Top Ten Reasons to Shoot Your Film or TV Series on Virtual Sets
1. Virtual is more Versatile
Shooting your feature film or TV series on virtual makes sense — because it’s better than shooting in the real world. In the virtual world, the team at L.A. Castle Studios has full control over the weather, wind, lighting, landscape, and scenery.
In the real world, if cast and crew arrive on scene and the shots are not fitting for your concept, you’re out a huge expense and there’s little you can do to change anything. In virtual, our team can spend ten or fifteen minutes to design your scene so that it matches your vision exactly.
2. Virtual Saves Money
We have access to thousands of sets in our backlot and we’re always adding more to our library. From beaches in New Zealand, to mountains on the planet Mars, to southern mansions in South Carolina, to a talk show set, to Ancient Rome, we have or can create any scene or set you envision — with full moving cameras and total reality.
Instead of building giant sets only to tear them down, and flying your cast and crew from place to place and country to country, film everything on our stages at L.A. Castle Studios.
3. Virtual is Better for the Environment
Traditional set construction methods and cast and crew travel are not environmentally friendly. In fact, many sets are built for films and TV series only to be torn down soon after shooting. It’s a waste of resources.
At L.A. Castle Studios, our sets are created digitally, and stored digitally to save on building materials. And every scene is available in one location, reducing or eliminating fossil fuel emissions from cast and crew.
4. Virtual is Ready for Season 2 — or the Reboot
Some of the team at L.A. Castle Studios recently went to view a taping of Last Man Standing on the CBS lot. When Last Man Standing was canceled in 2017, the entire set was torn down to make room for new series. When the show was picked up again by FOX, the entire set needed to be rebuilt exactly as it was before — a major project.
At L.A. Castle Studios, every set is stored digitally at no additional cost to you. So when your show is picked up for Season 2, or ready for a reboot, your sets will be waiting for you just as you left them.
5. Virtual Allows Shots Not Possible in the Real World
At L.A. Castle Studios, our supercomputers are always working to mask out imperfections in your scene. At a traditional studio or on-location, a low shot looking up in an outdoor scene would reveal lighting equipment or the ceiling of the stage. Here, our computers mask out those lights and the ceiling for a clear view of the daytime (or nighttime) sky.
We can even shoot 360 degrees. When our cameras look back towards the director and crew, what’s recorded is a continuation of the set. It’s truly amazing.
6. Virtual Environments are Larger than Life
Often filmmakers are constricted by limits to their sets and filming locations. When you want to film on a space station (for instance), budget restrictions on traditional sets often allow only for the construction of one or two rooms of that space station — limiting creative freedom. Our sets are huge — larger than you’ll ever need. Our space station has every room and wing that would be present on a real space station. All perfectly lit and ready for filming.
The same is true for our towns, homes, and cities. With most of our city sets, you are not limited to one street or one home — but you have freedom to explore and film in what’s often a large town or city. The L.A. Castle Studios team will adjust the set in real time with your actors on stage so that it exactly matches your vision.
7. Virtual Sets Allow for What Seems Like Extravagant Spending
Let’s say you’re filming a scene that takes place in an apartment in Los Angeles. In traditional filmmaking, you might have two options that fit your film or series: An apartment overlooking Downtown Los Angeles or an apartment that looks straight into a brick wall. If in this scene the owner of that apartment is supposed to be wealthy, you’ll want to use the Downtown L.A. scene — but often the brick wall will be much more affordable and will keep your film in budget so you will not be able to shoot overlooking Downtown L.A, and your film or series will not look as good. At L.A. Castle Studios, that same apartment can overlook DTLA or a brick wall or London of the 1600’s — whatever best fits the scene. And we can put in expensive furniture or inexpensive furniture digitally or using real props for whatever would best fit that scene.
8. Virtual Saves Time
Our team at L.A. Castle Studios is so good at shooting on these environments that we’ve redefined what it means to shoot quickly. For a recent soap opera filmed on our stage we were sometimes shooting 30 pages per day — nearly impossible without virtual.
9. Virtual Fixes Mistakes
Test audiences of a recent feature film with a $125,000,000+ budget said recently that the movie didn’t make sense. So the studio contacted L.A. Castle Studios and quickly filmed new scenes here that tied the movie together. Three weeks later, it was released in theaters across the country. At L.A. Castle Studios, we have any scene imaginable ready to make your film make sense.
10. Virtual Can Make Your Film or Series
For films and series with budgets of over $10,000,000, by opening up your film to the thousands of locations that we have available at L.A. Castle Studios and saving money on set construction and travel, your film will have a million dollars or more in savings that can be used on marketing, distribution, or anything else. The savings here will get your production in front of a larger audience.
For films and series with budgets of under $10,000,000, filming here will make it look like you’ve spent much more on your production. You’ll be moving from the “low-budget look” to the very high end look while saving money and reaping all of the benefits of virtual.
Contact L.A. Castle studios today and harness the power of virtual for your production. We would love to give you a tour and demo of our beautiful production facility.
