Studio Consultancy for Virtual Production, Green Screen and Foley Studios in Nottingham Trent University new-build Digital Arts & Design Building
This new state-of-the-art £35m building houses the School of Art & Design at Nottingham Trent University (NTU).
The building enables NTU to develop its creative industries offering by bringing new technologies for film, animation, UX design, gaming and graphic design and illustration together with traditional design practice.
The 5300m2 building features a glazed ground floor entrance used as an Exhibition Space, a Virtual Production Studio, Green Screen Studio, Black Box Studio and Foley/ADR Studio plus a range of teaching spaces, labs and offices.
Drama by Design were involved with the project from feasibility study through to completion. We worked with the architect on the design of the building, designed all the specialist technical systems, coordinated them with the design team and project managed the specialist contractors.
The Virtual Production Studio features a 4m high x 9m wide curved LED volume controlled via Arca media servers and Brompton processing. There are eight motorised lighting rigs to cover the whole area, with a comprehensive range of LED luminaires controlled from a computerised lighting control system.
Moveable side walls, or ‘Wild Walls’ were specially designed for the project. They house an array of LED panels mounted on a wheeled base. The LED panels can be tilted to any angle, raised and lowered and even lifted off the bases and used as ceiling panels.
Motion capture systems are provided, which include not only people tracking but full camera tracking for creation of AR and VR content. This system offers unlimited freedom of movement and gives accurate position, rotation and lens data in real-time. The cameras can rotate 360 degrees, and be moved to any position in the studio.
The Green Screen Studio features a fixed infinity green screen wall, perimeter curtain track with black and grey curtains. Studio lighting is provided via a moveable rail system with four fixed rails and smaller moveable rails that span across the fixed rails. A range of LED luminaires mounted on spring pantographs enable the luminaires to be rigged and focussed from the floor.
The Black Box Studio is more of an experimental space with a moveable box truss to enable different scenarios to be set-up and taught to the students., It is also wired for an optical motion capture system.
The Foley/ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) studio is equipped with a digital sound mixer and audio, video and communication links between the control room and studio space.
