JPM - Real time payments
Brand film
Agency - Synima
Director - Rachel Wan
DOP - Ole Valentin Schwartz
Senior Producer - Constance Brimelow
Producer - Ellen Burke
Gaffer - Paul Wilens
VP Technician - Thijs Smeele
VP Operator - Loukas Koutsouris
Sound design - Andrew Chappell
Studio - ReadySet Studios
JPM: Real-Time Payments
The film was about making real time payments in multiple currencies around the world, 24/7, so it needed mutiple locations across the globe for each film. There were three films in total, the one above was my favourite from the batch. We shot it all on a virtual production stage, and it was a challenging one to say the least!
The process
I managed a small team of Unreal artists building the virtual environments. These had to blend seamlessly with real set extensions and the actors in the studio, which was a fun challenge.
We built the scenes in Unreal Engine 5.6 which caused knock-on problems with the studio’s setup, so on the shoot we had to optimise scenes far more than usual to keep everything running, as well as conquer any additional technical issues that 5.6 threw at us, as at the time it was the new "buggy" version of unreal.
On set
It was a big studio with a camera crane, the client on set and a tight timeline, so there was plenty of pressure. We made a lot of changes on the fly to make the scenes and their lighting more realistic.
Working closely with the gaffer taught me a huge amount about lighting which really helped with the realism on the set and tied the locations to the extended real set. Virtual actors and props were added for additional life/realism which also helped sell each scene.
Takeaway
This is hands down the biggest production I'd been involved in and made decisions for on this scale, I found it so interesting and exciting and despite the pressure, the scenes came together really well. The biggest lesson was to lock the engine version to what the studio supports before building anything.