Studios

When Sunny Vohra acquired Twickenham Film Studios in 2012, he inherited more than just soundstages and post-production facilities. He became the custodian of a 113-year-old institution where cinema history was written, from “The Italian Job” through to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Now, 13 years into his tenure, Vohra is making what he calls “a leap of faith” — one that could position the venerable British studio at the forefront of virtual production technology.

The centrepiece of this transformation is a massive Samsung-powered LED installation in Stage 3, featuring a 24 x 4.5 metre back wall, 105 square metre LED ceiling, mobile LED totem walls and a permanent turntable and motion control crane. It represents Samsung’s first major LED screen build in the U.K. and only its third globally, following installations in Paju, Korea, and Paris, France.

The facility soft-launched over the summer with a popular British series being shot there, ahead of a full launch this fall.

For Vohra, the apparent tension between tradition and innovation is a false dichotomy. “This industry is actually all about storytelling, and stories have been told for centuries,” he explains. “When we made movies 100 years ago, the technology then was very simple — silent films, then sound came in, then color came in from black and white. The traditional filmmaking model is still there, but all you do is you embrace technology as time goes on.”

Superna Sethi, managing director of Twickenham Film Studios, sees the virtual production stage as a strategic necessity. “When I came here [Twickenham] in 2022, the whole industry globally was affected because of COVID. We had a good six months period whereby business was picking up, and then bang, during Cannes 2023 we had the [Hollywood] strikes. It took 18 months for business to come back.”

The installation arrives at a pivotal moment when studios worldwide are reassessing their offerings. “There’s a lot of competition out there. You need to have an edge,” Sethi says.

For Samsung Electronics, the Twickenham installation represents more than a single project — it’s a statement of intent in the virtual production market.

Graeme Little, head of display for Samsung Electronics U.K. and Ireland, is candid about the company’s objectives. “Samsung will enter a market with the aspiration of being number one. When we look at the virtual production space, we have absolutely taken our time to get this right. Samsung’s aspiration is that we will want to be a recognizable global leader in the virtual production market over the next five years.”

The journey from consumer display to virtual production tool began with feedback from filmmakers. Little traces the evolution: “With the introduction of micro LED back in 2018, Samsung created the wall, which was a huge step change for the traditional LED business. CJ Entertainment, the production company for “Parasite,” were looking to get early entry into that VP space. They questioned Samsung – ‘Look, we have this wall product, we’re not entirely sure that the SMD LED [Surface Mount Device and Light Emitting Diode] is the right long term path for us.”

That conversation led to focused development. “Samsung looked to understand, how can we adopt the wall technology into a virtual production environment? Our movement into virtual production came as we were given an opportunity by a big production company in Korea. We launched that at IBC [International Broadcasting Convention] in 2023.”

Steve Robertson, head of signage for Samsung Electronics U.K., emphasizes the experiential impact. “We talk a lot in our business about ‘wow’ moments. Over the course of the next 12 months, there’s going to be so many ‘wow’ moments when people walk into that studio for the first time, because Twickenham and Quite Brilliant are allowing us to do something that has not been done in the U.K. at all.”

Robertson sees potential beyond traditional film production. “We found some pockets within corporate and within retail, within education as well. Does virtual production accelerate the ability for smaller scale projects to actually be achievable? Something maybe couldn’t come to market for another couple of years whilst they’re waiting for funding — virtual production makes that attainable.”

The choice of Samsung as technology partner and Quite Brilliant as integrator was deliberate. Russ Shaw, technical director and founder of Quite Brilliant, brings five years and over 150 virtual production projects to the collaboration.

Shaw’s company started exploring virtual production in 2014 using back projection, but “The Mandalorian” changed everything. “In 2020 we made the decision to dive more heavily into virtual production. It was the infancy — during lockdown people were looking at this tech, but it didn’t really exist as a turnkey solution.”

His approach to building the Twickenham stage was informed by hard-won experience. “We started to investigate options. We talked to Sony, Samsung, [China’s] the Absen people. It boiled down to going with a Samsung product, not only because of the technology involved — it’s cutting edge technology — but it was about the relationship.”

From a technical standpoint, Shaw highlights specific advances: “The biggest factor is the black levels and the contrast ratios. When we compare them to products currently on the market from competitors, they’re looking at contrast ratios about seven to 8,000 to one. This screen has got a contrast ratio of 35,000 to one.”

