The recent film Tomorrowland, from Director Brad Bird, uses DPS Cinema technology to create the environments described in the story. DPS Cinema is a principal supplier of the latest in state-of-the-art photo-realistic environments as well as advanced LED lighting solutions for green screen and blue screen.
Disney’s Tomorrowland is the story of a former boy-genius (George Clooney) and a gifted teenager (Britt Robertson) who set out on a dangerous mission to unearth the secrets of “Tomorrowland”, an enigmatic location caught between time and space. DPS Cinema collaborated with Academy Award winning cinematographer Claudio Miranda, ASC, known for his work on films like “Life of Pi”, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, “Oblivion” or “Tron: Legacy”, to build the sets for Tomorrowland, which happens to be his largest media enhanced environment to date.
DPS Cinema executed an installation of 2200 Barco MiStrips, 400 FLX 11mm LED panels and provided technical support and control for the sci-fi mystery film, which allowed Miranda to engage the actors in an “immersive environment”. By incorporating LED screens with pre-shot media, Miranda is providing cast and crew the benefit of working inside seamless, photo-realistic environments while on stage.
“Actors always feel more comfortable in an environment that’s lit appropriately, and the best thing you can do is put them in that environment, says Claudio Miranda. “LED gives you that that flexibility. In the story the actors are supposed to be in a room that looks like a 3D immersive screening room. They see something blowing up, it might be red, or a volcano erupting, or they’re in a cool place and the whole environment goes cool, or they’re racing through streets, you see all the trees and everything go by them. Utilizing LED panels is the best way, I always feel, to make people stick to the surfaces they’re supposed to be on”.
DPS Cinema’s Enhanced Environments is a new twist on a classic cinema technology that seamlessly merges acquisition and effects. This technique extends the sightlines of live sets using media (LED, projector, etc.) to seamlessly integrate through proprietary controls on a large a scale as needed while allowing talent and crew to visualize actual environments rather than existing in a green screen world. Enhanced Environment options include Vehicular Amplification, Set Extension and Mediated Reality. DPS Inc.’s Enhanced Environments also allow productions to move from daylight to night environments at the touch of a button and is fully customizable.
Productions who have already utilized DPS Cinema’s techniques and processes include Gone Girl, Fifty Shades of Grey, Disney’s Jungle Book 2015, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Nightcrawler, Inherent Vice and now Disney’s Tomorrowland.
“The DPS Cinema division provides technical and creative support for filmmakers endeavoring to achieve unique results with advanced lighting and media technology. DPS Cinema’s Enhanced Environments are the result of that technical commitment” says Paul Kobelja Vice President, DPS Cinema. “We are excited that the Tomorrowland production team chose DPS Cinema as their solution provider for this major blockbuster summer release.”