Virtual Production – Julia Lou | Virtual Production | VFX

Mercy

Julia — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 23:12:27 +0000

I was the virtual production supervisor for the DNEG 360/Dimension team on this show, providing the Unreal environment for the courtroom. Working with artists in London and LA, we developed custom tools to provide flexibility for the team at Amazon Studio’s LA volume especially for interactive lighting.

Those About to Die

Julia — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:29:17 +0000

Those About to Die took virtual production to a massive scale, with vast set extensions being utilised across the season show shot on the T18 LED volume at Rome’s legendary Cinecittà Studios. I was one of the on set VP supervisors for DNEG 360/Dimension Studio, working primarily with the operators, technical directors, and systems engineers to help achieve the detail and creative control required for this challenging show. We carefully managed upgrading the system and workflow on an already running show to be able to handle plate playback, 2.5D projection, and fully interactive scenes all within the same setup without disruption. Beyond technical supervision on set, I also worked with the VAD team to help develop crowd, fire, background animation, and other FX.

Read more about our work on this show here on Dimension’s breakdown

Here

Julia — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:03:55 +0000

Here was my first project after joining DNEG 360/Dimension Studio as a Virtual Production Supervisor, providing on-set and technical supervision for the two LED wall set up alongside other supervisors. Together we programmed triggers for vehicles, polished and optimised the Unreal scenes, and managed changes from a worldwide team of artists to achieve over a hundred setups.

Read more about our work at Dimension Studio’s breakdown

Blade Runner 2049

Julia — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 13:13:21 +0000

One of my early virtual production projects was a virtual camera that streamed into the virtual cinematography plugin Photon for Unity 3D. This utilised a Structure Sensor attached to an iOS device and was eventually converted for Android, making an early portable virtual camera without need for a mocap system. For Blade Runner 2049, additional development was leveraged so provide virtual camera and vehicle piloting for previs.

The Mandalorian: Season 2

Julia — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 12:46:04 +0000

Using the AR app Cyclops which I developed for The Third Floor, we were able to visualise elements such as the Krayt Dragon, set extensions, and vehicle processing scenes against live action elements. The app was customised depending on what was being visualised, whether it was showing eyelines or showing background moving relative to a vehicle set piece.

Cyclops

Julia — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 20:45:15 +0000

Cyclops is an iOS AR app for on-set and virtual camera visualisation, capable of previewing lenses while compositing CG elements on top of a live feed. I was lead developer on this project at The Third Floor LA, implementing it on shows such as The Mandalorian: Season 2 and Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings. This app was also awarded the Lumiere Entertainment Technology Award by the Advanced Imaging Society.

House of the Dragon: Season 1

Julia — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 20:31:29 +0000

Lux Machina – House of the Dragon

For House of the Dragon: Season 1, I was Lead Technical Director for the Lux Machina team working at Warner Brothers Studios Leavesden. Several environments were full 3d builds shot in camera on the V-Stage volume, including Dragonstone, Storm’s End, the Grand Sept, and High Tide.

We also did extensive buck work for the dragonriding scenes, including the epic finale.

Barbie

Julia — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 14:47:34 +0000

Lux Machina – Barbie
AV Magazine – Lux Machina provides virtual production services for Barbie

Hi Barbie! For Greta Gerwig’s smash hit Barbie, we filmed on V-Stage at Warner Brothers Studios Leavesden and transformed the stage into a pink wonderland for car process shots driving through Barbie Land. I was the virtual production supervisor for Lux Machina on this showing, providing services to operate the ICVFX volume and content delivered by Framestore. Given the precise and controlled camera moves to create a world where everything is perfect, we worked with the camera team and grips to control moving the world, car, and camera relative to each other with extensive techvis to ensure alignment.

We also paid tribute to the Dawn of Man scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey for the film’s opening scene. Together with artists from Framestore, we recreated the landscapes and skies from 2.5D matte paintings to match the original film. To capture the slow motion shots as the girls discover the wonder of Barbie, we did extensive testing to minimise banding and artefacts against the LED shooting at 120 fps.

Ready Player One

Julia — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 02:28:05 +0000

I still can’t believe how lucky I was to get to be a small part of this movie. I was a Virtual Production Engine TD at Digital Domain in LA for this show, developing some of the virtual production tools, helping to set up and light scenes in the game engine, and operating the real time visualization on the mocap stage.

Virtual Camera

Julia — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 01:46:52 +0000

This was a portable virtual camera app and plugin that integrated into Digital Monarch Media’s Expozure (previously called Photon) virtual cinematography system for Unity. Rather than needing a mocap stage or even a portable mocap sensor, this was able to use a Structure Sensor and iOS device or a Google Tango enabled device to do SLAM tracking and stream its position and orientation to the editor, turning it into a portable virtual camera. This is now a commonly used approach especially with the release of ARKit and ARCore, making almost any recent phone a tracker.

Made With Unity Article – Virtual Cinematography