“The Faceless Lady” is Meta’s first-ever VR episodic TV show and the third collaboration project between LA boutique production company Light Sail VR and widely known film director and legendary master horror screenwriter Eli Roth. The creatives deployed Mistika Boutique to create this immersive experience that pushes forward VR storytelling for the horror genre.
E01: Understanding VR Space for Maximum Immersion
For “The Faceless Lady”, the Executive Producer at CryptTV, Darren Brandl wanted to crack the episodic format and produce it in stereoscopic 3D for full immersion, explains Matthew Celia, Creative Director at Light Sail VR.
“From the beginning, we knew we wanted a great visual setting and that’s how we landed in a haunted Irish castle. I was in charge of helping the writer and director understand the nuances of VR space which is very difficult as they are used to thinking in a traditional cinematic language. Some of the fundamental tools of horror consist of quick cuts and slow reveals, so we had to work on how to do that and still make the show interesting to watch.”
One of the best things about the VR format is how overwhelmingly real it can feel, thrilling and intense. “The wide field of view, stereoscopic imagery, and the 60 fps smooth motion help place the audience directly into the action. Light Sail VR has created a live preview kit that we brought to our production, so the director, John William Ross, could carefully block the actors and the camera while looking inside the Meta Quest 3 headset,” described Matt.
E02: Leveraging XML editorial workflow with Mistika Boutique
For Matt, working with immersive media takes him back to workflows that originated in film where you had to “develop” the negative to work from. The same happens with VR. Every shot must be “developed” by converting the dual fisheye into a side-by-side half-equirectangular projection to be played inside a VR headset.
The team used an interchange format XML to share timeline data between applications since their editorial tools differed from their stitching and finishing tools. He explains, “one of the main reasons we use Mistika Boutique is because of its robust conform and timeline support. We could generate our dailies, cut in an NLE, and then take the XML of the timeline back to Boutique to do the detailed work on every shot. The workflow in “The Faceless Lady” worked well as we had six episodes and hundreds of cuts, so conforming that much content needs a powerful tool and we found that in Mistika Boutique. Once our timeline was conformed, we could go through each take to fine-tune the stitching and stereo convergence.”
E03: Color Management decoded
The team worked on the color-managed pipeline for the series capturing the images with a RED V-Raptor. “Working with colorist Jeff Sousa from Dungeon Beach, we put the media through a pipeline developed around linear light and ARRI’s REVEAL color science. In Mistika Boutique, we debayered the RED Raw clips directly to linear gamma to create a contrast image for Neat Video to denoise accurately. For the gamut, we used Unicolor to translate RED’s wide color primaries into ARRI REVEAL. This was a creative choice as we wanted VFX and DI to work underneath a Show LUT built around ARRI’s print film emulation look library. In addition, we liked the skin tones and highlight roll-off of ARRI REVEAL,” explained Matt.
E04: Relying on Mistika Boutique’s compelling features
The show is packed with challenging stereoscopic footage, and Mistika Boutique’s Stereo 3D tools allowed the creatives to make everything as visually smooth as possible. “One of the most important features of a stereoscopic 180º series is the live headset preview. We can put our VR headsets on and check the quality of the stereo for each shot. If we needed to make a tweak, we utilize Mistika’s VR Stitch align tool and make changes until we are happy with the results,” explained Matt.
Another important challenge was the sheer amount of content and data they had to work on in a very short amount of time. “Having six episodes all shot at 8K resolution and 60 fps is a lot of data! When rendering, we set up custom paths in the path builder so we could render to specific folders with the structure needed to find clips quickly and keep everything organized.”
E05: A natural fit between VR filmmaking and the genre of horror
For Matt, “The Faceless Lady” is a show that proves to audiences that narrative episodic is a format that can work well for VR, and the genre of horror seems to be a natural fit for immersive storytelling. “You are surrounded by the story and unless you close your eyes, you can’t look away. Creating scares in this space is difficult because the editing creative tools and controlling the frame for the viewers are stripped away. However, I think directors and producers love to live on the edge and try new things, so the genre blends well with the immersive cinematic experience. I hope that other filmmakers can watch this series and see what the team did to push the art of immersive storytelling forward,” concluded Matt.
PS from Matt Celia: Go check out “The Faceless Lady” on Meta Quest TV! It is free to watch and feel free to drop me a note and tell me what you think!
About Light Sail VR
Light Sail VR is a full-service cutting-edge creative studio that specializes in immersive media storytelling (180 Video / 360 Video / Spatial Video / Game-Engine Content) for agencies, brands, studios and consumers. Founded by managing partners Matthew Celia and Robert Watts in 2015, Light Sail VR specializes in story-driven content with compelling narratives, dynamic characters and entrancing visuals. How a person ‘feels’ inside the VR world is the key to unlocking the true potential of the medium. The technology and tools are important but at the core, it’s all about taking the audience on a journey. Loving the work and helping our clients explore new possibilities for their audiences is an honor and our mission. Journey with us as we push the boundaries of immersive storytelling and create experiences that truly do become memories.
