The brief was a feature film on a virtual production stage in the EU. Netflix. The wall needed a minimum of 180 degrees of plate to fill it, and our 3-way array captures 160. So it was never a question of whether to build something new. Only how fast.
Here’s the maths, because it’s actually quite simple. Each ZEISS 21mm CP.3 on a KOMODO-X gives you about 65.5 degrees horizontally. Four of them is 262 degrees before overlap. We settled on 39% overlap between neighbouring cameras, thats about 25.5 degrees shared at every stitch line. Three stitch lines, take that off, and you land on 185.5 degrees total.
Why so much overlap? Because on an LED wall a bad stitch isn’t a small problem. It’s a very large problem projected at full scale behind your actors. I would rather give up a few degrees and hand the vendor a stitch they can trust. If a production needs more width we pull the overlap back and get past 200 degrees. Same rig, different angles.
The harder part was everything that isn’t lenses. Four bodies on genlock and timecode. Wireless record on all four from one trigger. Wireless playback so the VP supervisor can check a take without walking to the rig. Camera control and iris control, all wireless. We’d solved most of that on the 3-way already, so this was about doing it again with one more of everything and not letting the weight run away from us.
We designed it, machined it and had it on the stage on a short timeline. It was recieved and officially approved by Netflix before it went to work. That last bit matters to me more than any of the numbers, if I’m honest.
It’s available to hire now. More on the Titan LT version soon.
