4Wall Entertainment built and operated three LED and virtual production environments for Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day,” using LED technology from Absen, processing from Brompton Technology and media server and virtual production technology from Disguise.

The builds were used for scenes including a television newsroom, covert government facilities and high-speed car sequences.

4Wall led the LED and virtual production work across three builds: the News Room, the Wardex set and a 360-degree LED car process. Each build included a virtual production supervisor and Disguise programmers running real-time compositing. The setups also used image-based lighting to maintain consistent looks across content surrounding the actors. Absen said the setup kept playback, lighting and image control connected during filming.

The project was led by Mathew Leland and Ben Danielowski, vice presidents of special projects at 4Wall. The two have led virtual production work on “The Penguin,” “Dexter: Resurrection,” “Daddio,” “Caught Stealing” and “The Bride!”

The team was brought in to create an LED environment for the film’s secret agency, using Disguise media servers, Brompton processing and Absen LED tiles. A core team of three worked on the project for roughly four months across preproduction and the build, followed by a week of shooting on the Wardex set and a week of car process work. By the time the car process began, the crew had grown to more than 10 people.

Production designer Adam Stockhausen designed the Wardex command center with LED built directly into the scenic elements. Under the supervision of the 4Wall team, the set was constructed at Steiner Studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and incorporated 10 separate LED surfaces. Five walls wrapped the room, including side walls, angled walls and a center wall nearly 40 feet wide and more than 13 feet tall. Five matching ceiling sections were installed overhead.

Because the screens were integrated with the scenery, the camera could shoot the full room without hiding elements that could have broken the illusion. The build used Absen PL2.5 Pro panels at 1/8 scan to help control moiré and reduce individual pixel visibility on camera and in reflections.

The walls formed a surveillance multiviewer that Wardex agents could manipulate in real time as they tracked the film’s protagonists. Every action on screen was motivated by the script, so pre-rendered animation was not an option. Animation was built in the Disguise timeline, where a single section could carry 50 layers, each keyframed individually. The programmers scaled and aligned dozens of security camera feeds, GoPro footage and other sources into the video collage shown inside Wardex. 

“Unlike a traditional car process or other background use of VP, the screens were the hero,” said Zachary Sager, director of special projects at 4Wall. “Once we shook our usual VP reflexes, we began to treat it as a device to deliver exposition rather than simply an extension of the scenic work.”

Eve Roth, 4Wall’s virtual production supervisor, worked with the art department and camera teams, relaying requests to programmers Zachary Sager and Xander Taylor. The team had at least two programmers on set at all times. One operator handled playback and changes for the current setup while the other configured light cards for the gaffer and programmed scenes ahead of the shooting schedule. The workflow was enabled by Disguise’s multi-user editing.

Each scene in the script was assigned a number that translated to a track in Disguise, and each beat within a scene received its own section. That structure allowed content to be built out of sequence while other scenes were being shot. The WYSIWYG interface allowed the art department to review changes ahead of time, and the team remained ahead of the shooting schedule during the run of the set.

The News Room set used a tighter-pitch Absen PR1.9 wall as an in-camera weather screen that was used in the film’s closing scenes. Instead of treating the weather image as a separate postproduction layer, the screen put the image, its light and the performers in the same room, allowing actors to interact in real time with the displayed content. The wall used 28 tiles at 1,792 x 1,024 pixels and was driven by a single Brompton SX40.

The car chase and crash scenes required interactive lighting, a live view of the environment and enough camera freedom to follow the action. The car process was built around those requirements.

4Wall’s crew built a custom 360-degree LED car process around a large Absen PL2.5 LED volume, an LED ceiling and additional LED surfaces around the vehicle. The main volume measured approximately 132 feet by 16 feet and delivered 16,200 x 2,000 pixels. The ceiling measured 24 feet square and delivered 3,000 x 3,000 pixels.

Once the physical volume was built, the team ran 16K stitched spherical plates assembled from nine-camera arrays provided by Plate Pros. Played through Disguise VX 4+ 4RU media servers, the plates could be adjusted in real time for horizon, perspective and scale so each shot could be set for the car, lens and camera position.

One particularly demanding shot travels through the car’s sunroof and ends on the protagonists’ hands. According to 4Wall, that camera move would not have been possible on a moving process trailer. The LED process provided the production team with a controlled environment while preserving the physical movements needed for each scene.

Consistency across the three builds came from a single color pipeline. Brompton Tessera SX40 4K processors were used across the project. The combination of Brompton processing and Absen panels provided the color range needed to replay camera footage as close to its original color space as possible. Brompton’s integration with Pomfort LiveGrade gave the DIT and DP color control over the walls.

Genlock technology was used to keep the cameras and displays synchronized across the three builds. The production was shot digitally on Sony Venice 2 cameras, and Brompton’s ShutterSync feature matched the walls to the camera settings. Since the Wardex set was in place for a full month, the team also used Brompton’s API to monitor processor health and confirm the volume was ready to shoot each day.

Image-based lighting was applied across all three sets. The LED screens operated in the same color space as practical light fixtures, allowing the screens and fixtures to work together. Light cards were placed over the screen content, with an ambient loop filling the full raster underneath the hero graphics. Disguise VX 4+ media servers handled multi-4K playout across the surfaces.

A consistent color pipeline across the displays, media servers, cameras and lighting reduced the amount of traditional postproduction work required for the LED-driven elements and gave the filmmakers more control over the final image on set.

The three builds presented different production requirements. Wardex depended on live content and fast changes. The News Room required control of weather footage within scenes. The car process had to support a complex camera move while keeping the production on a controlled soundstage.

“On this production, our team had the opportunity to support one of the greatest directors of our time and the amazing team he has built through the years,” said Mathew Leland, vice president of special projects at 4Wall. “Virtual production is a vast toolset, and it was incredibly rewarding to use it to help shape the narrative and expand what was possible on set.”