cinematographer, has seen past and present skills combining in a new form; the merger of video game and film technologies in the form of Virtual Production. It’s a process that, whilst relatively new, combines traditional and bleeding-edge technologies to create a tool that when used correctly produces results unachievable via other means.”

Virtual Production is a merger of three core industries: video game production, events and film. With computer technology becoming ever more powerful, companies such as EPIC Games have developed software to render photorealistic environments in real-time.

Whilst their Unreal Engine was primarily designed for game environment creation, its ability to render 3D scenes in real-time made it useful as an onset preview tool in film production. As this software becomes ever more powerful, its ability to render scenes with photo realism increases too. The events industries, primarily used to create live entertainment events, shows and presentations have integrated ever closer with the film industry, utilising affordable LED screens as dynamic lighting fixtures. Well-known uses of LED screens for environmental lighting where such features as Gravity and Murder on The Orient Express to create moving environmental reflections and backgrounds to add realism to static sets.

For the last year I’ve experienced the birth and growing pains of the Virtual Production industry; the highs when it works and the lows when it doesn’t. I’ve written this as a very brief introduction to the process; its pitfalls, benefits and whereas a Cinematographer I see its advantages to Film. I’ve also cited some of the virtual production shoots I’ve worked on in the last 12 months with my honest thoughts on them, what we explored and where I think they do work. This isn’t a ‘how to guide’ but rather a ‘where next’ dialogue.

So what is Virtual Production? Simply put it’s the technique of using vast set-sized LED screens to display digital environments behind actors and physical props. These environments can be both photo or video assets but within Virtual Production CGI environments are predominantly created and rendered in real-time in relation to the camera’s position; creating the illusion of actors being within real environments which would normally be created in post-production. Whilst these LED screens are predominantly used as backgrounds, they are also used for lighting, creating realistic ambient and reflected light from CGI scenes onto the set and actors. It’s hauntingly similar to the nostalgic days of matte painted backdrops and rear projection, but with more versatility.

The technology, whilst not invented by Industrial LIght & Magic, was made infamous by ILM in their Mandalorian series where the making-of made more of a stir in the industry than the finished product. The ability to create CGI worlds that light and imbed an actor within a scene is a seductive prospect, combined with the ability to change elements of the virtual set in real-time such as lighting and geometry seem too good to be true. And in some aspects, it really is a step forward for the industry, but as with all new developments new learning curves are created.

At present Virtual Production is being marketed in many ways: from a way to create immersive live presentations to cover location scenes in a studio when crew or cast can’t travel. Another classic example is for re-shooting dialogue in difficult lighting conditions such as twilight; all you need to do is capture an HDRI on location and you can recreate that scene on a soundstage. These kinds of shoots are nothing new, but until now they’ve always been created with matte painted backdrops or more commonly chroma screens. The development of virtual production technology opens up a world of possibilities for these shots, but I feel there’s so much more that can be done with the technology which is as yet unexplored.

CASE STUDIES

Here are two projects I shot over the last year, all very different and explore the benefits of the process in different ways. Each project is featured on my website and has a more in-depth write up with additional production images and behind the scene films.

LECOL x MCLAREN

The client brief was to convey a sense of streamlined movement and speed to promote their new aerodynamic clothing. In order to do this, we created a stylised wind tunnel environment and placed our cyclist on a set of rollers, a rolling road for bikes.

The dollied camera enabled us to create tracking shots that feel like a pursuit vehicle trying to keep up with our rider, coupled with sweeps of practical lighting we managed to create a very convincing effect of movement through an environment.

Interestingly here, happy accidents add a sense of velocity to the scene. One can be seen where a bump in a tracking shot looks like the tracking vehicle hits a bump in the road. This set mishap actually adds a sense of unplanned reality to this fantasy environment. What made this look so convincing is the triangular nature of the LED screens. They surround the action creating not only background scene but foreground lighting visible in the reflective helmet.

NIGHT HAWKS

For me, this remains the most interesting use of [tracking shot] technology and blends a very interesting mixture of industries. Not only an entertaining but educational concept that invites the viewer to explore familiar worlds within a new dimension.

The piece focuses around Edward Hopper’s painting ‘Nighthawks’ whereby the presenter James Fox steps through the two-dimensional canvas and physically explores the stories, myths and techniques associated with the painting. By recreating the painting in 3D, James can actually walk within it and explain specific aspects in a far more immersive fashion than ever before. This kind of medium would be well suited for programming focused on the arts, science, history.

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Full portfolio: James Medcraft

Featured in the WOW Newsletter | Designing For The Future