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The Challenge of Real-Time Virtual Production for Filmmaking: The French Case

Les tournages à l’épreuve des effets visuels numériques en « temps réel » : le cas français
Los rodajes franceses puestos a prueba por los efectos visuales digitales “en tiempo real” El caso francés
Französische Dreharbeiten auf dem Prüfstand der digitalen visuellen Effekte in „Echtzeit“: der französische Fall
Gwenaële Rot
Traduction de Delaina Haslam
Cet article est une traduction de :
Les tournages à l’épreuve des effets visuels numériques en « temps réel » : le cas français [fr]

Résumés

Au cours des années 2000, les métiers de fabrication des décors de films ou de séries ont connu, avec le développement des technologies numériques, un nouveau partage territorial et professionnel des interventions : aux métiers traditionnels de la décoration incombe la réalisation des premiers plans du décor tandis que, de plus en plus, les spécialistes de VFX (effets visuels) prennent en charge, en phase de post-production, ce qui relève de l’arrière-fond de l’image. Mais après le Covid-19, dès 2020, la mise au point d’effets visuels numériques en temps réel remet en cause ce processus séquentiel. Il est désormais possible, grâce à un travail important de « pré-production », d’obtenir directement sur un plateau de tournage un décor virtuel, au moyen de la diffusion d’images pré-tournées en décor naturel ou reconstituées en 3D. C’est la chaîne de fabrication des images qui est ainsi profondément transformée. Dans cette contribution, qui repose sur une enquête exploratoire menée auprès de studios de tournages spécialisés dans l’usage de ces technologies, nous interrogerons ce que cette modalité du travail numérique fait à la vie de plateau. Dans quelles mesures les frontières du travail entre les différents spécialistes mobilisés sur un plateau sont-elles redessinées ?

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Notes de l’auteur

The author thanks the Fondation pour les sciences sociales and the Sciences Po Scientific Advisory Board for supporting this research programme.

Texte intégral

Digital technology came to the film industry through visual effects, and eventually invaded editing, shooting, colour grading, and film distribution and screening. It’s a bit like a wave burst over the sea wall and flooded a small seaside town, and the sea flooded the ground, the bricks of the houses, the street lights, the tyres of the cars… It impregnated everything with salt, and this salt has become one of the constituent elements of these materials, which were previously heterogeneous. […] I believe that today we are witnessing a new wave, the wave of real time that will once again flood the world of cinema and which is currently flooding the world of visual effects. (Public talk by Christian Guillon, founder of Tontons Truqueurs, Paris Images Forum, 2022)

1Over the past thirty years, the gradual introduction of digital technologies has changed the entire film production and distribution chain (Barnier, Bonhomme & Kitsopanidou 2019; Forest 2013; Hamus-Vallée & Renouard 2015; McKernan 2005), but also intermediation activities such the role played by agents (Roussel 2023). These changes are detectable on a global scale even if they unfold at different rates according to country (Benghozi, Salvador & Simon 2019). In this context, American film companies have invested heavily in studio shooting and the creation of digital visual effects (VFX) in post-production, notably to represent imaginary spaces (Venkatasawmy 2013). In France, where the tradition of “film d’auteur” linked to photorealism remains strong, filmmakers and producers have tended to shy away from studio shooting and extensive use of VFX.1 For some observers, the limited number of studios in France, or their unsuitability for the various needs of a film shoot, were not conducive to encouraging the development of artistic projects requiring such facilities.2

  • 3 The former television studios of the French Association of Production (SFP) at Bry-sur-Marne in the (...)
  • 4 TSF, a provider of technical business services (camera, lighting, studios) to the film industry, op (...)
  • 5 On France Télévisions’ strategy in terms of developing these filming infrastructures, see Helène La (...)
  • 6 The investment announced in the media is 72 million euros, including 12 million from public funding (...)
  • 7 CNC, Cahier des charges de l’appel à projets “La grande fabrique de l’image” (studios et formation)(...)
  • 8 This was a “temporary measure with a 10-million-euro budget aimed at giving exceptional support to (...)

2However, after the COVID-19 crisis, French film studios seem to be experiencing renewed interest amid growing demand for content linked to the development of platforms and series. Since the minister of Culture announced the sixty-eight winning projects of the “France 2030” public investment plan dedicated to the “Grande fabrique de l’image” (Great Image Factory) at the Cannes Film Festival on 19 May 2023, there have been countless press articles discussing the expansion, modernization, and the construction of film studios, particularly in Île-de-France (Bry-sur-Marne,3 Coulommiers4), Occitanie (V Studios in Montpellier5), and the south region (Provence Studio in Martigues, Les Studios de la Victorine in Nice), but also in the Grand-Est region, where billionaire Xavier Niel purchased part of a military airbase at Reims in July 2025 to establish a “centre of excellence for European cinema.”6 Doubling production capacity and “making France the European leader in film shooting and digital production”7 are the ambitions of this major public 350-million-euro investment plan. This operation, which is part of the French National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image’s “modernization shock wave” of 2021,8 follows the deployment of other financial incentives, such as an international tax credit (C2I). Designed to attract foreign filmmakers, it was implemented in 2009 and increased in 2020 to support works making significant use of VFX. Local government also plays a key role in providing economic support for the development of these infrastructures, which are seen as key drivers of regional attractiveness.

3The “France 2030” investment plan aims to strengthen not only the range of French film studios, but also the cutting-edge technologies they offer. Forecasts made by the CNC in 2022 indicate that “special effects are moving from post-production to pre-production, sets are giving way to projections” and that “these special effects reduce the amount of set space required, making modularity more important than the sheer size of the sets.”9 Some successful project bids will not materialize,10 and this presentation is a long way from corresponding to the state of the French cinematographic and audiovisual production system in 2025. Companies that invest in technologies that are far from being fully developed face difficulties in finding regular outlets for their products. Competition is fierce to the point of sending the Dark Matters company into liquidation in May 2024. Nevertheless, tools now exist that allow digital sets to be created not after shooting (whether on location or in a studio), in post-production, but in pre-production, so that they can be used in real time during studio shooting (Swords & Willment 2024). As we finalize the writing of this article, in July 2025, these technologies are themselves very much evolving and are in the process of being appropriated by the film crews that use them.

4First I will clarify the processes that led to the introduction of these VFX on certain sets (1). Then I will examine the professional reconfigurations implied by new work boundaries (Flichy 2017) within professions relating to set construction (2) and lighting (3).

5Indeed, in the context of the recent reconsideration of the film studio as a creative tool and a place for digital special effects, new professionals must find their place on set at a time when the areas of intervention of traditional trades such as set design and lighting are being reconfigured. From the perspective of a sociology of work that pays attention to the “observation of forms of adjustment for individuals to one another and to their environment in concrete actions” (Dodier 1993) and is keen to consider the modes of articulation between technical and social facts collectively (Bidet et al. 2006; Fourmentraux 2011; Vatin 2014), it will be a question of characterizing the forms of these reconfigurations. The manufacture of symbolic goods in the form of audiovisual productions is based on a process of division of labour and collective creation whose contours are far from fixed (Mille & Sofio 2020; Rot & de Verdalle 2013). Innovation and shifting boundaries between professions are transforming the forms of cooperation necessary to accomplish the work of each (Hughes 1984). I will thus show how the implementation of these measures is likely to redistribute roles and responsibilities on film sets. The sharing of professional territories comes about via compromises including in the realm of power relations (Abbott 1988; Pinto & Mary 2021), but the implementation of these technologies is also built on learning through technical and social exploration.

