Salesforce use Virtual Production to create more video content, for less

As a recession looms and competitors shrink their budgets for marketing and internal communications, forward-looking businesses are gaining an advantage by utilising Virtual Production to reduce costs, while dramatically increasing their capacity to create engaging ads, training videos and corporate presentations, all in-house, and for a fraction of the cost with much smaller teams.

The marketing team at Salesforce has successfully utilised this lean, recession busting approach and has now fine-tuned the process as an independent studio using Mo-Sys technology. Now capable of producing outstanding content with a production team that has seen its number reduced from 35 to 5, and able to shoot inside a regular central London office space, this new-look production house is shooting, editing and publishing enormous volumes of content quickly and at a fraction of the cost.

Using digital filming foregrounds and backgrounds, they create locations on the computer instead of traveling, then VP filming techniques enable them to quickly switch from one location to the next. VP technologies have evolved and gotten so good that shooting in an office space can give good results depending on what you are trying to achieve.

Virtual Production has helped the film industry to film in worlds that do not exist, but this normally increased budgets rather than reducing them. With new technology and especially LED backgrounds, a lot of the filming complexity is gone, which brings VP in reach of non-Hollywood applications.

Green screen filming has been around for 83 years, but never made it into mainstream filming as it is difficult to merge virtual and real worlds in a believable way. While you can replace the green with a virtual background, even around fine hair in close ups, it becomes more challenging when shooting with reflective surfaces like glasses, water, or shiny skin.

What helps here are the new LED walls being used as live backgrounds and with a changing perspective as the camera moves. It is like filming with a real background. A big part of the lighting from the scene is already achieved and it can be filmed live rather than requiring postproduction.

Companies are under huge pressure to create content, and lots of it. Fuelled by changes in our viewing habits and the unprecedented growth of streamers and social media, pressure has been building on companies to adapt their marketing strategy, to embrace new formats and create more to meet this demand, or risk failing to attract and engage customers.

Marketing teams are now able to engage new customers, with more content than ever before, while also de-risking experimentation with this cost-effective and rapid Virtual Production.

Mo-Sys Marketing Director, Stephen Gallagher said:
“In-house marketing teams can create content at any location without leaving the office. So, imagine having the freedom to shoot in different cities, a flagship store, hospital, kitchen, up a mountain or on another planet without the need to book studio time, scout locations or travel. VP is such a powerful tool! For example, a clothing brand could respond in real-time to weather reports, switching their focus to shorts and t-shirts if it is sunny. And during a recession, brands can move rapidly into the void left by competitors scaling back – it’s like having an open goal to shoot at.”

Corporates looking to pair back their marketing budget as the economy contracts not only stand to miss out on the opportunity to expand their reach but also leave a gap for their competitors to exploit. Companies are already moving to seize the moment and have begun developing their own in-house VP studios to utilise this approach.

Virtual Production is no-longer the preserve of Hollywood or regarded as an exotic and costly means of producing content. It has been democratised and forward-thinking organisations are capitalising now.

Contact Mo-Sys to learn more about corporate Virtual Production solutions.