Photo Credit: Piotr Skowronski
The Canadian Society of Cinematographers launched its partnership with Dark Slope this month with a one-day intensive workshop on virtual production held on September 14. Hosted at Dark Slope’s cutting-edge Toronto studio—featuring one of North America’s largest curved LED walls and an articulating LED ceiling—the workshop gave participants a hands-on opportunity to explore the rapidly evolving world of virtual production.
The workshop, which was led by industry experts and associate members Vinit Borrison and Martin Wojtunik –
alongside Dark Slope’s Head of Virtual Production Justin Cathcart and Virtual Production Producer Vikram Verma – covered key virtual production concepts. Participants were introduced to hybrid virtual production, LED volumes, and virtual backgrounds, and were encouraged to experiment with multi-camera blocking, parallax, and frustum latency while blending physical and virtual assets.
Wojtunik emphasized the importance of staying at the forefront of emerging technologies while dispelling myths around the accessibility of virtual production. “A lot of folks think there’s a large financial barrier,” he explained. “But when you really think of all the costs involved in a large or travel shoot – the hotels, the travel costs, the days lost to travel between locations – it’s easy to start seeing numbers diminish by virtue of being in one place.”
One of the most significant aspects of the workshop was its hands-on learning environment, a feature Wojtunik saw as crucial to the participants’ experience. “We let participants try to light the wall themselves. This is critical,” he said. “So many workshops have the instructor lighting it for the participants, and there are certain biases that those instructors have to make it look better, faster. Seeing the attendees actually figure out the ‘blend’ really makes everyone feel at ease. There are a lot of things to learn, but ultimately you have to lean into your lighting sensibilities.”
For Cathcart, the magic of the workshop came from watching those moments of creative discovery. “There’s always this beautiful moment where someone that can leverage this technology sees how they can use it in their own world to give them a whole new set of tools,” he said. “It’s almost like the moment you discover that you have superpowers. I really love watching faces light up during that moment. That happened a lot during the workshop, and it was fun to be a part of.”
Verma highlighted the timeliness of the event. “Virtual production has rapidly gained popularity in recent years, across various content formats,” he explained. “This collaboration reflects our shared commitment to making virtual production more accessible to a wider range of storytellers and creators. By equipping DPs with the knowledge needed to work effectively with LED volumes through such workshops, we hope to encourage faster adoption of virtual production techniques in their future projects.”
For many, the opportunity to get hands-on with the latest tools was invaluable. “It’s one thing to passively watch a YouTube video of the BTS from House of the Dragon, 1899 or Poor Things,” Cathcart said. “It’s another thing to be able to actively grab a camera, set up a shot and walk through all the individual steps in real time. You’re forced to understand all aspects of what it takes to get that shot and how the LED volume reacts to certain choices.”
Wojtunik echoed this sentiment, saying the highlight of the workshop for him was, “Seeing them get excited about different aspects of the VR experience, and witnessing them ask questions about potential possibilities for different applications.”
As virtual production technology continues to evolve, this workshop marks an important step toward democratizing these tools for filmmakers of all experience levels, opening up new creative possibilities for the future of cinematography.
Photo Credit: Ashish Bansal