  • 11 A variable size screen composed of LED panels.

6This exploratory article completes and updates initial research carried out before COVID-19 relating to production designers in view of the development of post-production (Rot 2019a, 2019b). This second stage of research took place between 2021 and 2025 and focused more specifically on shooting using virtual production. A series of formal recorded interviews (n = 20) were conducted with professionals (producers and production managers, filmmakers, production designers, cinematographers, VFX on-set operators, studio managers, gaffers, and technical service providers) involved in the implementation of these tools in the making of commercials, feature-length films, and TV series. Several days were furthermore spent observing studio shooting. This took place first on the set of Planète Rouge, at Provence Studios (Martigues), which has one of the biggest fixed LED wall installations11 (“virtual set”) in France (two-day observation carried out in November 2021 during the test phase and in December 2024 during the shooting of an advert). Second at the France Télévisions film studios (Vendargues), where France’s only “on-set previstools have been implemented for use on the daily soap opera Un si grand soleil (of one to three days approximately every six months). These specific observations enabled a technical introduction to understanding the implementation and forms of appropriation over time of real-time digital visual effects tools. Informal interviews were also carried out in this case with members of the film crews (in the canteen and sometimes during breaks between scenes). I also took part in several post-production professional meetings (post-production days organised by the AFC [French Society of Cinematographers, Association française des directrices et directeurs de la photographie cinématographique] in January 2020 and at the Paris Images Forum in January 2022, 2023, and February 2025).

1. Méliès Goes Digital

  • 12 Photogrammetry refers to measurement techniques which determine the position and dimension of an ob (...)
  • 13 An opening refers to a background set which is glimpsed through a window or door.

7A film set provides a realistic or imaginary image of a three-dimensional space. When lit, it creates an atmosphere and defines the setting for the action. In France, the film set is often, traditionally, a real place used as-is or re-imagined to a greater or lesser extent for the purposes of the shoot (known as a “location”). For recurring interior scenes, or for period films with substantial budgets, sets are also constructed in the studio using wooden flats which are painted or papered. Backdrops may also be used on which backgrounds are reproduced (by means of photogrammetry,12 CGI, etc.) to provide scenic openings13 or spatial extensions. The finishing touches are added through a process of set dressing (furnishing) and props dressing. Lastly, the set can be made using 2D or 3D digital technology by superimposing images onto green screens after shooting, during post-production. These tools, which require substantial technology funding, saw a certain rise in the 2000s thanks to a reduction in the cost of the digital processing of images. Different forms of set building are often combined in one film (Hamus-Vallée & Renouard 2018). Technology known as “real-time” which uses video game engines now completes the range of forms of set construction. Two methods are used: real-time previsualization tools; and immersive virtual production systems.

1. 1. Installing Previsualization on Set

  • 14 For a detailed presentation of this approach, see the account published by Hamus-Vallée, Giusy Pisa (...)
  • 15 On this story, see Alexia de Mari (2024).
  • 16 Tontons Truqueurs website (accessed 23 May 2024).
  • 17 A technique that captures movement by placing markers in a scene so they can be analysed by a compu (...)
  • 18 Tontons Truqueurs website (accessed 23 May 2024).
  • 19 Notes provided by Pierre-Marie Boyer, “Nouveaux usages des plateaux, les tontons truqueurs,” Lettre (...)

8In 2017, Christian Guillon, the “godfather” of visual special effects in French cinema, created his company, Les Tontons Truqueurs, to develop real-time preview tools.14 Unlike its competitor Solid Anim, which had also developed on-set previs tools in 201415 for use on an ad-hoc basis when shooting highly complex scenes, Les Tontons Truqueurs convinced France Télévisions producers to take the leap into industrialization by deploying its system as part of a daily soap opera (Un si grand soleil, which began in 2018 and is still running in 2025), requiring a permanent presence on the stage. “Innovation in tradition” and “When VFX no longer means post-production” are the mottos of this start-up, which was acquired by France Télévisions in 2020. “To show, on the film set, a preview of the mix between the real images being filmed and the computer-generated images”16 and simplifying post-production by using tracking data17 “directly in post-production software”18—these are the aims of this technology which allows the film crew to immediately access the “overall image”; in other words, the image that will be broadcast to viewers in its near-final form via video feedback on a computer. To this end, markers suspended from the studio grid allow a tracker mounted on the camera to calculate its position. This information, along with optical data (such as zoom and focal length), is sent to a computer on set, which, using a video game engine, composites the background by combining images shot against a green screen and CGI images preprepared by a team of graphic designers.19

Figure 1

Figure 1

Video feedback on-set previs (Vendargues, 2024).

Credit: Gwenaële Rot.

  • 20 On the history of decor extension techniques see Renouard (2024).

9These tools were first used to make interior openings within traditional sets built in the studio (windows with views of the city of Montpellier represented using 3D computer-generated images, incorporating animations with extras or virtual vehicles in the background), then for set extensions (for example, extending the corridors of constructed sets).20 Some sets were designed with a full-green screen set-up.

  • 21 This non-limiting number increases slowly according to the development of plots in the series.

10Finally, in 2025, alongside the large recurring sets that are permanently installed, such as the interior of a high school, a police station, and a hospital (all of which are digitally extended to give viewers the impression of being in a vast space), around fifteen21 small hybrid “rotating” sets to suit the development of the story arcs were installed at the Vendargues studio to represent apartments and offices in which the characters develop. These stages, designed from the same architectural base and composed of entirely green screen surfaces for the superimposition of computer-generated 3D images, can be easily taken down and replaced. Their development has been gradual since the tracking system has had to be calibrated and operators trained to switch from one configuration to another, and retrieve data from the sets. Standardizing and streamlining the use of sets by drawing on real-time technologies to enable modularity in a limited space is a way of combining two imperatives: the rationalization of production in flow television, without renouncing diversity and renewal in set design.

1. 2. “Virtual Sets” or Immersion in the Set

  • 22 A plate is a background shot (e.g., a road or a landscape) used to composite a foreground scene.

11Another fantastic system, the virtual set, composed of LED walls, first appeared in some film studios after the COVID-19 crisis. Background plates22 filmed upstream on location or computer-generated images (CGI) made in 3D then generated in real time using a video game engine are displayed on the LED wall installed in the studio, immersing the actors in the set. The light emitted by the LED wall is reflected onto the actors and objects of the physical set (vehicles, for example), creating a more realistic effect. There is no risk of green reflections on the actors or props and furniture of the set as can sometimes happen with green screen stages used for the requirements of post-production or on-set previs.

12As for the on-set previs system, the perspective of sets changes according to the movement of the camera.

Figure 2

Figure 2

LED wall, professional demonstration (Planète Rouge, 2021).

Credit: Gwenaële Rot.