What does this mean in practical terms? “When you come to light a scene, it’s a lot easier to achieve. When you see a foreground asset and it doesn’t blend in with the background, it looks milky, like traditional screens do — that’s when you go, that’s looking a bit dodgy, looks a bit fake. This just makes that process a lot quicker and a lot easier.”

Shaw has incorporated numerous innovations into the stage design. “We’ve got a screen that sits below the floor of the studio, which means technically no join when we put art department up to it. We’ve integrated a six meter turntable in front of the screen, which is controllable from our desk and automated.”

The turntable solves a persistent continuity challenge. “If you’re shooting a scene of a living room, someone sat on a sofa, and you wanted to do a reverse view, it’s very easy to change the content on the screen in seconds. But changing the art department, spinning everything around 180 degrees traditionally involves a props person running in, turning everything around and checking continuity. Having a turntable means you can just press a button — 20 seconds, you completely reverse the view.”

Another innovation addresses lighting limitations through Image Based Lighting. “LED screens are good for ambient lighting, and the scale of our ceiling and wall is covering now about 80 to 90% of the lighting for a scene, which is phenomenal. What we can do is texture map physical lights to the screen. Anything that changes on the screen, something flashes, that light can map the same image as well. It’s a full wraparound environment.”

The conversation around virtual production often centers on cost savings, but the reality is more nuanced.

Robertson articulates the multi-faceted value proposition. “There’s the traditional stuff around location, travel, construction, set construction costs, and the disposal of those sets. It’s time and speed to market. You’re removing the one critical factor that we don’t have enough of in our personal lives, let alone in a professional sense. Being first to market with something can be the difference between something being a success or not.”

Vohra provides concrete examples from his years shepherding productions. “If you want to shoot in one of the London squares, and you go to the council and you want that square cordoned off for one day shoot, they can charge you £20,000 [$26,800] just for one day. Then you got to get the production team there, vans, catering, everything. So a day shoot could cost you £60,000 [$80,500] to £70,000 [$93,900].”

He contrasts this with virtual production: “Create a scene on the screen, you get a screen on London, you get the people in, you get the shoot. Everybody’s on one stage, everything is in one place. That day shoot probably costs £25,000 [$33,540] all in. Had they done that in the streets of London, you’d be spending about £75,000 [$100,625] to £100,000 [$134,150]. That saving alone adds to the ROI — for the production making the movie or TV show, for the virtual production people running the screen like Quite Brilliant, for the studio that has a facility like Twickenham, and ultimately Samsung.”

The cost savings extend to post-production as well. Vohra shares a striking example: “In 13 years here, we’ve had three movies — big budget productions — they went back and shot certain scenes. One production, it was a multi-million pound project, but just to reshoot one scene, they went and spent half a million.”

In contrast, he notes, “Had that to be done on the VP screen, it’s a question of a switch — button on, button off. You can probably do it either the same day or maybe the next day. The challenge of making alterations is going to be reduced drastically.”

Little from Samsung emphasizes that ROI isn’t purely financial. “When you work in an environment such as filmmaking and production, it’s about quality. That’s something that can never be undervalued. The outcome is way more important than anything else. Our wall product absolutely sits at the top end of our solution stack. That ability to build and deliver high end quality with the security of a brand like Samsung behind that gives a huge amount of confidence to our partners.”

Shaw makes the stage accessible to productions of all sizes. “We’re making this wall available to people that don’t need all of it. When we’re talking to clients, if they only need to shoot on a third of it because their framing is so small, then that’s obviously going to be more cost effective.”

Sethi sees this flexibility as democratizing. “Give the smaller British filmmakers the opportunity — we support all.”

On sustainability, the environmental benefits prove substantial. Shaw reports surprising efficiency gains. “Interestingly, on this new screen, which is technically six, seven times the size of our previous screen, the usage of electricity shows that it’s a similar amount of power usage. That’s quite incredible. The technology is getting greener all of the time.”

He provides real-world data: “When we’re doing commercials, we have bodies like Ad Green where we monitor what our usage is for that particular project. We’ve seen examples of this being 70 to 80% saving on the carbon footprint.”

Sethi cites industry research: “Virtual production can actually lower emissions by 75% to 90% compared to traditional shooting methods.”

The role of artificial intelligence in virtual production is evolving rapidly, and it’s already influencing workflows at Twickenham.

Vohra takes a pragmatic view. “AI — those two letters are at the forefront of every discussion today. We’ve got to embrace it. AI has to be embraced in this industry. We have acknowledged and agreed that AI has to be taken into every decision we make because it is going to be the future.”

