VER delivers enhanced environments for Murder On The Orient Express

Working alongside cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos BSC GSC, VER provided the bespoke Enhanced Environment installation that accompanied the train carriage sets used on 20th Century Fox’s Murder On The Orient Express.

Throughout the production VER’s Paul Kobelja, and Enhanced Environment technical consultant Bobby Finley III, collaborated closely with VFX supervisor George Murphy and Zambarloukos, providing assistance and advice on creating the extensive LED installation that shrouded the railway carriages in a highly controllable, accurate depiction of realtime lighting, movement and background plates.

Kobelja said, “Every VER Enhanced Environment is unique, built specifically to meet the demands of a particular project. For Murder On The Orient Express we created a fully-immersive environment that provided a true sense of movement including all the necessary, subtle changes in speed, colour, depth and intensity of light”.

The VER Enhanced Environment process allows a shot to be naturally lit by the backgrounds of a scene. The overall ambience enables talent and crew alike to visualise actual environments and perform against a dynamic background without the guesswork of an empty green screen.

In creating the expansive installation, VER supplied 2,300 LED panels, each with a 3.47mm pixel pitch, to display visuals delivered from the company’s M8, native 4K LED processors. Precise playback and real-time control over the video content was handled by eight, project-specific, media server racks, supplied with supporting infrastructure, plus proprietary metadata manipulation and content control software. VER also provided crew to implement and integrate the workflow.

“Haris and the crew have done a phenomenal job in creating and capturing the feel of a truly classic story,” Kobelja added. “The end result is a beautifully filmed, stunning example of what enhanced environments can help achieve.”

Passengers, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2 have also used VER Enhanced Environments to create authentic scenic moods and deliver real-time on-set effects.