  • 23 At least this is the case Disney makes; the people I spoke to as part of the survey told me that th (...)
  • 24 For a series of testimonies from professionals, see François Reumont “Produire en virtuel” issue, C (...)

13The introduction of “virtual sets” in France into the range of services available to film and television productions followed the discovery, in November 2019, of first season of The Mandalorian, produced by Disney, whose fantastic sets were made predominantly in “real time”23 using the video game engine Unreal Engine. Service providers in the technical film industry, as well as in advertising and events, took advantage of the lockdown to explore the adaptation potential of this gaming engine combined with LED walls for film shoots.24 As Justine Coulmy (2022: 6) points out, referring to “a new crossover of production tools across different worlds [rather than] the sudden emergence of a revolutionary technology,” these technologies are not new, since “television studios were already using LED screen walls in their sets, and video games had been using real-time 3D rendering engines for years.”

14From 2020, companies specializing in audiovisual and live entertainment production (such as Volt-Tournages and Picseyes25), post-production (Planète Rouge and Bizaroïd), event management (Novelty and its subsidiary Plateau Virtuel), and LED screen rental (Street Communication and its subsidiary Virtual Production House) have diversified their range of services by offering “virtual sets.” In 2021, the TSF group partnered for a time with an event service company, PRG, and the Mado XR26 start-up to offer this technology at the historic Épinay studios. New companies have also been created. Neoset, founded in 2021 by a former key grip and a former advertising director, provide background plate creation and LED wall display services. The same year Dark Matters was created, whose founders were from an events and special effects background, built a 15,000-square-metre special effects studio forty kilometers from Paris offering a virtual film set option as part of its building rental business. Most of these companies initially preferred to rent LEDs and broadcasting software as needed for filming owing to cost and the risk of equipment becoming obsolete. Nevertheless, some of them have also invested in fixed equipment, such as the huge, curved LED screen at Planète Rouge installed at the Provence studios in Martigues, and the one at Vendargues, set up in January 2024 at the France Télévisions studios by the Tontons Truqueurs team. In July 2025, Neoset also announced the installation, in partnership with the Bry-sur-Marne studio of “NEO.B4,” a 300-square-metre set equipped with an LED wall.27

  • 28 Futuristic worlds or war re-enactments, as in the Handicap International video.
  • 29 In each case, the “journey” was central to the storyline. The recurrence of journey scenes was a de (...)

15Although it has been said in the mainstream press—wrongly—that the green background used for compositing images in post-production would be ousted by LED walls, this technology, which is still very expensive, is favoured to shoot clips and above all commercials that have significant funding to reconstruct in 3D spectacular universes often far from photorealism.28 In films and TV series, it has been used to shoot risky situations, such as fire scenes, high-altitude mountain adventures, or dancing atop a crane, as takes place in Warsha (2022)—the first fictional short film whose story is set on a construction site in Lebanon, shot at Planète Rouge studio in Martigues and awarded at the Sundance Film Festival. But for the moment, this technology is mainly implemented to represent car (Une belle course, 2021; Sur la route de papa, 2025) or train (Veuillez nous excuser pour la gêne occasionnée, 2023)29 journeys (what we call “rouling”); it is very popular for chase scenes (for example in Loin du Periph, 2022; Lupin season 3, 2025; and Balles perdues season 3, 2025). These are thereby photorealistic landscapes shown onto LED walls using plates previously shot on location.

Figure 3

Figure 3

Driving scene, with an LED wall (Vendargues, 2024).

Crédits : Gwenaële Rot.

1. 3. Film Stage Densification

  • 30 The environmental argument is up for debate, as LED walls also consume electricity. The type of eco (...)
  • 31 Virtual Production House slogan.

16Service providers promote a safer, more environmentally friendly space, protected from environmental hazards, and with controlled lighting (it is possible to create sunsets lasting several hours).30 The emphasis is also on creativity to “make the unthinkable filmable”31 through the design and exploitation of CGI.

17For now, the cost constraints are considerable and the technical limitations (stage space, moiré issues and the impossibility of focusing on the virtual set) remain obstacles to the wider adoption of the system. French productions are still very attached to photorealism and filming in natural settings, and it is not certain that the incentive of international tax credits will be sufficient to attract large numbers of international productions which are ready to invest to create radically new aesthetic worlds. Other factors also come into play in the decision-making process, such as belief in the usefulness of these technologies, which depends on the socialization of filmmakers, their close collaborators (production designers and cinematographers) and producers, each of whom can be prescribers to varying degrees, as highlighted by this production designer who has experience of shooting a feature film on a virtual set:

The thing is that often the young filmmakers starting out don’t have the budgets to do this kind of thing and those who have the budget, the older ones, they’re not comfortable with it yet, they have their habits. Then there are those in between, like L, who is a contemporary filmmaker who adapts as the techniques evolve. But ultimately, it just has to be right [for the film you want to make]. (Production designer, interview conducted in 2024)

18This has not escaped the attention of companies which are investing heavily in recruitment, paying particular attention to the production of demo “reels,” to the presentation of their technical skills at trade fairs, film schools, and universities, and to the training of technicians. The communication actions of a company like Neoset bear fruit since the University of Toulon, which is financially supported—up to 80 per cent—by the Var department, acquired a 15-square-metre LED wall in January 2025, which was installed on the set of the university’s audiovisual and digital production platform. These companies, which operate in a highly competitive space, are also investing in research and development to improve the quality of tracking systems, image integration processes, and LEDs. An “ecology” is thus gradually emerging, participating to some extent in the legitimization of these tools and bringing together private (but also public in the case of France Télévisions) entrepreneurs, government (the CNC’s “modernization shock wave” in 2021; and the France 2030 investment plan), and cinema and television technicians who would like to benefit from new professional opportunities.

  • 32 It is only very recently that specific training courses have been set up. The Georges Méliès School (...)

19To make the on-set previs or virtual set tools work, the founders of these companies surround themselves with professionals from film sets (gaffers and cinematographers), video games, and post-production to construct 3D film sets or ensure the focus and integration of images on the shoot. In the absence of specific training, they have trained on the job.32 The transfer of techniques from one world to another (video games to cinema) is a challenge for graphic designers who come from video games and who do not always master the artistic conventions and photorealistic representations of cinema to create 3D sets shown in real time. Post-production professionals are not always ready to face the bustle of set life so as to integrate digital images in real time on the shoot. The VFX on-set operators we surveyed had a variety of educational backgrounds (such as the audiovisual advanced vocational training certificate or an audiovisual, 3D, or new media degree, or had studied at the École Nationale Louis-Lumière [French national Cinema, Photography & Sound Engineering School] or various graphic design schools).

20Generally speaking, having an additional team dedicated to image integration increases the number of people on set, which can sometimes cause additional disruption (such as noise and inconvenience when setting up equipment). On the sets of the daily series that we observed, an on-set operator (positioned by the camera) is busy connecting the VFX cart computers to the camera, alongside the electricians setting up their light fixtures and the grips installing their travelling rails. He holds the long cable linking the camera to the computer that recalculates the 3D images, which are then sent to the video relays of the filmmaker’s and cinematographer. He also acts as the “eyes” of the two “machine operators,” who each handle the video feedback of one of the cameras, check the quality of the integrated images, and adjust the 3D set. The configuration is similar on virtual reality sets since a specific technical team is dedicated to the adjustment of the LEDs and the image diffusion software (either 3D or background plates). But in any case, these digital visual effects professionals must interact with other film industry trades in the set design and lighting sectors both upstream during the preparation of the film and on the shoot.

