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How volumetric film is changing cinema and our viewing habits

The Volucap has been an integral part of the studio premises in Potsdam-Babelsberg for two years. The studio was already considered a milestone when it opened and is the world’s first volumetric production studio with a resolution of over 600 megapixels. How has the studio developed? What has happened now, two years after it opened? We wanted to find out from Sven Bliedung, Managing Director of Volucap GmbH.

After an operating consortium consisting of the companies Arri Cine Technik, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Interlake System, Studio Babelsberg and UFA joined forces, the go-ahead was given in June 2018. Since then, special camera and software technology has been used here in the Volucap to record people in lifelike three dimensions, edit them digitally and embed them in a virtual reality or augmented reality environment like holograms. The high camera resolution in particular enables very detailed photorealistic three-dimensional images of people in motion (so-called volumetric captures – Volucaps).

When you enter part of the studio complex at the fx.Center Potsdam-Babelsberg, you find yourself in a large, brightly lit, round white room. This white rotunda is surrounded by 32 high-resolution cameras that are linked to a special 3D technology. “For the first phase after the company was founded, we were thinking exclusively of VR and AR projects and estimated that it would take us five to six years to achieve the quality required for cinema productions,” says Sven Bliedung, explaining the original expectations.

Things turned out very differently and, above all, faster: he is already working with his team on an international cinema production. Bliedung cannot yet reveal which one. In addition to the innovative technology, the proximity to the Babelsberg film studio, which regularly hosts major Hollywood productions, is paying off here. Short distances on the studio premises as well as contacts in the industry and quick agreements between politics and funding do the rest.

Within two years, Volucap had established itself and realized projects in various sectors, from advertising to music, art, gaming and industry. The first customers after the opening included athletes and musicians. For example, for a digital basketball court developed in advance by another company, an athlete and his movements were scanned and then transferred to the court. Musicians such as the Fantastischen Vier and The Boss Hoss had themselves filmed volumetrically and produced interactive versions of themselves.

Nevertheless, volumetric film technology is still in its infancy. “We are at the limits of what is technically possible right now,” says Bliedung. Many companies in Berlin and Brandenburg were initially unable to get to grips with the technology offered by Volucap. Sven Bliedung’s team had to do a lot of communication work and, above all, provide technical support. The scanned data had to be usable on the customer side. Volucap developed its own solutions for this in order to make data preparation as simple as possible and to be able to integrate it into various video programs. Rendering, inking – as in film, many disciplines come together in the process, and the data of the digital persons must be able to be correctly adapted and edited. Finding new, fast and unconventional ways: The start-up mentality within the team pays off.

But it was not only the technology that had to be communicated to customers; consumers’ viewing habits have not yet kept pace with the three-dimensional cinema experience. This is comparable to the time when cinema was in its infancy and an approaching train on the screen initially terrified viewers. In volumetric film, the visual language and camera angles are new, but so is the approach to how emotions and stories can be portrayed. There may be a long way to go before it becomes a mass-market medium, but the walk-through film is no longer a dream of the future here in Babelsberg. Using VR goggles, viewers can move around in an augmented reality production and meet the volumetrically recorded actors themselves, walk around them or observe them from a distance in the scenes.

One special project, for example, is “Tagesschau 2025”, developed for IFA 2019. The three-dimensional version of the well-known news program, naturally a sober format that thrives on authenticity, showed presenter Linda Zervakis as an authentic digital person. Visitors to the IFA were able to use augmented reality to watch the daily news in their living room, take photos with the presenter, see the burning Notre Dame Cathedral virtually live and watch the weather report as it started to rain. This shows how the new three-dimensional presentation will also change the way documentaries, sporting events and concerts are presented on film. Users can start generating content themselves, perform on stage with their favorite musicians or, as with the latest project, the short film “Ernst Grube – The Legacy” about a Holocaust survivor, gain more emotional access to historical events. The documentary is intended as a walk-through film in museums and schools to convey the European culture of remembrance in an impressive and lively way.

Developments over the last two years have made the depiction of scanned people ever sharper and more accurate. Virtual reality is gaining ground in the consumer segment. This is also reflected in the growing range of mixed reality glasses on the market, which are moving away from the large, globular models of the first generation towards a user-friendly model. “In three years’ time, the way we consume media will be completely different,” Bliedung is certain. So-called “1st person content” is already picking up speed. Volucap now produces 70 percent of its content for the entertainment industry, with the remaining 30 percent for industrial customers. And it’s not just for moviegoers that new opportunities are being created: Volucap also offers directors different camera movements, angles and ways of using their actors. With the current production, they are the first in the world to use such technology for cinema.

More about the MTH Blog

The media technologies of the future are already being used today – not only in the entertainment sector but in a wide variety of industries. For our MediaTech Hub Potsdam blog, we talk to tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and researchers once a month and tell the stories behind their innovative business models, ideas, projects and collaborations.