CJP Broadcast creates a virtual studio for educational purposes at the University of Sunderland
CJP Broadcast has recently announced the finishing of the new 4K-UHD virtual studio for the University of Sunderland. Installed at the university’s David Puttnam Media Centre, the new resource gives students the opportunity to gain practical experience in latest-generation virtual studio production techniques. The studio has a 6 x 6 metre floor area and is 4 metres high.
The system includes a Mo-Sys StarTracker Studio with a camera tracking unit. Also, it includes wireless-linked handheld StarTracker Viewfinder and Cartoni JibO lightweight jib. CJP Broadcast has integrated Kinoflow Diva Lite 401 LED luminares and a Zero 88 FLX S24 lighting control desk. At last but not less, they have created high-grade green-screen walls and flooring.
“This investment opens up a whole new level of creative opportunities for students from across the faculty,” comments Professor Arabella Plouviez, Academic Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Creative Industries. “The green hue of the new space can be digitally manipulated into any kind of environment – real or imagined – for film, TV, animation or photography. It will enable our students to really innovate with technology so new that the possibilities are still uncharted. This is an exciting new area for us to be leading in.”
StarTracker Studio is a complete virtual production resource. It is built around the industry-standard StarTracker camera tracking system. It can superimpose photo-realistic 3D objects in front of presenters. And it does not depend on placing static or dynamic scenes on the studio walls. Star Tracker allows any type of virtual production. It offers a full three-camera 4K virtual studio system which can be expanded to source from up to eight cameras. It transforms a compact studio space into a much larger virtual studio without need for physical set construction. The virtual production software used in StarTracker Studio is Mo-Sys’ VP Pro, which is embedded directly into the Unreal Engine’s editor interface.
“We wanted to be able to offer something other universities currently can’t. The success of The Mandalorian television series, and the publicity about how it was created, opened our eyes to the process of live virtual production. Our hope was to replicate a similar type of setup which would position our university at the forefront of this new production method within the higher education sector. Our chroma key and TV studios are relatively small and have little or no storage space for sets. With this new system we can create large sets at no cost and turn our studios into anything our students can think of”, has commented Arabella Plouviez.
