London’s Garden Studios has launched what it describes as its most advanced virtual production (VP) stage to date, with a key focus on delivering driving shots.
The stage has been designed to accommodate a wide range of vehicles, from cars and motorcycles to large stunt vehicles, buses, and specialist transport, enabling productions to bring complex sequences into a controlled studio environment.
Garden Studios said the new LED volume represents a significant investment in next-generation production infrastructure, designed to support the growing adoption of virtual production across film and high-end television.
Since launching its first virtual production stage in 2021, Garden Studios has delivered more than 150 projects spanning commercials, documentaries, high-end television drama, and feature films.
Central to the upgrade is a fully motorised LED ceiling featuring a 2.6mm pixel pitch panel from Absen, prioritising resolution and black levels to deliver clean, realistic reflections on windscreens and bodywork.
The ceiling can tilt up to 90° to operate as a front LED wall, creating a full 360° volume, and can travel up to 18 metres front to back. This allows rapid reconfiguration from a fully enclosed ceiling to a rain-ready setup. The ceiling area has also been doubled compared to the previous stage.
According to Garden Studios, the stage layout reduces vehicle repositioning, with approximately 90% of camera angles achievable using a single 180° rotation, significantly reducing downtime between setups.
Sam Kemp, Virtual Production (VP) Supervisor at Garden Studio, said: “Lighting integration is key to selling simulated travel on an LED volume. The new stage provides a bespoke image-based lighting workflow that plugs into existing control desks. This allows Garden to replicate a wide range of lighting states, from inner-city neon night to hard sunlight on a winding country lane.”
Garden Studios recently doubled its sound stage footprint with the opening of four new sound stages, bringing the total to eight. Discover more here.
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