2. The Distributed Set: The Challenge of Continuity

21The set design profession has constantly reinvented itself from the earliest days of cinema (Gousseau 2021). For almost thirty years, the use of digital visual effects made in post-production has been part of the professional landscape of production design. In reality, it is very rare for a film to be produced using only this type of process. Rather, production configurations that involve the use of mixed techniques (assemblage, construction, digital sets) prevail, thus allaying set designers’ primary fear of the theft of their work. However, it is quite common to hear them lament the fact that the realization of digital sets is too often beyond their control once the film passes into the hands of the post-production teams. The “real-time” configuration changes the game by reinforcing the challenges of cooperation during the film preparation phase.

2. 1. Set Design: Between Co-Construction and Avoidance

22In the context of the production of the daily soap opera Un si grand soleil, the story we were told about the collaboration between a VFX on-set operator and a production designer concerning the creation of a set combining physical and virtual elements involves a process of adjustment and a transfer of expertise.

[The production designer] had her overall vision for the set and a clear idea of which parts needed to be physically built and where we could get creative with the virtual. She understood the issues and then she had a lot of fun. During the design phase, I had the technical expertise to tell her “Ok what you’re planning to do, it is possible or it is not possible because there will be such and such a problem.” You add a window here and the characters will pass and disappear completely behind it when it’s supposed to be transparent, or very practical things: “If you build the set two meters from the green background, the actors will be too close and they’ll have too much green on them.” So [it was a case of] having a look at it at the design stage. (On-set previs operator, interview conducted in 2024)

23The effectiveness and legitimacy of this approach is based on the acceptability of a new work organization which involves, to some extent, a reversal in the process, since the entire set (both the physical and the digital parts) must be thought out in preparation before the shooting phase (Coulmy 2022). Here the VFX on-set operator predicts its practical uses for the film crew and acts as spokesperson for the set to her interlocutor.

24However, this displacement in the design activities of digital sets in the preparation phase is a double-edged sword for production designers. It offers them the opportunity to have a say in the overall design of the set, but only if they are able to devote time to it during the preparation phase. Moreover, when on certain sets it’s the virtual component which prevails (whether fully green screen or LED wall), this set-up is nonetheless associated with a sense of renunciation—and a loss of agency—compared with what also constitutes the essence of their craft: overseeing construction and coordinating a team of builders, painters, upholsterers, metalworkers, and so on.

25The cross-narrative account of an on-set VFX operator and a production designer regarding a collaboration characterized by avoidance during the preparation of a virtual set with an LED wall also underscores the difficulty of reconciling two different relationships to time. Whereas most digital sets which are intended to extend certain natural settings or studio constructions are created in post-production, it proved difficult to introduce a new approach that disrupted the usual working conventions too much, as the operator explains with regard to certain sequences from an American series filmed on a virtual set in 2022:

It was a bit complicated working with this production designer. During the preparation stage, they didn’t have time to devote to us. There were mood boards, but he didn’t answer when I asked him to approve what I’d done in 3D: “That’s special effects.” But I'm not an artistic director! Then the director, who was standing next to me, said, “Do whatever you want.” We add another department to the preparation stage, we ask for storyboards, découpage, thinking time… and they get overwhelmed. (VFX on-set operator, interview conducted in 2024)

Two months later, in February 2025, I had the opportunity to interview the production designer concerned at a trade fair. At a presentation about the link between “digital” and “physical” sets, the use of LED walls was hardly mentioned, the main theme being devoted to the considerable work involved in the material transformation of locations and the integration of VFX carried out in post-production for the needs of a series set in the sixteenth century. The production designer and the post-production visual effects manager in this case highlighted the complementarity of their respective contributions in order to realistically render a shift in era. At the end of the presentation, I took the liberty of asking him about the fate of the sequences shot on a virtual set. He, too, made no secret of the fact that the operation had been difficult.

When you do post-production, it takes place in the six months following filming, so you have time to send the drawings and other elements that will serve as references. But in this case, you have to be ready on the day of filming… [while having to work on the other physical sets]. One of the advantages of LED is that there’s no post-production. […] But when you have to create imaginary sets, well, usually we work with post-production visual effects specialists. But the people who manage LED walls don’t always have the skills to create… and they don’t have as many artists [as companies specializing in post-production] to properly match things up with the physical set. This requires a quality of texture and material that is time-consuming and difficult to achieve. That’s why it was more complicated. It’s not a technology that we’ve mastered yet. (Production designer, in answer to my question following his lecture, Paris Images Forum 2025)

26The lack of involvement in the design process for a digital set, the creation of which had been delegated on an ad-hoc basis to a technical service provider who was not really part of the film crew; the focus on other sets that needed to be prepared at the time of filming; and aesthetic requirements that were not met (partly because he did not really collaborate in pre-production with the VFX team who were working with him “in real time”) all left a bitter taste.

27Another change in the use of real-time VFX is the selection and design by teams of different professionals of objects that, when combined, must be realistic and consistent with the image. The “digital fake” must not be distinguishable from its “physical” counterpart.

We have a team dedicated to creating 3D virtual sets […]. For the exteriors, we’ve got references from the city, but for the interiors we need to match the actual set decoration to know what kind of paint they’re using. They’ve got materials in stock, and we’ve got materials in stock. You have to choose the simplest elements to make for one and the other, like which props you’ll use. The more we draw on physical elements for the virtual, the more duplications we get—and the more the viewer is deceived. (On-set previs operator, interview conducted in 2023)

28This attention to continuity predates the development of digital visual effects and can be found in other contexts, such as when connecting a natural location with interior sets built in a studio. The production designer therefore expects the builders, sculptors, painters, and set dressers working under his supervision to create forms, styles, and finishes that create the illusion of continuity between two heterogeneous segments of the set. But here, an object that is “easy to make” for the VFX graphics team, which now has to work in “pre-production” with video game tools, is not necessarily the ideal object for the production designer, who may fear that this logic of alignment will be detrimental to his artistic vision.

2. 2. The Reality Test of the Shoot

29Production designers are subject to a range of new expectations that they did not face when openings and set extensions were made after filming, in post-production. For their part, VFX teams designing 3D sets must also collaborate with other professionals to foresee how these sets will connect with other “physical” set elements during filming. Each also expects the other to recognize their contribution to the production process.

30In this context, for strategic reasons of preserving professional autonomy but also a lack of time, decisions taken by the set design team concerning the physical elements of the set (form, colour, texture, etc.) may not have been previously submitted to the VFX team to test their compatibility with the “virtual” elements of the set, at the risk of causing tension on the day of shooting.

On this virtual set, one of the first shoots of an advertisement with a CGI background in 3D was a baptism of fire. According to a studio manager, the director and the production designer had not sufficiently calculated the configuration of the base of the set to make it compatible with a “real-time” shot. The section of the physical foreground set built in wood and painted from a storyboard did not have the right perspective to connect to the virtual set. On the day of filming, it had been difficult to get the production designer to move her set, as she herself was waiting for the VFX specialists on set to adapt the virtual set to the physical setting she had envisaged. (Field notes from the Planète rouge studios, 2021)

Under these conditions, insufficient upstream preparation can make the “real-time” connection on set more difficult.

