Dark Matters is one of Europe’s most advanced and innovative virtual production complexes.
From Simulcam and LED in-camera VFX technology to motion capture, it offers filmmakers and visual creatives a complete end-to-end service and unparalleled control to the very last shot. Having heard only positive things from industry colleagues about Brompton Technology LED processing, the Dark Matters team chose ten 4K Tessera SX40 4K LED processors for their studio complex.
Dark Matters was founded last year by industry veteran’s Romain Cheminade, Jean-Louis Eude and Yaniss Boulanouar. Located 27 kilometres outside Paris, the complex features six customisable virtual production stages spread across 15,000m², and a 700-strong fleet of high-quality custom built LED panels powered by industry-leading Brompton Technology LED processing.
The company’s LED panels were designed and specified by co-founder and CTO, Boulanouar, who has over 20 years of experience working with Chinese LED manufacturers to design and import LED panels for live and broadcast events. With one of the key requirements for the Dark Matters’ LED stock being rich colour gamut, Boulanouar chose panels with 16-bit depth, 7680Hz refresh rate and 2.6mm pixel pitch. Together with industry ‘gold-standard’ Brompton LED processing, they offer exceptionally realistic visuals, especially in the dark and high-luminance spectrum. “Our ultimate goal was to get as close to reality as we could, that’s why we chose custom LED panels powered by Brompton’s Tessera processors to give us a really dynamic range of colors,” recalls Boulanouar.
“Our biggest stage, ‘Dark Space’, is almost 4,000m² and has been designed for large-scale productions; we can even accommodate a commercial airplane in the room!” exclaims Isaac Partouche, VP Virtual Production at Dark Matters. “The other five stages range in size and are completely soundproof, with all stages featuring a reinforced concrete floor that can hold up to 10 tons of weight per square metre, and high ceilings that easily surpass 12 metres, making them ideal venues for any type of creative production.”
“Our team of artists have many years of experience in film, animation and video games,” adds Cheminade. “This means we can offer as much or as little help, advice and technical assistance as our clients need to help materialize their vision. Offering support with real-time video game cinematics, high-quality creative layouts for animation, to VR and camera prototyping and interactive event visualization are just some of the ways we can help.”
According to Cheminade, one of the greatest things its team can do is use resources efficiently. “There are a lot of creative assets that are built for the previsualisation phase. We work to push the quality of those assets a bit more to use them in Simulcam, and then push the quality even further to use those elements on the LED wall. Brompton’s Tessera software helps here by delivering advanced LED wall management capabilities, combined with ease of use and outstanding imagery. By doing that, we create a seamless pipeline between all services and departments involved in the production.”
