Our talented friends at Psyop have a groundbreaking message to share: Resorts World Las Vegas is the place to Stay Fabulous!
To promote the opening of the brand new luxury resort, Psyop made the world’s first entirely virtual commercial production using innovative, immersive filmmaking techniques invented by the creators of the Disney + series The Mandalorian. With help from Nant Studios and Epic, Psyop shot stars such as Katy Perry, Celine Dion, Zedd, Tiesto and more for the surreal commercial that set new standards for production opportunities.
“Everything I read about [the resort] was very technology-driven – from getting there using the Boring Tunnel, to checking in, to ordering food – so it felt natural to use technology to help to bring this to life,” said our good friend and Psyop Founder, Marco Spier, in an interview with LBB. “I have been looking to use this virtual production for quite a while, so here it seemed the perfect fit.”
Mixing animation and live-action production is the creative intersection where Psyop thrives, but Marco said that the on-set collaboration was paramount to the success of making this spot. “With the technology being as new as this, you want to surround yourself with a team that has done this before. Between our DP Matthew Jensen, who shot some of The Mandalorian, Nant studios and Epic, we had some great knowledge going into this. Nant really let us play and allowed us to explore what else we can do…Together, we invented some new techniques where we would use additional screens within the volume to make practical objects and people appear to float on the ocean, for example.”
The virtual technology allows some real-time changes, like lighting and colors, to be made while shooting, but most of the designs for the sets need to be fixed prior to a shoot. “You need to design every little detail of the world. The good thing about that is that you can dial in a lot of things that make it very unique and help tell the story. I love this kind of full-on worldbuilding.”
Marco described other elements that made this virtual production unique was the simultaneity of shooting and post and using longer lenses with smaller moves (which was tricky as he prefers fast-moving big camera moves with wide lenses). However, he definitely sees this is the future of production. “Realtime renders are looking better by the minute. Quixel is scanning the world and creating a library of locations and the next thing you know you will find yourself in the metaverse…We started Psyop to invent new things, explore and disrupt as much as possible, to blend art and technology. Make cool shit and nerd out while doing it. So, yes, I’m super happy to do more of those things in the future.”
Congratulations to Psyop for the incredible campaign! Check out the spot below!