Studio sets can be an expensive part of TV production. You need specialists to design them, costly materials to build them, space to store them, and a bunch of unionized workers to construct and dismantle them before and after every show. If the program changes, you have to throw the old set away and build a new one.
ELSET (Electronic Set System), an R&D project supported by the European Union, is likely to revolutionize TV production as we know it. The objective is to create digitally generated studio sets with photorealistic image quality and an interface that synchronizes the "virtual set" with live-action shots of real people in real time. When the camera pans, zooms, or tracks, the "virtual camera" in the computer-generated 3-D space performs exactly the same motion, including changing the focus. The light sources are also synchronized: when the lights in the real studio are dimmed, the lights in the virtual background dim as well.
The concept for ELSET was developed by Richard Kunicki, owner of the Hamburg video-production company VAP. His idea triggered the formation of a European consortium including the BBC, Daimler Benz, Siemens, Thomson, and Silicon Graphics.
One of ELSET's coolest features is its ability to transform real video images into new 3-D worlds. "You could shoot Notre Dame de Paris, analyze the images, build up a completely new virtual cathedral from this data, and even produce a live TV show in it," explains Jens Bley, one of the project's managers.
The consortium estimates that electronic set design will reduce production costs of studio shows by up to 30 percent. More importantly, it will open up new creative dimensions for TV set designers and program developers.
ELECTRIC WORD
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