The UK is facing a possible skills gap across multiple virtual production disciplines as demand for the technology increases.
Commissioned by StoryFutures Academy, the report identifies the skills required as the new technology continues to increase in popularity.
The report found an industry that recognised that whilst current costs were high, virtual production would be normalised and correspondingly cheaper within five years. However, ‘hands-on’ experience is still low and the appetite for training far outstrips demand.
The report has identified many gaps and pain points in the workflows and pipelines of production and post production talent in the UK, revealing significant skills shortages that would benefit from immediate and direct action:
- On-the-job training: Professional placements, CPD training and extension of VFX houses successful Academies schemes.
- Improve on-set understandings of roles, responsibilities and communication between departments: CPD test shoots de-risk the learning process.
- Lack of common language: Create an open source ontology and a playbook of common VP concepts.
This skills shortage needs to be tackled urgently if the UK is to leverage its reputation for innovation and creative excellence across film and TV, added the report.
Professor James Bennett, director of StoryFutures and co-director of StoryFutures Academy commented: “Virtual production is a game-changing set of technologies and production methods for film, television, games and live performance that will radically shift how we make these content forms and the content audiences will experience.
“The UK can lead the way on this global innovation opportunity if we rapidly upskill, train and invest in the R&D capability of the amazing creatives working across our industries. This report points the way forward to grab the virtual production opportunity and ensure the UK is at the forefront of innovation and creative industries success.”
The full report can be found here.
