Sony has announced that it will sell a series of modular displays that can be used to create digital movie sets (via The Hollywood Reporter). If this kind of technology seems familiar, it could be because Industrial Light & Magic and Epic Games have built similar sets to help create The Mandalorian.
The exhibits are part of Sony’s Crystal LED line, which are modular panels that use MicroLEDs, and that were previously used as marketing. The screen technology and modularity means you can create huge screens with a bunch of panels attached to a controller. This is useful if you are trying to create a virtual set of screens.
The ones announced today are part of the new B-series and are marketed as useful for film production: they have an anti-reflective layer and are bright. Sony says they can operate at 1800 nets. Apple’s Pro Display XDR is 1,600 nets and it’s an incredibly bright screen. (The ‘XDR’ in Apple’s Pro Display XDR actually stands for ‘extended dynamic range’, a function of how bright it can get.)
One benefit to building your background from exhibitions is that the light they emit makes it easier to convince the audience that you are actually actors. there. With traditional green screen sets, the background is a flat, solid color and should illuminate your actors as if the background really exists. However, if you use screens, the background is already there and gives it light.
Let’s imagine a character sitting in a desert at sunset. If you were shooting them on a green screen, you would have to set up a bunch of lights to simulate what the actor would look like if they were actually outside. However, if you use screens, you can mostly rely on those to generate that light for you, making it easier to get a realistic recording (you can see this happening behind the scenes in this video).
The use of exhibits can also mean more realistic reflections. If our hypothetical character in the example was wearing a slightly reflective helmet and we were shooting on a green screen, it would reflect that green color. Visual effects artists should return later and make it look like the helmet reflects the desert. With the screens, however, the helmet can reflect the images displayed around it, no mailing is required. When I made short films at school, we used ordinary old TVs to get reflections and not to do after work, but you might think that these panels would yield slightly better results.
Sony says that these screens are capable of using high frame rates and 3D, so there is a lot of flexibility in what kind of signal you can carry it. He plans to make it available in the summer, but has not yet announced a price. Since these are professional quality products (the B-series was ‘developed in collaboration with Sony Pictures Entertainment’, Sony’s film production arm), this is probably a situation if you have to ask, you can not afford it. But even if you are not going to buy one yourself, you will soon be able to watch movies and programs made with it.