Mo-Sys technology enables Papertown to shoot from a virtual airplane

The Papertown agency has created an ambitious virtual production project based on an airplane with the support of Onset VP Service, the virtual production services company of Mo-Sys.

Papertown is a creative production agency specializing in computer graphics (CGI). Their client, Business Made Simple, a coaching company, was looking for an impactful way to record one of their latest courses, based on the analogy that every company should operate like an airplane.

Renting and preparing a plane to film inside a hangar would have been “expensive and impractical,” notes Mo-Sys, so Papertown proposed filming the speaker against a green screen and creating the plane, hangar and other elements in CGI. This is where Onset VP Services came in, providing the virtual production expertise needed.

The team at Onset VP Services, which recently opened a branch office in Los Angeles, was able to help Papertown create a virtual production studio to merge the real-world and CGI elements. In this way, Papertown was able to focus on image creation and storytelling, leaving the technical side to the Mo-Sys company.

StarTracker, key to the project

Mo-Sys‘ StarTracker system, which allows six-axis camera tracking, opened up all sorts of possibilities in the virtual world generated by the Unreal Engine. Thanks to this system, the project’s director of photography was able to frame each shot “with ease,” as the composite image was available directly in the viewfinder. Papertown was able to shoot the entire three-hour video series, comprising dozens of terabytes of footage, in just two studio days.

Julian Smith, founder and executive creative director of Papertown, is positive about the experience: “We had no experience of Mo-Sys products before this shoot, but we had all the support we needed to quickly put our creative to work. Being able to use StarTracker, VP Pro and Unreal together extended an insane amount of value to our clients. It took our photo-real CGI to a whole new level. This is a game changer. Papertown is always pushing the boundaries with new ideas and technology and we are grateful to have partnered with a team like Mo-Sys that does the same.”

For his part, Michael Geissler, CEO of Mo-Sys, adds, “Whether for television, movies or corporate, producers are looking for the highest possible quality at the maximum productivity. Shooting final pixel like this is a tremendous boost. But it can only realistically be done with precision camera and lens tracking, real-time compositing, and a virtual production operator who is familiar with the Unreal Engine.”