LSU is on the Frontier of Virtual Production

In 2019 when Jon Favreau’s Star Wars spin-off series, The Mandalorian, premiered, the average viewer was likely more captivated by trending “Baby Yoda” memes than the film’s special effects, which—while magnificent—seem at first glance par-for-the course for modern big-budget movie making. 

Meanwhile, within the film industry, The Mandalorian was debuting the biggest paradigm shift in film and television production since the introduction of green screen. 

The innovative system used to create the world of The Mandalorian on screen—developed by the visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)—brings together video game engine and video wall technology in a confluence being termed “on-set virtual production”. The technology utilizes an LED screen and real time, in-camera visual effects to increase imaginative possibilities, while also streamlining the creative process to reduce needs, in some cases, to film on-location or coordinate complex lighting scenarios in volatile environments. It also gives actors the chance to directly interact within the virtual environments of the scene they are shooting, as opposed to static green walls. 

In the four years since The Mandalorian’s groundbreaking premiere, virtual production has gained significant traction and is being used in almost half of television and film projects today.

At Louisiana State University, media technology experts didn’t miss a beat. In 2021, Derick Ostrenko, an Associate Professor in the College of Art + Design, and Marc Aubanel, the Director of the Digital Media Arts + Engineering Program, applied for a grant from the Louisiana Economic Development Entertainment Development Fund for the development of a new curriculum to support student learning in the quickly-evolving space of digital storytelling. 

Seeing the potential of investing in future talent and in our growing local film industry, LED awarded the university a five-year grant of $1.25 million to establish the LSU Virtual Production Program, complete with a state-of-the-art XR Studio, featuring the same cutting-edge technology used in productions like The Mandalorian. 

“There are only a couple of universities in the country that have these facilities,” said Jason Jamerson, who has been serving as the Director of the XR Studio at LSU’s Digital Media Center since its completion in the Spring of 2022. “It’s basically an educational, hands-on laboratory, where we’re working in whatever is state-of-the-art in creating media today.” 

The studio features a full-scale LED wall with motion-capture technology, and has already been used by students in a range of disciplines in seven of the University’s colleges—ranging from Digital Art, to Electrical Engineering, to Screen Arts. Students have shot music videos, documentaries, commercials, and even used the technology to elevate performances such as aerial silks and dance—using the wall’s motion-tracking technology to create backdrops that respond to body movements or music. “There’s such a wide variety of ways we can have an interaction between the digital world and the real,” said Jamerson. 

Placing LSU at the forefront of education and experimentation in this field, the Virtual Production Program is already preparing students for a range of career opportunities, from filmmaking, to animation, to 3D modeling, and more—even beyond film and television. Jamerson noted that the studio is already involved in a $7.5 million grant project for NASA, producing a digital twin of the 2-million-square-foot Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. 

“Basically what we try to do with the XR studio is to find the world between the digital world where we can achieve anything,” said Jamerson, “and the real world where we can be present in it and tell stories and create media.” 

Learn more about LSU’s Virtual Production program at dmae.lsu.edu.