Virtual production in Manchester, Liverpool & the North West

Pete Woodbridge is a creative technologist and producer based in Liverpool. He was creative producer and technologist at Pathway, a 6,000 sq ft LED volume in Manchester, as the stage launched, worked on virtual production and motion capture R&D at Draw & Code in Liverpool, and directed R&D at the MediaCity Immersive Technologies Innovation Hub, where virtual production was part of the portfolio. He now directs Dreamlab, whose team includes virtual production specialists.

In-camera visual effects. Actors are filmed in front of an LED wall showing a realtime games-engine environment, and the camera is tracked so the background moves with it. The effect is captured on the day, in camera, rather than added later in post-production. It is the core technique of most LED volume work.

At Pathway in Manchester: BBC Three's Project Ikon with Jason Derulo, an ARRI test shooting virtual production on 65mm film, a Sony virtual production event, work with McLaren, advertising projects, and Pathway Indie, a $2.5m in-kind virtual production incubator for independent filmmakers. The work was covered by Broadcast, British Cinematographer and TVB Europe.

Yes, within limits. In 2022 Pete built an indie virtual production set-up in his garage for next to nothing, using a projector, trackers and kit from his filmmaking days, with projection mapping, old TVs and DMX lighting to work around the limitations. Making the technology affordable and accessible for smaller organisations is still the point of the work at Dreamlab.

Yes. At Draw & Code he built motion capture pipelines for games projects with Avalon and commercial work such as Taskmaster VR. In 2020 he helped build a 19-camera volumetric capture studio in Liverpool in three days with LJMU Immersive Arts, Volograms and others, and he has worked on motion capture for Dex, a digital popstar, with Sum Vivas.

Yes. He teaches virtual production, Unreal Engine and motion capture, delivered training programmes for universities and industry at Pathway, and was curriculum advisor for industry bootcamps in games technology at HOST in Salford. He trained on Virtual Production Futures, the six-week course run by Industrial Light & Magic, Epic Games and the National Film and Television School.

Use the contact page or send a message on LinkedIn, with a line or two about the shoot, test or programme you have in mind.