Conference Rhythm of Change Keynote
ON SITE König-Karl-Halle Tuesday, May 06, 14:15

25 Years of Chasing the Light

Video on demand

Compositing actors into virtual environments has been a visual effects challenge since the earliest days of cinema. Achieving believable integration requires both high-quality matting — so the edges between subject and background are clean — and accurate lighting, so the subject appears plausibly illuminated by the surrounding environment.  First introduced in 2000, the light stage was developed to solve this lighting problem. It enables actors to be illuminated by images of the virtual world around them — an approach analogous to image-based lighting for CGI elements.  Over the past 25 years, light stages have undergone continuous change: from a single light bulb to an array of strobes to a sphere of LEDs to a wall of panels; from head-sized to body-sized to scene-scale systems. Along the way, it has enabled advances in 3D scanning, relighting in post, and volumetric capture.  

This talk will trace the evolution of the light stage through its many reimaginings, highlight key production applications, and explore where this technology might lead next.

Paul Debevec

Paul Debevec, Chief Research Officer, Eyeline Studios powered by Netflix

Paul Debevec received degrees in Computer Engineering and Mathematics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1992 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1996.

He is the Chief Research Officer at Netflix’s Eyeline Studios, overseeing R&D for visual effects and virtual production with computer vision, graphics, and machine learning. In 2002, Paul's Light Stage 3 system pioneered the virtual production technique of surrounding actors with color LEDs to display images of virtual environments for lighting-accurate compositing.

Paul’s techniques for photogrammetry, HDR imaging, image-based lighting, and photoreal digital actors have been used to createkey visual effects sequences in "Matrix", "Spider-Man 2", "Benjamin Button", "Avatar", "Gravity", "Oblivion", "Maleficent","Furious 7", "Blade Runner: 2049", "Gemini Man", "Free Guy", and numerous video games.

Paul's work in technology for visual effects and virtual production has been recognized with two Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical Achievement, the Progress Medal from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers,and in 2022, the Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award.

Paul is a Governor of the Visual Effects Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,a Fellow of the Visual Effects Society, and an Adjunct Research Professor at the University of Southern California.