One of the most common questions we hear from productions getting in touch for the first time is deceptively simple: “Which type of virtual production do we actually need?” It sounds like it should have a straightforward answer, but in practice it depends on a tangle of factors — how many cameras you’re running, how much the camera moves, what the background needs to do, how many scenes you’re shooting in a day, and what your budget looks like.
We found ourselves walking through the same decision tree on call after call. So we built a tool to do it properly: the VP Decision Maker.
What the Tool Actually Does
The VP Decision Maker is a short interactive questionnaire — six questions, takes about two minutes — that guides you through the key decisions that determine which virtual production approach fits your project. You tell it what you’re shooting, how your camera behaves, what you need from the background, and where your budget sits. It then gives you a specific recommendation: green screen with real-time compositing, 2D plates on an LED volume, full 3D Unreal Engine environments on LED, or a hybrid of green screen and LED.
It’s not a gimmick. The scoring logic behind it reflects the same thinking we apply when we’re scoping a project in a pre-production meeting. We just turned that process into something a production can work through on their own time, before they even pick up the phone.
Why the Approach Matters So Much
Virtual production isn’t one thing. There are meaningfully different workflows, and choosing the wrong one for your project can cost you — either in budget you didn’t need to spend, or in creative limitations you didn’t anticipate.
Here’s a quick sketch of how the approaches differ. If you’re shooting a multi-camera podcast with three or more angles, an LED volume becomes impractical because most volumes only support one or two tracked camera frustums. Our green screen stage with real-time compositing handles unlimited cameras — every angle sees the final composited image on the monitors as you shoot. On the other hand, if you’re shooting a narrative scene where the camera tracks around talent and you need the background to shift in perspective as the lens moves, that parallax depth is something only a 3D Unreal Engine environment on an LED volume can deliver in-camera.
Between those two extremes, there’s a whole spectrum. A commercial shoot with mostly static cameras and a lot of background changes in a single day might be best served by 2D photographic plates on LED — fast to swap, photorealistic, and the natural light wrap from the wall looks gorgeous on talent. A music video that needs one hero wide shot with full parallax but also has six quick-cut setups might benefit from a hybrid approach: LED for the cinematic moment, green screen for the volume work.
The Decision Maker walks you through all of this without requiring you to already know the technical landscape.
How It Helps You Arrive VP-Ready
Beyond just telling you which approach to use, the tool starts a conversation that makes the rest of pre-production smoother. Once you know you’re headed for a green screen shoot, for instance, you know to start thinking about wardrobe (avoid anything bright green), and you know your Unreal Engine environments need to be optimised for real-time compositing rather than in-camera LED playback. If the tool recommends an LED volume with 3D environments, you know to allow two to four weeks for the environment build and to plan a pre-visualisation session with your director.
After completing the questionnaire, you can submit your details and we’ll send a tailored production brief to your inbox — a personalised breakdown of what’s involved, what we handle, and what you’d need to prepare. It’s essentially the output of a first scoping conversation, delivered before we’ve even spoken. That means when we do get on a call, we’re already past the basics and into the creative details of your specific project.
There’s also a full comparison matrix on the same page if you’d rather browse all four approaches side by side. It covers everything from camera flexibility and setup speed to post-production requirements and budget positioning — useful if you’re the type who wants to see the whole picture before answering any questions.
What We’ve Learned Since Launching It
We’ve been pleasantly surprised by how it’s changed the shape of our initial conversations with productions. People arrive with a much clearer sense of what they need and what questions to ask. A director recently came to a studio visit already knowing they wanted a hybrid approach — green screen for their dialogue coverage and LED for two hero tracking shots — because the Decision Maker had laid out exactly why that split made sense for their project. That’s a conversation that used to take two or three calls to reach.
It’s also helped us internally. When a new enquiry comes in with their Decision Maker results attached, our team can start scoping immediately. We know the project type, camera movement requirements, scene count, and budget expectations before anyone sits down to write a proposal.
Try It Yourself
If you’re in the early stages of planning a shoot and you’re not sure which VP approach is right, give the Decision Maker a go. It takes two minutes, it’s free, and there’s no obligation — you’ll get a recommendation and, if you want it, a tailored brief sent to your inbox.
And if you’d rather just talk it through in person, you’re always welcome to book a studio visit. We’ll walk you through everything on our stage and figure out the right approach together.
