Paris-based creative studio Blue Node Paris, which specialises in real-time virtual environments, together with Pure View XR Studio and D/Labs, used the disguise Extended Reality (xR) workflow as an essential solution for shooting forty-three musical numbers in four days for the French TV show La Soirée Extraordinaire, immersing several well-known French musical artists in otherworldly virtual backdrops.
The show transported singer Julien Doré from a forest cabin to a Grand Canyon filled with dream-like animals and showcased duo Vitaa and Slimane in a chateau ballroom where the floor became a giant chessboard and the singer’s queen and king. These were just some of the many spellbinding scenes shot at La Seine Musicale concert venue, with the resulting footage split between two programmes airing on French broadcast network M6 in both June and September 2021.
Blue Node Paris utilised two disguise vx 4 media servers and four rx render nodes with RenderStream to power the impressive selection of photorealistic virtual scenes developed in Unreal Engine.
“We could not have done this without disguise,” says Blue Node’s co-founder Pierre-Guy di Costanzo. “disguise is an xR specialist and a robust delivery solution.”
Music TV production company DMLS TV initially approached Pure View XR studio (powered by Virtual display Services) regarding the unusual concept for “La Soirée Extraordinaire.” Blue Node’s CGI specialists handled the extended and augmented reality elements for the show, providing a workflow for creatives to work swiftly with the artists during the tight turnaround for the show. Blue Node Paris also collaborated with D/Labs, which provided artistic direction and 2D content, and technical services provider AMP Visual TV on tests for the cameras and camera switching. Ten cameras were used, five of them tracked. The entire project took five weeks to produce.
“No live broadcast shows before this used xR in France,” says di Costanzo. “We have many music TV shows, and it is always the same thing: someone speaking with a big screen. With xR you can go further and immerse the artists in the studio world. This has not been seen before. When the producer saw a demo in our studio he was interested in the technology. We could deliver this vision technically, creatively, and everything in between.”
Di Costanzo cites disguise’s ability “to switch between cameras and keep the scene” as an important asset to the production along with the disguise timeline:
“When you have 12 scenes a day to deliver, you need to prepare your timeline to switch from one to another. [With disguise] you can just click, shoot and go. disguise is native Unreal so it allows you to deliver content on big screens.”
Having worked four 12-hour shoot days on the project, the Blue Node team gained newfound confidence and agility with the disguise xR workflow. “Two days later we shot live in the studio doing four scenes for French artists, and we did it five times faster!” declares di Costanzo.