Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

With the development of digital industry and the rapid change of film and television science and technology, virtual production technology has subverted the traditional production form of film and television industry. In order to promote and promote the development and exchange of this technology, the Asian Virtual Human Association and Shadow Pole Culture Media (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. hosted the 48H International Virtual production Competition in 2023.

In this international event, Ruiyun Technology's large file high-speed transmission product "Radium Speed", as a technical support unit, provided technical support for the transmission of works in the evaluation process of the event to protect the smooth conclusion of the event.

This competition is for Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Japan,

South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Europe and the United States and other countries and regions to recruit

A total of 56 professional college teams from all over the world have been attracted to participate in the competition.

We had the honor to interview Xie Ning, the founding director of the Asian Virtual Human Association, who is in charge of the 48H International Virtual production Competition, the organizer of the mainland competition.

A brief introduction to the people interviewed

Xie Ning-Vice President of Base Media, Vice Chairman of Film Digital production Committee of China Film Association, Deputy Director of Film High and New Technology Professional Committee of China Film and Television Technology Association, founder and director of Asian Virtual Human Association.

01 radium speed: Hello, thank you! I am honored that you accepted our telephone interview. Please briefly introduce yourself.

Xie Ning: Hello, I started working in the film visual effects industry in 2003. Before that, I worked in the government and other enterprises, and had some experience in the field of attracting investment and the theme entertainment industry. In the second half of 2003, I helped Mr. Bramble to set up Base Media. Over the years, I have grown up with the company, setting up branches and teams in Wuxi and Xiamen, respectively, to develop from a team of 12 people to a leading film special effects and animation company in Asia.

In order to promote the development of the industry and promote the training of industrial talents and the integration of industry and education, I participated in the establishment of the Film Digital production working Committee of the Chinese Film artists Association, the Asian Virtual Human Association and other industry associations. It can be said that from 12 years to now, almost ten years, I have invested a lot of energy and resources to do the organization and liaison of these industry activities, to promote personnel training and the innovation of scientific and technological research and development. Why would you do that? Because the industry is still very young, it needs the cooperation and support of the whole industry to make it stronger and more competitive. I have always believed that the success of an enterprise cannot be separated from the support of the industry, just as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the foundation of Mount Qomolangma, only when the whole industry flourishes can it provide a broader space for the growth of enterprises.

02 radium speed: boss Xie, as the organizer, what is the opportunity for the association to choose to launch a 48-hour international virtual production competition? Is there any far-reaching goal and significance of the competition?

Xie Ning: this competition is the first international time-limited event in the field of virtual production, but in fact, our Asian Virtual Human Association has already had similar experience. When we founded the Asian Visual effects Preview Association, we held a 48-hour visual effects preview contest (or "Fast Animation contest"). The event began in 2009, and the hottest one was in 2017, with nearly 200 participants in the South China Division alone. Therefore, we launched this "48H International Virtual production Competition" on the basis of the success of the 48H Visual effects Preview Competition.

/ past college contestants are having a heated discussion /

Xie Ning: the purpose of holding this competition is very simple. We want to promote this emerging technology and train high-quality talents at the same time. Because virtual production is a new way of production, involving many different technical and professional directions. In this field, no one dares to say that they are experts or experts, because the field is still very young and new. Even people who are very good at their own majors will encounter many challenges and shortcomings in the virtual production system, so our counterparts in the industry are constantly learning, communicating, innovating, and breaking boundaries. It is a cross-border integration format, and we firmly believe that we have an obligation to promote the industry.

We also hope that more schools and teachers can understand and master this technology, so that more students can make good use of this technology. After graduation, students will enter a variety of industries, they are like seeds, bringing virtual production technology to various fields, which is the significance of this competition.

03 radium speed: can you tell us what kind of competition this is?

Xie Ning: our competition starts at 8: 00 on May 27 this year and ends 48 hours later-that is, at 8: 00 on May 29. The rule of the competition is that within 48 hours, all participating teams should complete a 2-to 5-minute original short film in their respective venues, with virtual production as the main technology, according to the theme "Optical light" announced on the spot. In this way, we can examine and show the contestants' animation technology and comprehensive application ability, and also allow them to show their works internationally. There are up to three students in each team, and two or three actors can be invited to help.

