disguise powers virtual production for La Fortuna Miniseries

La Fortuna, a six-episode Spanish-American miniseries airing on Movistar+ and AMC+, turned to virtual production powered by disguise vx 4 media servers to capture the magic of both countries all in one shoot.

With Barcelona-based MO&MO Film services designing the virtual production scenes and facilitating in-camera VFX, the film was able to include exterior scenes all the way from Washington D.C on-set in their shoot in Madrid. 

La Fortuna tells the story of the discovery of a Spanish frigate sunk by the British navy off Portugal back in 1804 and the ensuing legal battle over the ownership of the treasure.  Stanley Tucci heads a Spanish and American cast in the mini-series directed by Alejandro Amenabar and co-produced by Movistar+, AMC Studios and MOD Pictures.

Virtual production for feature films and television has been increasingly adopted as a way to gain efficiency, lower costs and reduce the need for complex location shooting without compromising on quality. Wanting to take advantage of these new workflows, Cinematographer Alex Catalan from AEC, contacted Barcelona-based MO&MO Film Services upon the recommendation of a colleague, resulting in MOD Pictures asking MO&MO Film to design and shoot the virtual production scenes. Taking place in MO&MO Film’s virtual studio in Madrid, Gloshine MV 2.6mm LED walls with NovaPro UHD processing and disguise vx 4 media servers facilitated the virtual production workflow.

“We were proud to shoot with Alejandro Amenbar on his first TV series and with Alex Catalan, one of the more demanding DPs in Spain.  The project went perfectly, like all of our projects with disguise, with easy set-up and programming,” says virtual production supervisor for MO&MO Film Services David Monguet.

The process smoothed the creation of in-camera VFX for car scenes using plates shot in Chicago, as well as scenes shot in Washington, D.C. showcasing the outside seen in the windows of the Spanish consulate. There were also sequences shot showcasing American TV reporting footage.

Cinematic results for many of these scenes were achieved using disguise Designer together with the vx 4. These included the colour adjust layer which proved to be a must and the blur layer which helped DoP Catalan show the depth of field in some instances. PreComp, as a mapping type, was used in a blur layer and colour adjust was applied to manipulate all the layers simultaneously. The wrap tool helped adjust camera perspective in some scenes while disguise’s ACES integration helped achieve colour control for the VFX sequences.