Shaw is already implementing AI-generated content in real-time production. “We just did a job for a major UK bank, and we were generating content literally on the fly as they were shooting on the day. We built an airport baggage area — much more easy to do in AI than going to an actual location. When we shot it, the director suddenly decided they wanted to look at a different direction. We were instantly able to do some AI generation, some repositioning of cameras using various different tools to reproduce that angle.”

Looking ahead, Shaw sees transformative potential. “What is possible in the future, two, three years down the line, is you’ll be able to create an asset that will be rendered in the cloud in real time, such that as the camera moves, that data has been sent up to the cloud or to some big server that is generating that AI and redrawing it and sending it back to you in real time.”

Robertson from Samsung sees the company’s role as enabling rather than creating. “AI is a catalyst for change and efficiencies. Our role is ultimately we provide the canvas. There are technical reasons for why we will enhance what AI content gives. We’re able to handle fast moving content. We feel like we’re AI-ready already — we’re waiting for AI to catch up with the technology that we have embedded into our screens.”

With emerging technology comes a learning curve, and Shaw has observed recurring mistakes from crews new to virtual production.

“What we have to try and educate people is take some of that time that you were allocating to post to fix things, and actually put it into the pre area and plan it and map it all out. We have models, we do what’s called previsualization. We will have models of the screen, models of some of the assets and the content, and we can physically show people on Zoom calls exactly what they’re going to get.”

Shaw shares a specific example of how previsualization saved both money and creative vision. “We did a job for a bed company in January. The director was adamant we’d need a particular size virtual production screen — 30 metres big and curved because he’d shot on one before in Sofia. The producer said, we don’t want to build it this big, it’s going to cost too much money.”

Through careful planning, Shaw found a solution. “We basically previsualized the whole setup and spent a lot of time online with the guy, showed some of the angles. Then I pressed this button and turned on this green box, which is a screen that I’d actually put in there which is not 30 metres, it’s 16 metres. He was slightly deflated, but that planning beforehand helped cement that actually what people want, because the vision is not always the same as what it might be from the outset.”

Shaw maintains a philosophy of honest consultation. “I had a director call me about a job. He said, could it work for virtual production? I said, no, that is a mad idea. Do it all in green screen. I’ll tell it like it is because I want the best results for people.”

While feature films and high-end television remain the core market, Samsung and Twickenham see virtual production expanding into unexpected territories.

Little identifies several emerging sectors. “More and more organizations are looking to say we have broadcast capabilities across our organization, particularly multinationals. How do we bring virtual production in-house to be able to deliver content that would have been outsourced traditionally? Corporate presents a big opportunity.”

Retail has proven surprisingly receptive. “Ikea on Regent Street has a virtual production environment, which is a Samsung environment. They use that for production, also live production and how they interact on their social platforms with customers coming in.”

Sports organizations are also exploring applications. “We have a number of Premier League football [soccer] clubs looking to understand how they can adopt virtual production. The big thing for them is how do they adopt global marketing? That ability to do a campaign on a social level with one of their corporate sponsors around Asia — they can deliver it with a certain corporate background in the U.K., a very different one.”

As the installation enters full operation this fall, all partners express confidence about the future while remaining realistic about challenges ahead.

Little articulates Samsung’s long-term vision. “Samsung’s aspiration is that we will want to be a recognizable global leader in the virtual production market over the next five years. We have to utilize our huge brand legacy in the display space and work in the spaces where we can recognize our growth opportunity and be disruptive.”

For Vohra, the investment represents both continuation and evolution. “This new venture marks the next phase of our multi-year strategy to invest in Twickenham’s future. Samsung is our ideal partner. They see the value of our world-class award-winning team and appreciate our approach in balancing investment in technology with investment in our people.”

Sethi frames the moment in competitive terms. “At a time when the industry was really on its feet, we were thinking outside of the box. We got together with QB, who then chose Samsung as our partner to do the installation. For us, it’s a game changer. Oldest film studio, newest technology. There’s no looking back. We’re only looking forward.”

Shaw emphasizes competitive positioning through quality. “A lot of stages are built in commercial units. This is a true soundstage because it’s in a proper film studio. If you add all these bits together, it’s a compelling reason that someone will look somewhere else, come look at ours and feel confident — I’m getting the best bang for buck here.”

The collaboration between a historic British studio, a global technology leader, and specialist virtual production experts represents more than just an installation of LED screens. It’s a bet on the future of filmmaking that honors the past while embracing radical change.