31Each film is a prototype and by definition the production of a film set is always subject to economic and technical constraints. Innovation results from the fact that in the absence of accumulated experience of the possibilities and impossibilities of these technologies, adaptation often happens when there are no other options left. This is what happened during the filming of the series using on-set previs: it became apparent that a set with doorways that were too wide was causing tracking failures and impeding the calculations required for the real-time reconstruction of the virtual set. The doors had to be urgently reconfigured. It is highly likely that certain technical constraints associated with tracking markers will be resolved in the near future with the invention of a camera system capable of performing automatic perspective calculations. In the example below—a film drama in which many studio-reconstructed action scenes were supposed to take place on a moving train—the entire architecture of the physical set had to be redesigned in response to the rigidity of the LED wall:

Initially, we had the idea of creating different sets that we would bring on gradually, like physical carriages on set. But in the end, given the structure of the LED wall which cannot be disassembled like that and which need calibrating—which takes time—once they had installed their system around my set, I couldn’t move it or bring on another one. I had to think of a way of dismantling certain parts to make it look like we were moving through different train carriages via the connecting vestibules. (Production designer, interview conducted in 2024)

32Here, the production designer had to back down and adapt in the absence of other possible options. He also worked very closely with the cinematographer to consider the positioning of the lighting points on his set. Adapting to new configurations is not necessarily experienced negatively, and it adds to the importance of these professions whose creative impulses are always under constraint. Finding tailor-made solutions is one of those professional challenges that is appreciated once it has been overcome.

33In general, reinforced interdependencies increase the mutual expectations, both technical and social, of the main artistic collaborators involved in building sets. There are comparable challenges involved when making lighting adjustments.

3. Lighting Effects

34The way a shoot usually works is based on the principle of a quasi-military hierarchical structure (Rot 2023) built around the director, the cinematographer responsible for lighting, and the first assistant director who ensures compliance with the work plan. When shooting begins, the set designer step back and the cinematographer – sometimes the camera operator – takes over with his team of electricians and grips in making the film. The cinematographer then becomes the most important figure on the set after the director (Vernet 2013). The implementation of new on-set previs or virtual set technology challenges this configuration. An on-set previs supervisor interviewed in 2023 analysed the new situation in these terms:

I would say that we come between staging and lighting. The director-cinematographer partnership is very close, but they’re forced to involve us for the 3D lighting. We interfere with a historical couple in filming. (On-set previs supervisor, interview conducted in 2023)

35Similarly, a virtual set manager I met on a shoot in 2021 insisted that this presence reinforced the multiplicity of opinions and constraints to be taken into consideration, for filmmakers as well as for cinematographers.

3. 1. Regimes of Copresence and Professional Hierarchies

36The issue of temporal interference caused by interventions by VFX on-set operators in relation to the time frame of the shoot is a sensitive point. Recounting his initial experiences of coexisting with the film crew of the soap opera Un si grand soleil when it began in 2018, Christian Guillon described it as a form of forced intrusion:

When we started on that production, we weren’t supposed to interfere with the filming, we weren’t allowed to ask for time for ourselves, and if we had been invisible, it would have been even better! (Public testimony of Christian Guillon, AFC Micro Salon, 2020)

This memory is consistent with the account given by a cinematographer interviewed in 2023, who was present from the beginning of the series:

The new situation was that we were working together on set. And it’s true that this was something that scared me a little at first. As it can be very time-consuming, and we’re working on a soap opera format where we really don’t have much time. I told them straight away: “I don't work around you, you work around us.” (Cinematographer, interview conducted in 2023)

37When the time required to make certain adjustments slows down the pace of filming, filmmakers and cinematographers alike do not always appreciate these new intermediaries taking up their time—and thus compromising their working conditions—in the name of technical requirements to which they attach only limited importance. On-set operators sometimes feel that they are treated less leniently:

Everyone is used to taking the time to set up the frame, position the actors, adjust the light fixtures, and create a good setting for the sound. But the small amount of time we need before each shot to adjust the green levels according to the lights and the frame is time that everyone sees as wasted: “We’re waiting for the greens!” On-set previs is not yet seen as a professional team in its own right. (On-set previs operator, interview conducted in 2023)

38Taking each shot means taking a professional risk for all participants in the network of cooperation (Becker 1982) underpinning a shoot. The pursuit of a certain level of perfectionism during the period when technical systems are still being fine-tuned can be perceived as counterproductive:

The only thing I get annoyed with them [the VFX team on set] about sometimes is communication. “Your life’s not exactly on the line here guys! Don’t say ‘yes’ to make me happy if it’ll turn into a ‘no’ [after the take], because that won’t make me happy!”… But often they find it hard to say: “No, that’s no good.” It’s as though it were an admission of weakness… (Director, interview conducted in 2023)

39Hesitations are also synonymous with a lack of confidence and have no place on set, especially in the context of the day-to-day in which time is limited for everyone (Mille 2024). The on-set operators in charge of previsualization also know that their work will be evaluated throughout the process that continues after filming. Indeed, the quality of their work on set determines the quantity of work that will be continued in post-production, the finishing phase in the image integration process.

40But over time, the resolution of technical bugs has favoured increased fluidity in the shoot. The same cinematographer who referred to his significant reservations, acknowledges that integration has gone well overall:

Afterwards, from the point of view of collaboration on set, I’d say it went pretty well. The time constraint I’d been worried about wasn’t an issue. So that was already a win. (Cinematographer, interview conducted in 2023)

41A film crew operates on the basis of a distribution of known roles that constitute a shared culture (Bechky 2006). While, on this series, cohabitation took place without major conflict, this was also because it was admitted by all that the presence of the on-set previs team should not change the professional structures in place. Long-term cohabitation has also allowed everyone to get to know each other, to identify and anticipate the constraints of others, and to facilitate professional arrangements. But the balance is fragile. It only takes a machine being out of action for too long (for example, a tracker that has stopped working), stopping the shoot or forcing the director to abandon certain shots because they must make compromises (using a single camera), for the legitimacy of “real-time VFX” to be called into question.

  • 33 Filming took place at Épinay studios in 2021, when this technology had only just been adopted.

42On more ambitious shoots, the presence of several teams of service providers responsible for implementing virtual set technologies that are still being developed increases the risk of confusion, as was the case on the detective mini-series Vortex (2023), which revolves around crime scenes reconstructed via virtual reality.33

The beach was digitized in photogrammetry by a VFX company. They took 8,000 drone photos and recreated a digital set. Our job was to take over that set and guarantee its proper playback by working on optimization ahead of time and then handling playback on the shooting stage. We realized they were making 3D sets the way they usually do for “pre-calculation” [in post-production], not for real time. […] They made adjustments sometimes just before shooting when we’d preset all the foregrounds, the light, the frame. So we’d be about to be ready, then everything changed. “But what happened, what happened?” And we’d turn around and there’d be the VFX guys at the back on their own, changing things on the tablet. […] At one point during the staging they got lost, there were too many people. They asked to have just one interlocutor, and this fell to me. I was the link between the people from the VFX company, the image team [the cinematographer and electricians], and the in-house people who handled the LED wall. (LED service provider operator, interview conducted in 2023)

43The level of expertise of some service providers can justify a shift in orchestration power, as mentioned here by this service provider manager—keen to highlight his great professionalism—talking about the virtual filming of a complex scene. It is often on the job that the rules of communication are invented and sometimes new professional hierarchies set up, depending on the new problems to be solved.