/ Live shooting experience /

/ speech delivered by Xie Ning at the Chinese mainland district award ceremony /

Xie Ning: the feedback of the competition is also very good, each participating team said that this competition is very interesting, but also very fruitful. On the one hand, they feel that the rapid production of animation works in a high-intensity environment is a good opportunity for learning and training; on the other hand, before the competition, we also organized a practical training "workshop". Let students really participate in the practical learning of virtual production technology, and feel the charm of film and television production in the process of teamwork and creative creation. For the participating teams, this is a rare opportunity.

/ 48H International Virtual production Competition Workshop-Shanghai Field /

05 radium speed: do you have any impressive feelings in the process of judging the entries? What are the differences between the entries of the mainland Division and the International Division?

Xie Ning: I have three impressive feelings.

The first feeling is that the completion level of the competition team is much higher than we expected. This competition is very difficult, within 48 hours to complete a 2-5-minute proposition video work, which itself is not easy, not only that, but also need to use virtual production technology to complete this short film, it is even more difficult! If I were to take part in the competition, I would definitely hand in the blank paper. To our surprise, 46 of the 56 teams have successfully handed over their works, and most of them are very complete, and some of the results are quite good. This shows that these young people have amazing potential and creativity, and they are able to complete the coordination and production of cameras, lights, music, actors and other aspects with limited time and resources-I admire and admire their performance very much.

Xie Ning: the second feeling is that the quality of these works has exceeded my expectations. I originally thought that the works made by these works within 48 hours would be very rough and not very good-looking, but in fact, some excellent works have reached a very high standard, not only the narrative of the story is complete, but also the picture effect is very good, and the degree of completion is very high. Approved by the judges. This also reflects that the teaching practice of virtual photography and the daily accumulation of students in some leading colleges and universities in China are very in place.

Xie Ning: the third feeling is that from the competition works and the judging process, we can see that different cultures have both their own highlights and mutual integration. Although they all use virtual production technology, the flowers growing in different cultures still have their own characteristics. We felt the same way when we organized the Asian Visual effects Preview contest before. They are also the works of students from Asian countries, with the bias and calmness of the mainland, Taiwan and Japan, and the skewness of Southeast Asia.

Not only the works, but also the judges. We find that there are obvious differences in the focus and aesthetic orientation of the works between the international jury and the domestic jury. Some works are highly appraised by the international judges, while the domestic judges pay more attention to their shortcomings. The presentation of these differences, and the resulting exchanges and thinking, actually illustrate the significance of these international competitions.

06 radium speed: did you encounter any unforgettable things during the whole competition?

Xie Ning: this is the first time we have held such an international event, so we have encountered a lot of difficulties and many unforgettable things. Let me tell you the three most impressive things.

The first thing is that I did not expect that the competition was generally welcomed and strongly supported by colleges and technology enterprises. When I started contacting various universities and teachers in early September last year, I invited them to sign up for the competition. As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning. this is the first competition. I thought it would take a lot of time to publicize, but it only took me more than a week to invite nearly ten well-known domestic colleges and universities to participate in the competition. Not only colleges and universities have responded positively, but also science and technology enterprises have given us strong support. This shows that the industry and academia are very optimistic about virtual production, and are full of enthusiasm for the training of related talents. This shows that the industry and academia are very optimistic about virtual production, and are full of enthusiasm for the training of related talents.

Xie Ning: the second unforgettable thing is that there is a team with only two people. As we all know, virtual shooting technology involves many aspects of work, such as cameras, lighting, music, actors and so on. The competition requires a 2-5-minute short film to be completed within 48 hours. It's a big challenge, and it's not easy for three people to work together. Two people not only want to think of stories, but also to do production, but also to debug and optimize, to be able to hand over their works on time, and the quality of their works is also good. I think this is really amazing. A surprise like this is the happiest thing for the organizers of the competition.

