An Italian feature film project called Comandante, directed by Edoardo de Angelis, epitomises the paradigm shift in virtual production right now. The film is the true story of a World War II submarine commander, featuring ships and subs at sea and, of course, the ocean.

It can be hard to recognize breakthroughs as they are happening, but there were numerous breakthroughs in VFX during the making of Comandante.

Learning to very accurately undistort and redistort anamorphic lenses in real time was groundbreaking.

Presenting Near Real time meaningful composite shots to the Director on set was another breakthrough.

Preserving metadata through the entire workflow was a breakthrough.

Using AI tools to enable the technique we have dubbed “similar screen compositing” is another.

One breakthrough that cannot be emphasized enough is the positive collaboration of the camera crew, the VFX department, post production and VFX to make a quality film on a budget.

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