3. 2. A Common Image: The Sometimes Discordant Conventions on Quality

44The results of the set processing by the VFX team can now be seen live at the time of shooting, either through a video monitor feed (on-set previs) or directly on the LED wall. Access to a single, real-time representation of the complete image limits the “shifts in perception” (Bonhomme 2017) that can occur when VFX are added only in post-production. By opening up the perspective of a common “professional vision” (Goodwin 1994), this technology makes it possible to see the result of one’s own work combined with that of others immediately, thereby facilitating better control of the whole image.

45During our investigation of the filming of the daily show, two points of tension were nevertheless raised by the various parties involved (cinematographers and VFX on-set operators) regarding portraying night-time and the production of “laser effects.”

46Concerning representations of night-time, backgrounds made using CGI do not deliver the desired level of realism for some cinematographers with regard to their own aesthetic conventions and their own technical possibilities:

As cinematographers, there’s always this “artistic” dimension. We’re responsible for the final look of the image. They managed to produce daytime backgrounds that were pretty much consistent, but for two, three years, we just didn’t have night images that actually looked like night, with points of light—street lights, and light behind the windows of buildings. We’d light a scene for night, for example, and then they’d just stick a night image behind it. I might add a blue effect projecting through a window, a slightly cold effect. But they don’t think to add cold to the background plate [to do the same effect] in the window. They don’t have the reflex to do this, even though it’s natural. You just have to look at it, because it’s a case of observing, in fact. They have technical knowledge, that’s no problem. But on the artistic side, it’s less clear. (Cinematographer, interview conducted in 2024)

47This remark about “practical knowledge” relating to lighting techniques can be seen as a way for certain cinematographers (those with the most experience in the profession) to assert their professional position “through actions that reassert it practically through their compliance with the values recognized by the group” (Bourdieu 1989 [1980]: 129). This distinction between “them” and “us,” which spans that of technique and art to assert itself in the professional hierarchy of the film set, is not shared by the (younger) VFX operators, who are attached to other conventions and who aspire to the recognition of a non-marginal position in the space of professional positions—in this case that of cinematographer for this respondent:

Traditionally, in film, night was blue. Because before, when we were shooting on film stock, you couldn’t shoot the way you can now with sensors that capture so much light… You had to push more light into the camera, so in the studio [for interiors] we’d add these big projectors. And so the viewer learned to associate dark blue with night. […] Whereas when we look in real life, night is rarely blue. It’s a code that has been internalized by audiences and is therefore still widely practiced by an old generation of cinematographers [laughs]. Before on-set previs […], the issue was contained within post-production, with poor special effects technicians and compositors finding themselves with images of orange cities and blue sets, having to make them work together. They didn’t connect, but the cinematographer wasn’t really aware of the problem: he’d got his shots on set and was not invited to post-production. But now, […] they are confronted at the moment of shooting with this discrepancy between what is keyed in [chroma key compositing] and the light they make on set. And so they find themselves with the take done on set with an image where nothing matches in terms of light and which is not photorealistic at all. And then it becomes our fault. “Previs sucks, it doesn’t work.” (Young VFX on-set operator, interview conducted in 2024)

48Other discrepancies concern the level of lighting in some reveal shots. Cinematographers must deal with parts of the set that have been designed digitally and which they have not lit themselves (the openings, set extensions, and green-screen sections).

They need us to tell them where the light is entering the virtual set, so that if it affects the playing area being filmed, they can produce real light that matches that virtual light, and matches what will be keyed in in the background. And so it can constrain their ideas a bit; because they want to light their actors who are on green screen the way they want. But if we say: “Yes, but behind it we’re going to key in a window there, so your light won’t enter where you want it to.”… They’re still thinking in terms of their physical playing area, but we’ve got a set where the playing area extends virtually and so, in practice, instead of treating it like it’s a continuation, they say: “Ah right, but no, I need my incoming [light].” Cinematographers love incoming light! So they give you light incoming from hell that beats its way in. (On-set previs operator, interview conducted in 2022)

49Agreement on what “good light" should be is not obvious and re-lighting is a way to regain control of lighting on set.

To make it realistic, you have to have what you’d see through a window; for example, a view onto a city, even if the exterior is overexposed… Because you never have the same level of light in an interior as outside, that’s just natural. When you shoot a natural scene, there’s that slightly overexposed look that happens naturally, and you just accept it. And since they’re the ones in control, well, sometimes they’ll put in their backdrop in a way where nothing’s blown out. And I say to them: “No, no: you can’t do it like that. You have to overexpose it because otherwise it doesn’t work; it looks like you’re in the studio because […] No, it’s not possible to have the same level outside as inside.” So these are little things we need to agree on… (Cinematographer, interview conducted in 2021)

Here again, the professional vision is not shared; since when the lights overexpose the lighting and the blinds, too brightly lit, turn into “lightsabers,” integrating the images becomes more difficult.

So when we have to connect this kind of light with 3D we have to, from a realistic point of view, and from a logical point of view, greatly increase the lighting in 3D, which is a shame… It creates unattractive compositing and this can imply work in post-production to catch up with the lighting done by the cinematographers on set. (On-set previs operator, interview conducted in 2024)

50It is at the end of the day, if the shooting has been delayed, that the director or cinematographer opt for a change of frame or lower the blinds to avoid the green screen without having to waste time on adjustments. But affinities built up during the experience of the shoot, and the expertise of some cinematographers in digital visual effects, also help mutual constraints to be taken into account.

I am also a short film cinematographer and so I know the issues facing cinematographers outside my work in special effects. On the miniseries [series name] where I worked, there was a cinematographer I really like—he’s young, very familiar with digital, and if there’s a laser effect he understands why. We explain to him that it’s complicated. He is not a big fan of the studio, but he’s understanding; he makes the effort… (On-set previs operator, interview conducted 2023)

51This testimony, which focuses on interpersonal situations, also refers to another production configuration: the example mentioned does not concern a daily show on which production times are very constrained (Mille 2024), but a miniseries that benefits from longer preparation time granted to the teams.

  • 34 According to a producer I interviewed, there are still cinematographers who favour shooting on loca (...)

52Despite the few friction points identified, the cinematographers who have encountered these technologies34 recognize and appreciate the effectiveness of a tool that takes into account changes in optics and camera movements and allows them to more easily calibrate the light on set according to the lighting results immediately visible on the video feedback. However, there is a unanimous major reservation. It concerns fully green-screen sets, with no physical build. “Beautiful lighting doesn’t just light a character, it lights a scene in relation to a character,” a cinematographer told us, emphasizing the risks of losing control of the set lighting owing to “lighting that’s attached to nothing.” When there are no angles, textures, or surfaces to create depth and contrast, it becomes much harder to light the scene.