Xie Ning: the third unforgettable thing is that a British team is very interesting. they failed to hand in their papers on time and called and said, "Sorry we didn't hand in our papers, but we had a good time!" We think this is right, and that is the mentality. Try your best to fight and enjoy the process, and they have learned a lot.

07 radium speed: there are a lot of cross-border / cross-regional cooperation needs in the competition. have you encountered any difficulties? What kind of service support does radium speed provide in this competition?

Xie Ning: since this is an international event, there will be more special circumstances to deal with than domestic events. For example, the transnational and cross-regional transmission of data is a very critical issue, because we need to enable overseas judges to easily and quickly view the works of contestants, and to ensure the security and integrity of the data. so we found Ruiyun radium speed (privatization deployment, can also access the public cloud, enterprises, social organizations users can apply for free trial) cooperation. Radium provides us with cloud storage space, so that we can upload the contestants' works to the cloud and transfer them from home to abroad. They also provide us with cloud management services that can classify and sort works.

In the long run, virtual production involves a lot of digital assets and digital environments, and these data are scattered on isolated islands, if we can call and share them anytime and anywhere in the cloud. That can greatly improve our work efficiency and collaboration, but also promote our innovation and development. From this point of view, the work done by radium speed is very important to our industry.

08 radium speed: will the Asian Virtual Human Association have any plans for the event in the future? is it convenient to reveal?

Xie Ning: in fact, the preparatory work for next year's competition has already started.

Sponsored by the Film Arts Center of the China Federation of Literature and Art, the 2024 National College students'48-hour Virtual production Competition, jointly sponsored by the Film Digital production Committee of the China Film Association and the China Virtual reality Technology and Industry Innovation platform, will be open for registration at the end of September. We will also organize a series of seminars and workshops for the competition. The preliminary competition will be held at the end of November this year, and the national finals will be held in April next year. The winners of the finals will be recommended to participate in next year's international competitions, and the winners of the finals will enter next year's international finals. The scale of the competition will be bigger and bigger, the competition will be more and more fierce, and it will be more and more fun!

09 radium speed: can you talk about the development trends and prospects of the application of virtual production technology in the film and television field?

Xie Ning: the traditional film production is divided into the early stage and the later stage, with editing as the dividing point. The film is edited after shooting, and then handed over to the late special effects company for special effects processing, while the sound team is handed over to deal with the sound. The previous and later stages of the traditional process are separated, which causes a lot of problems. For example, when shooting, you can't see the final effect, or in the later stage, you may find that the material you shoot cannot be used, and there are some problems that need to be corrected, which leads to an increase in the workload of post-production, which is very time-consuming and needlessly increases a lot of costs.

The latest virtual shooting technology puts the later stage in front, and the special effects and environment to be done in the later stage are displayed on the LED screen to achieve "what you shoot is what you get", which greatly improves the work efficiency.

/ on-site tidbits /

Xie Ning: there are many advantages to doing so.

First of all, it saves time and cost. Because we don't have to do location, we don't have to do complicated later work. For example, we can take pictures of Gulangyu at 06:00 in the morning, or the Imperial Palace at 05:00 in the afternoon.

Second, it can improve flexibility and controllability. Because when we shoot, we can see the final effect, and we can adjust the light, color, angle and so on at any time, which allows us to better control the quality and effect of the picture.

In addition, it can increase creativity and ideas, because you can try a variety of effects and environments. Virtual shooting technology is suitable for shooting sci-fi films, fantasy films, historical films and other films that require a large number of digital environment and digital characters. Such as Marvel's superhero blockbuster, or a classic series like Star Wars. For these films, digital assets can be reused to make various sequels and side stories.

Virtual shooting technology is a revolutionary filmmaking technology, which turns filmmaking into a WYSIWYG imaging mode-making filmmaking more efficient, flexible and controllable. At the same time, its convenience makes filmmaking possible to become a nine-to-five job.

10 radium speed: in addition to the field of film and television production, the scope of virtual production technology is also used in what areas? What new changes will it bring to the industry?

For more information

You can visit the official account: radium speed.

Or go to the official website of Radium Speed to check.

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