Film Soho’s new V Studio leverages the Mimik IBL system to help filmmakers create the most cinematic images possible. 

Film Soho recently launched the V Studio, a purpose-built virtual production stage designed to meet the evolving demands of modern filmmakers — particularly those seeking a high degree of visual control, flexibility, and realism. Positioned at the intersection of craft and cuttingedge technology, the V Studio reinforces Film Soho’s commitment to sustainable, creatively agile filmmaking rooted in practical storytelling needs.  

Nestled away in London’s Soho, the V Studio is a 1000 sq ft space with a 1.5mm pixel pitch LED volume, allowing you to get a lot closer to the wall with versatile use of depth of field and features a motorised rotating stage easily accessible for vehicle process shots with Stype RedSpy camera tracking. But what sets the V Studio apart is the studio’s integration of advanced image-based lighting workflows.

At the core of this is Kino Flo’s Mimik IB lighting system, which allows for dynamic, real-time control of lighting that responds naturally to the virtual environment. For cinematographers, this means genuine interaction between digital and physical light — with reflections, colour, directionality and ambience working in harmony with the scene.  

Chris Bouchard, VP supervisor, adds: “We’ve integrated precise control of the image based lighting and the LED wall servers, using Assimilate to control AirLux DMX fixtures combined with Kino Flo Mimik arrays, so any section of the backdrop can easily be mapped onto the lights. We’ve also set up precise colour adjustment control to dial in black levels and temperature on the LED wall.”  

IBL is a foundational part of how light behaves in a VP environment — and cinematographers increasingly want to know how true-to-life they can get their shadows, reflections, and ambience.  

Lucas Tucknott, in-house DoP, Film Soho, explains, “The quality and versatility of the Kino Flo system is incredible. If we were to light with the LED panels themselves we don’t have full spectrum light hitting the subject and that has a detrimental effect on our skin tones especially. This is where using the image-based lighting really excels along with having the speed of being able to match the global illumination to the wall we are also able to animate the light effortlessly.”  

DP Ian Murray adds: “These lights are designed to give you the correct colour much like a traditional film light would, but they also have the added benefit of being able to pixelate to take the dynamics of light and movement, and replicates that.”  

Realising the vision

The goal is simple but powerful: to give DPs, directors, and production designers the tools to fully realise their creative vision, without the compromises traditionally associated with green screen or multi-location shoots.  

“Being able to pixel map the lighting source from the digital environment on the wall is a game changer for virtual production,” Tucknott says. “For DPs it’s much more like working with traditional fixtures that we are used to, we can position and modify the light in the usual way but gain all the benefits of full spectrum IBL.”  

A recent spot for Oreo is a great example of leveraging the superpowers of virtual production. Directed by duo Bedroom for Prodigious London and Saatchi UK, the creative featured a living room, Tokyo karaoke bar, a cinema and a London hotel room among six different environments all shot in two days that was simply not achievable in the time and budget any other way.  

“Using the IBL is critical in my opinion in virtual production especially as although it is possible to recreate the matching lighting for the scene with conventional fixtures, it’s a much, much longer and trickier process that also lacks the ability for animation of the light source. Which for some scenes is a make or break in terms of realism,” says Kate Phibbs, Head of Studio.  

With capabilities designed for features, HETV, commercials and music videos, Film Soho’s virtual production facility is now one of London’s most technically advanced — and creatively enabling — environments for real-time storytelling. 

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