53From the point of view of cinematographers who had the opportunity to compare the two tools, the same professional concern is not reflected with regard to the virtual set. Interviewed in January 2024, a cinematographer does not hide his enthusiasm:

LEDs are the culmination of forty years of research into integrating the background. […] It is much more natural since we control the image on the set from A to Z, whether in the foreground, that is to say the subject, or the background. (Cinematographer, interview conducted in 2024)

54The virtual set, which appears like an outdoor footage reconstructed in the studio, reduces the constraints associated with green screen (notably green spill on performers) while still not eliminating the need for lighting. Additional lighting, provided by fixtures set up by the electricians on the lighting crew, is useful for re-lighting the actors and reducing the contrasts created by the light reflected from the panels. As part of this new arrangement of people and things, despite their dependence—for how long?—on the expertise of service providers for the display of images and colour grading on set, cinematographers’ direct access to the entire set guarantees their continued work in lighting—work which must be partly reinvented as the tools change.

I’d compare the LED wall more to shooting outdoors. For a start we have what we call ambient light. We use that base light and then work on how the actors’ faces are lit. We can place the sun wherever we want. If something interferes, we just take it out. It’s like an ideal outdoor shoot, but with a lot of technical constraints, since we’re working in a confined space. (Cinematographer, interview conducted in 2025)

55But, even when the scene is relatively simple, like in the following shooting of sequences of dialogue between two people in a car driving through the city (rouling), many fine adjustments involving close coordination with the other professional on set are necessary.

It’s been two days since the LED wall was installed on this set. Plates of the city were shot a few weeks earlier by a service provider in collaboration with the studio’s VFX team. Three types of on-set VFX specialist are present and complete the lighting team (a cinematographer, two electricians, and a grip). The cinematographer has the reins and gives instructions to the members of his team of electricians, but also to those of the VFX teams who are in charge of sending of the LED wall plates. The images that scroll continuously on the three screens give the impression that the city has entered the studio. The lighting adjustments involve a delicate balance: “We lose depth (by increasing the light) and we gain it by lowering the light,” the technician from the service provider company that has come to provide support explains to me. There are too many variations in some lighting that need to be reduced. For greater realism, we rely on classic “tricks” of car-shoot sequences with rear projection: the key grip shakes the car by moving it on a rig, and an electrician waves their hands in front of a light to add shadows and dynamism to the reflections. At one point, the cinematographer turns to one of the on-set VFX operators to tell him he can open up the aperture; the suggestion is well received. When filming a shot, the edge of the LED screen is reflected in the rear-view mirror that reflects back on the car window. The lighting team and VFX operators move in orchestration to try to find a solution by trial and error, first moving a light fixture and then one of the side panels of the LED wall. The director suddenly asks aloud whether the car’s driver is over-lit, as if prompting the crew to re-order their priorities. A little later, alerted by the script supervisor, she worries about the presence of an incongruous rainbow that appears on the background plate: “The problem is you can’t remove it in post-production,” she says. Some adjustments have to be made because “moiré” is appearing on the image. […] Because of the persistence of glare problems, one of the VFX operators suggests moving the car. A little later, the director notices the reflection of the LED wall structure on the vehicle window. The cinematographer and team seek a solution by moving light fixtures. The director downplays the problem, remarking, “If it’s too much hassle, we’ll just drop it.” The cinematographer wants to try another adjustment: “We’ll learn for next time…” (Field notes, during a shoot on an LED studio, 2024)

56This isn’t “plug and play,” the VFX technicians on set often say. All these exchanges and practical explorations at the heart of the technical (Bidet 2011) and artistic activity took place in a highly concentrated atmosphere. The process of lighting the stage that mixes the light from the LEDs and that from the light fixtures is co-constructed. During this observation, there were no major incidents to jeopardize the schedule. But situations are sometimes more tense when a computer failure prevents the display of the plates or if the plates’ quality is unsatisfactory.

Conclusion

57When concluding the speech which I quoted at the opening of this article, Christian Guillon displayed a certain amount of caution:

What we’re seeing now is not yet the wave; it’s not here yet. It’s the gentle lapping of a first small tide or perhaps the moment when the sea recedes before the tsunami and you feel like going shellfish gathering. These are the first signs of the arrival of real time in the VFX world. I think it’s something that will become very big. (Public talk by Christian Guillon, Paris Images Forum, 2022)

58Three years later, there has been no tsunami and the companies that develop these tools are still looking for their economic model. It is therefore still too early to know whether the “Grande fabrique de l’image” support plan, in the context of France 2030, will enable these companies to keep their promise. The fact remains that even if the deployment of digital visual effects in real time remains tentative, new methods of filmmaking in the Méliès tradition are emerging.

59Real-time VFX operators may appear like funny magicians on set. While they complement the film crew with their capture and display tools, bringing new skills, at the same time, the pre-existing professions can incorporate some of this new practical filming knowledge. In a context in which everyone is finding their feet, the distribution of roles and professional responsibilities for creating sets and lighting films is changing and shifting. It is also the subject of debate since it prompts both sides to revisit the content of the work. A lack of communication in the preparation phase or at the time of shooting, linked to forms of professional competition, the absence of shared conventions on what to do, or the fear that certain artistic ambitions will be called into question, are likely to strain work relations, especially when the actions of some prevent or challenge the work of others, which is a recurring pattern in life on film set (Rot 2021). The format of the film, the qualitative requirements, and the burden of time constraints (which is greater for daily shows) weigh on the character of these interactions. The exercise of expertise that a profession can claim evolves over time, because a profession has only limited control over the skills it considers to be within its legitimate sphere of activity, in particular because they are recognized by it (Hughes 1984). But the links between the different image specialists who act in the common space of the set are also shaped by forms of technical solidarity (Dodier 1996) that help to temper observable agonistic relations. Cooperation is also nourished by collective learning that is built in the framework of this work in copresence.

60The distribution and interlinking of forms of expertise to create a set and lighting reinforce the risks of dispersion in such a way that integration and unity of artistic direction become salient. By bringing together key actors from different professional backgrounds, these tools also increase the risk of misunderstandings, controversy, and uncertainty surrounding the direct confrontation of ways of seeing and assessing the situation. At the same time, because they enable a shared vision of the scene shot in all its components (both “real" and “digital”), on-set previs and virtual set tools are indeed “conventional supports for action;” that is to say, “resources that enable the development of even a minimal community of perspectives” (Dodier 1993) that promote cooperation. Their technical effectiveness and the humility of those who advocate for and develop them are a driving force behind their social acceptability. By limiting the postponement of certain technical and artistic decisions to later stages of the image production process, they help to avoid a certain dilution of responsibilities concerning the creation of the overall image. Technical explorations relating to ways in which these tools may be used and improved are coupled with a social exploration between those who seek their place and their points of reference, and the two must learn to cooperate even as professional interdependencies are strengthened.

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Roussel Violaine (2023). “Faire sens de la transformation numérique d’Hollywood. Naissance et métamorphoses du digital agenting.” Sociologie du travail, 65(2).

