If you work in production in Wales or the Northwest, you have probably heard virtual production mentioned more and more over the last couple of years. LED volumes on major Netflix shows. Real-time environments on BBC dramas. Studios in London charging five figures a day for screen time.
But here is the thing most of those conversations miss: virtual production is not just for blockbusters and global brand campaigns. It is a practical, cost-effective tool for regional productions too — if you have access to the right setup.
We built vedrí specifically to close that gap. This guide breaks down what virtual production actually involves, what it costs at a regional level, and how to figure out whether it is the right approach for your next project.
What Virtual Production Actually Is (Without the Buzzwords)
At its core, virtual production means combining real-time digital environments with physical filmmaking. Instead of building a set or travelling to a location, you create the environment digitally and composite it behind your talent in real time — either on an LED volume or through green screen compositing.
The key word is real-time. Unlike traditional VFX, where compositing happens in post, a virtual production pipeline shows you the final composited image on monitors as you shoot. The director, the DoP, and the client can all see exactly what the final frame looks like while they are still on set.
This changes how you work. Creative decisions happen on the day, not three months later in a grading suite. You can swap a background between takes, adjust lighting to match the virtual environment, and move between locations without moving the camera.
Two Approaches: Green Screen vs LED Volume
Virtual production broadly splits into two camps, and understanding the difference matters when you are planning a shoot.
Green screen with real-time compositing is what we run in-house at vedrí. The talent performs in front of a 7.5m × 6m green screen cyclorama, and our compositing system keys the green and replaces it with a virtual environment in real time. You see the final composited output on every monitor, on every camera angle, as you shoot. No waiting for post.
This approach is brilliant for multi-camera work. Unlike an LED volume, where you are limited to one or two tracked camera frustums, green screen compositing works on every angle simultaneously. That makes it ideal for podcasts, corporate shoots, talk shows, or any production running three or more cameras.
LED volume stages display the virtual environment directly on a curved LED wall behind the talent. The camera shoots the wall, and what you see in the viewfinder is the final image — with natural light wrap from the LEDs falling on the talent and set. The result is photorealistic, and for single-camera narrative work or cinematic commercials, it is hard to beat.
The trade-off is cost and flexibility. LED volumes are expensive to hire, typically limited to one or two camera positions, and need longer setup times. For projects that need that cinematic in-camera look, we source and manage LED stages as part of the production — but for most regional work, green screen compositing delivers the same creative result at a fraction of the price.
What This Costs in the Real World
One of the reasons we started vedrí is that the pricing for virtual production in the UK is wildly skewed towards London. A day on an LED volume at a major London facility will set you back anywhere from £10,000 to £20,000+. That is before crew, camera hire, and environment builds.
Our green screen stage in North Wales runs from £600 to £2,000 per day, depending on the package. That includes the stage, professional lighting grid, and — critically — our Blackmagic Pyxis 6K cinema camera and Mo-Sys StarTracker Max tracking system. Most London facilities charge camera hire separately, which adds thousands to the day rate.
For a production company based in North Wales, the Northwest, or anywhere along the A55 corridor, the maths is straightforward. No four-hour drive to London. No hotel costs. No separate camera hire. The studio is local, the pricing is transparent, and the technology is the same standard used on major productions — just without the London markup.
Who Is Using VP at a Regional Level
Virtual production is not just for drama and big-budget commercials anymore. The productions that benefit most from our setup tend to fall into a few categories.
Corporate and branded content is a natural fit. Companies that need professional video with multiple branded backgrounds can shoot an entire campaign in a single day without leaving the studio. Swap the virtual environment between takes, keep the lighting consistent, and deliver a dozen assets from one session.
S4C and Welsh-language production is a significant part of the regional landscape. We are the only bilingual Welsh/English VP service in the UK, which matters for commissioners who need Welsh-language content produced to broadcast standards without the budget of a network drama.
Podcasts and talk shows work exceptionally well with our multi-camera green screen setup. Three or four cameras, each with its own live-composited output, custom branded environments that change between segments — it turns a basic studio podcast into something that looks like a broadcast set, without the build cost.
Music videos and short films benefit from the creative flexibility. Want to shoot in a neon-lit Tokyo alley, a sun-drenched Mediterranean cliff, and an industrial warehouse — all in one day? The virtual environments load in seconds.
Planning Your First VP Shoot
If you have never shot with virtual production before, the process is simpler than you might expect. Here is how we typically work with a new client.
It starts with a conversation about the project. We need to understand what you are shooting, how many cameras you need, what kind of environments you are after, and what your budget looks like. From there, we can recommend the right VP approach — green screen, LED, or a hybrid of both.
If you want to skip straight to a recommendation, we have built a VP decision tool on our website that walks you through the key questions and tells you which approach fits your project.
Once the approach is agreed, we handle the environment build. For green screen work, that means designing and building virtual environments in Unreal Engine — typically 5–7 working days with two or three revision rounds. For LED volume work with 2D plates, allow 3–5 days for plate preparation and grading. Full 3D Unreal environments for LED need 2–4 weeks depending on complexity.
On shoot day, our VP Supervisor and Compositor are on set managing the pipeline. You direct the shoot. We handle the tech.
The Tax Credit Angle
One thing worth knowing if you are budgeting a VP project: the Audio Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC) provides a 39% tax credit on qualifying VFX spend in the UK. That is higher than the standard 34% rate, and it applies to virtual production work. For productions with significant VP requirements, shooting in Wales is not just geographically convenient — it is financially smart.
This Fortnight in VP
Unreal Engine 5.7 released with VP workflow improvements — The latest UE release adds network broadcasting for multi-machine VP setups and improved motion capture tools. Substrate, the new material authoring system, hits production-ready status — meaning more photorealistic environments with less build time.
Sony to wind down Pixomondo — One of the early pioneers of LED volume virtual production is scaling back operations. A reminder that the VP market is maturing and consolidating — the studios that survive are the ones solving real production problems, not just selling screen time.
Island Studios appoints Racquet Studios as exclusive VP provider across 10 stages — A significant move in the UK market, consolidating VP capability across a major West London studio complex. Signals growing demand for integrated VP services rather than standalone LED hire.
Brainstorm launches Suite 7 at NAB 2026 — Their real-time graphics and VP platform now runs significant workloads on a single on-premises workstation. Worth watching for smaller studios looking to reduce hardware overhead.
VP market projected to reach $12.26 billion by 2035 — New market research puts the global VP market at $3.7 billion in 2026, growing at 14.34% CAGR. The growth is driven by streaming demand, sustainability mandates, and increasingly affordable LED and rendering hardware.
