Fallout is one of the most beloved and longest running video game series of all time, and has now been beautifully adapted for television by visionary creators Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy.
The Fallout series is a masterclass in executing the full potential of a transmedia project. The show leverages assets from the games, which establish a clear dialogue with the original IP, and features expansive environments, creatures, and rich worldbuilding, along with virtual production technology in new and exciting ways.
AOIN Involvement
All of it Now collaborated with longtime partner Satore Studios to assemble a uniquely knowledgeable virtual production team that could realize its complex workflows. The AOIN team’s background in developing cutting-edge workflows on the fly allowed them to build tools that facilitated collaboration between multiple departments with minimal prep time, which is a hallmark of live event production. The team’s ability to also translate that mentality to TV and film production proved virtual to the project’s success.
All of it Now’s background in live-show production and integration of real-time technology tools proved vital to the project's success. Developing tools that enable multiple departments to collaborate cohesively on set with minimal prep time is a hallmark of live event production, and translating that mentality to TV and film production is a unique skill.
For this production, All of it Now was responsible for managing multiple tracked cameras, over a dozen render nodes, and 8 roaming LED carts that were all tracked within a 24K-resolution 90’ by 75’ LED volume designed and engineered by Fuse Technical Group.
Technical Challenges
Part of what made filming Fallout so SPECIAL was its use of celluloid film, as well as quickly switching between 2D and 3D workflows on the LED wall that were used for scene backgrounds.
The production featured creative uses of pre-recorded video plates for scenes involving the “Vertibird'' helicopter. AOIN worked closely with technical partner ioversal to implement their Vertex media server software that acted as a versatile real-time A/V playback production suite that satisfied increasingly complex production requests and demanding budgets.
AOIN was also the first studio to port over an existing Hollywood-sized virtual production from Unreal Engine 4 to 5, which is no small feat. Not only did the team update and reconstruct all the Unreal features used from the first block of shooting, but they also unlocked and streamlined the latest virtual production updates Epic Games was keen on seeing implemented at a volume.
The Result
From a technical standpoint, the stage also saw an impressive 99% screen uptime, a largely unprecedented achievement within the world of virtual production. Any unit production manager will say that consistent uptime is critical to the operation and overall budget of a volume. Fuse Technical Group was pleased to inform All of it Now upon reviewing post-shoot metrics on how they operated their volume that it was likely the most uptime they had ever seen in a production of this scale.
This uptime is informed by reliable tracking data that allows production and post-production crews to complete their work - All of it Now developed several custom tracking validation tools to enforce oversight from many locations around the stage.
These included visualizations of camera positions and stability of incoming tracking data, AR overlays for alignment and accuracy validation over their physical counterparts, as well as virtual-set previsualizations to confirm scenic elements’ locations within the volume during construction. These tools made it quick and efficient to catch and isolate issues on set to cAonfirm if visual anomalies came from the camera, tracking system, server output, or LED panels, and intervene before they became a problem for production.
One notable moment during production that validated the robust toolset developed for the show involved a complex lens swap for a shot on the final episode. In order to achieve a low-angle shot with the heavy film camera mounted on a crane arm inside the volume, the cinematographers chose to use a periscope-lens attachment that would allow them to raise the camera and angle it down, while still capturing a low-angle shot facing up. The interior of the observatory in this scene was a fully built set, which meant the volume operation team had no direct visibility of the camera and had to rely on our tracking tools and the camera feed in order to confirm the data was correct. All of it Now’s operators were able to catch the seemingly erroneous tracking data, deduce what was happening, and apply corrective transforms to the camera frustum before the crew within the volume even radioed back that the lens swap had occurred.
“Fallout” debuted as the most-streamed title of the April 8-14 viewing window and hit the highest viewership ever achieved by a Prime Video title in a single week, and was watched for 2.9 billion minutes in its first five days of availability, which is more than one billion minutes above the record set by the previous record holder.
