Minneapolis, Minnesota – December 20, 2021// ADX Labs announced today that the company has invested US$10 million in Vū Technologies, owner and operator of the advanced Vū Studios virtual film and television production facility in Tampa, Florida. ADX believes this to be the largest-ever seed investment in a Tampa Bay (Florida) startup.
Vū Technologies intends to utilize the entirety of the seed stage investment to rapidly build advanced new virtual production campuses in Las Vegas, Nevada, Nashville, Tennessee and a to-be-decided location in northeastern United States. The first Vū Studios virtual production campus was opened in Tampa Bay, Florida in 2020.
Steven M. Renner, founder of ADX Labs said, “Vū Studios represents the pinnacle of virtual production technology and integration. The unique Vū Studios offering has transformed the economics of film and video production. We are thrilled to have invested in what will soon become the world’s largest network of game-changing, almost holodeck-like film, TV and corporate video studios.”
ADX Labs will contribute a director to the board of Vū Technologies and will provide advanced networking, cybersecurity, legal and financial advisory, and marketing support to the fast-growing company.
“Virtual production is the most exciting and essential production methodology in the world today,” said Tim Moore, CEO and co-founder of Vū Technologies. “Exciting, because Vū Studios provides producers of Hollywood blockbusters, episodic and streaming TV shows, advertising agencies and corporate video houses with startling creative and economic advantages. Essential, because the enduring global pandemic demands unprecedented safety on sets and locations, which Vū Studios facilitates. Vū Studios’ national network of virtual production campuses give film and TV directors virtually unlimited creative options and previously unimaginable cost and logistics savings.”
Virtual production, a new and burgeoning sector of the professional film and video industry, offers and blends both Extended Reality and Mixed Reality technologies in advanced studio facilities. Typically rented by film, TV, advertising and corporate video producers by the day, week or month, Vū Studios empower directors to shoot their talent in largely enclosed high-definition video projection environments. “Vū Studios provide deeply immersive virtual environments for actors to perform as if they are on location,” said Moore.
Incorporating technologies invented and patented by Vū’s Tim Moore, the Vū Max, Vū Pro and Vū Essential are large circular sound stage studios which provide HD LED panels on all walls and ceilings. The Vū Dome is a sound stage in a massive 30 foot (9.1m) diameter dome structure with custom made curved HD LED internal surfaces, providing a 180 by 90 degree volume. Vū Walls, which can be constructed in effectively infinite sizes, provide advanced shooting environments for tracking shots.
“Vū Studios are so much more than just our advanced panels and rigging,” said Jon Davila, President and co-founder of Vū Technologies. “Vū has invested staggering amounts of R&D integrating camera tracking and real-time rendering applications to create immersive virtual environments for actors to perform in geographically diverse studios in real time.” Vū’s deep integration of Mo-Sys camera tracking technology and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine allows effectively realistic backgrounds to be generated in real-time, rendered from the point of view of the moving camera with perfect parallax.
Unique to Vū’s patented LED panels is an innovative system which allows Vū Studio soundstages to be theatrically lit from above the enclosed volume. “Directors and DPs can light their scenes according to the skill and knowledge acquired over their careers,” said Davila.
ADX Labs’ investment will directly fund the second, third and fourth Vū Studios campuses. “Vū Las Vegas and Vū Nashville will both be fully operational and shooting award winning movies, episodic series and Superbowl ads from early 2022,” said Renner. “A Vū Studio in the northeastern US will rapidly follow, and ADX Labs technologies and services will power phase one of Vū’s virtual production campus network, driving down costs and production times by enhancing creativity and cast and crew safety.”
Media enquiries
For media enquiries, including interviews with the principals and key engineering leaders, please contact Emily Vivian, PR Manager, ADX Labs, Inc at evivian@adxnet.com