Schwob Laurence (2025). “Vers un one-stop shop à Montpellier ? Entretien avec Laurence Schwob, présidente de V Studios,” by Hélène Laurichesse and Gwenaële Rot. Mise au point, 21.

Swords Jon & Willment Nina (2024). “The emergence of virtual production—a research agenda.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 30(5): 1557–1574.

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Zarka Samuel (2020). “‘Il faut sauver les studios de Bry-sur-Marne’. Contribution sur l’ancrage territorial du travail.” In Rey Frédéric & Vivès Claire (eds.). Le Monde des collectifs : enquêtes sur les recompositions du travail. Buenos Aires, Teseo: 89–105.

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Notes

1 Jean Gaillard, La fabrication d’effets spéciaux numériques en France. État des lieux de l’activité et propositions pour la renforcer et la développer, activity review commissioned by the French National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image (CNC), June 2016.

2 Observers professionally involved in the film industry. See, for example, Serge Siritzky, Les studios de tournage, un enjeu primordial pour la production en France, report for the CNC and Film France, March 2019. Founder of the film magazine Écran Total (in 2010), Serge Siritzky was also a film exhibitor, distributor, and producer. See also report by the Higher Technical Commission for Sound and Images (CST), “Le studio de tournage de demain,” Paris, May 2021. The CST is an association of film and television technicians, founded in 1944.

3 The former television studios of the French Association of Production (SFP) at Bry-sur-Marne in the Parisian suburbs, highly prized by production designers of the Île-de-France region and under threat for while now (Zarka 2020), have been the subject of a major modernization and expansion plan which began in 2023 in partnership with the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA).

4 TSF, a provider of technical business services (camera, lighting, studios) to the film industry, opened a 50-hectare backlot (outdoor set) on a former aerodrome in Coulommiers in October 2024 to reconstruct Parisian streets.

5 On France Télévisions’ strategy in terms of developing these filming infrastructures, see Helène Laurichesse and Gwenaële Rot, interview with Laurence Schwob (2025)

6 The investment announced in the media is 72 million euros, including 12 million from public funding: “Everything you need to know about ‘Studios de Reims,’ Xavier Niel’s XXL audiovisual project on the former BA112 air base,” L’Union, 22 July 2025.

7 CNC, Cahier des charges de l’appel à projets “La grande fabrique de l’image” (studios et formation), 2022.

8 This was a “temporary measure with a 10-million-euro budget aimed at giving exceptional support to technical investment projects that contribute to the digital and sustainable modernization of production equipment” (source: CNC website). This measure, taken in 2021, also followed on from the “studio plan” (1m-euro grant) presented by the CNC following the aforementioned Siritzkis’ report.

9 CNC, Étude de besoin France 2030, film studios.

10 Thus the project to build a large studio in Bailly, Seine-et-Marne, was abandoned due to lack of agreement between public and private investors, and the plan to modernize Victorine studios will not be deployed for several years.

11 A variable size screen composed of LED panels.

12 Photogrammetry refers to measurement techniques which determine the position and dimension of an object based on perspectives of the object recorded using photography.

13 An opening refers to a background set which is glimpsed through a window or door.

14 For a detailed presentation of this approach, see the account published by Hamus-Vallée, Giusy Pisano, and Caroline Renouard (Guillon 2024).

15 On this story, see Alexia de Mari (2024).

16 Tontons Truqueurs website (accessed 23 May 2024).

17 A technique that captures movement by placing markers in a scene so they can be analysed by a computer.

18 Tontons Truqueurs website (accessed 23 May 2024).

19 Notes provided by Pierre-Marie Boyer, “Nouveaux usages des plateaux, les tontons truqueurs,” Lettre de la CST, 171, 2019. For detailed analysis of the emergence of these technologies, I recommend Justine Coulmy’s excellent thesis (2022).

20 On the history of decor extension techniques see Renouard (2024).

21 This non-limiting number increases slowly according to the development of plots in the series.

22 A plate is a background shot (e.g., a road or a landscape) used to composite a foreground scene.

23 At least this is the case Disney makes; the people I spoke to as part of the survey told me that the post-production work was actually much greater than announced.

24 For a series of testimonies from professionals, see François Reumont “Produire en virtuel” issue, Contre-Champ, AFC, 320, 2021.

25 Their respective founders, Remi Préchac (Volt Tournages) and Xavier Plèche (Picseyes), have joined forces to take over the rental of Studios de la Monjoie, the former television studios of AB Productions, Euromedia and AMPTV, located in La Plaine-Saint-Denis. Christian Carion’s film Une belle Course with Dany Boon and Line Renaud was shot in this studio.

26 Founded in 2020, this start-up, famous for creating a digital twin of singer Aya Nakamura in a video game, filed for bankruptcy in 2023.

27 “NéoSet lance NEO.B4, un studio led au cœur des studios de Bry-sur-Marne,” Contre-Champ AFC, 369, 18 July 2025.

28 Futuristic worlds or war re-enactments, as in the Handicap International video.

29 In each case, the “journey” was central to the storyline. The recurrence of journey scenes was a decisive factor in the economic considerations that led to the decision to use LED.

30 The environmental argument is up for debate, as LED walls also consume electricity. The type of economy highlighted concerns not only the costs of set construction, but also the costs of transporting crews for exterior shoots. On this question see Lejeune (2022).

31 Virtual Production House slogan.

32 It is only very recently that specific training courses have been set up. The Georges Méliès School, which specialises in training for post-production professions, created a special training course in 2025 for set operation (on-set previs and virtual set) in partnership with Sony. Similarly, Aix-Marseille University, in partnership with La Satis Public Film School, announced the opening in September 2025 of a three-year training course dedicated to “real-time VFX and digital creation professions.” Within the teams responsible for setting up training programmes are professionals who have worked at Les Tontons Truqueurs in Vendargues and at Planète rouge in Martigues.

33 Filming took place at Épinay studios in 2021, when this technology had only just been adopted.

34 According to a producer I interviewed, there are still cinematographers who favour shooting on location and avoid the studio for fear of being in an awkward position regarding the use of these new technologies.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1
Légende Video feedback on-set previs (Vendargues, 2024).
Crédits Credit: Gwenaële Rot.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/bssg/docannexe/image/8568/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 3,3M
Titre Figure 2
Légende LED wall, professional demonstration (Planète Rouge, 2021).
Crédits Credit: Gwenaële Rot.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/bssg/docannexe/image/8568/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 4,2M
Titre Figure 3
Légende Driving scene, with an LED wall (Vendargues, 2024).
Crédits Crédits : Gwenaële Rot.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/bssg/docannexe/image/8568/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 4,0M
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Référence électronique

Gwenaële Rot, « The Challenge of Real-Time Virtual Production for Filmmaking: The French Case »Biens Symboliques / Symbolic Goods [En ligne], 17 | 2025, mis en ligne le 14 novembre 2025, consulté le 13 février 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/bssg/8568 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15bkq

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Auteur

Gwenaële Rot

Senior lecturer in Sociology, Sciences Po, Center for the Sociology of Organizations (CSO, CNRS, UMR 7116), 27 rue Saint-Guillaume, 75007 Paris. gwenaele.rot[at]sciencespo.fr

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