Facilitating an Immersive Performance Environment in Virtual Production

In recent years, there has been a significant surge in the support and adoption of virtual production within the entertainment industry. This innovative production technique has transformed the landscape of film, television, games, and media creation. Despite its growing popularity, virtual production still poses challenges for actors, particularly in terms of their perception and understanding of the virtual world during a performance. This has been an ongoing topic of concern among professional actors, who have attributed their limited perception to the intrusiveness of the systems used in virtual production as well as the lack of stimuli during a performance. Consequently, actors often find themselves responsible for overcoming these limitations to meet the requirements of the technological systems found in virtual productions. This study aims to rectify this gap by expanding on the existing Immersive Performance Environment Framework to incorporate Social Immersion as a fundamental dimension of an actor’s experience during their performance in a virtual production. In addition, minor refinements have been made to bolster the framework’s conceptual clarity and overall effectiveness. Through the integration of Social Immersion and subtle adjustments for clarity, this research broadens the framework’s scope. As a result, the expanded framework further facilitates the identification and enhancement of an actor’s immersion levels within virtual production settings, which can help mitigate the perceptual limitations encountered during their performances.