It's not every day that old-Hollywood glamour meets brand new technology, but that's exactly what happened when actor and September cover star Blake Lively stepped onto to bring a full-on jewelry heist—as envisioned by director —to life. “We needed to tell a story that spanned many locations, both indoors and outdoors,” said Luhrmann of the shoot, adding: “We’re in Monte Carlo, we’re in a period, we’re going to all around locations we could never get to if we had to do it without the power of the [LED] Volume.” The LED Volume technology that allowed Luhrmann to imagine Lively as Cat, an enterprising and glamorous jewel thief making her way through mid-20th century Monte Carlo, is most frequently used for motion campaigns.
However, Luhrmann used it to tell a dynamic and deeply engaging story through photography, illustrating a whole new world of possibilities for the production system. “It's a relatively new technology," says Pier59 Studios Virtual Production Supervisor Jim Rider. “There's been a lot of high-profile TV shows and movies using virtual production, but commercials and stills are starting to embrace it.
” And who better to introduce LED Volume to the world of high fashion than Lively and Luhrmann? A campaign on the scale of Luhrmann's cover shoot would normally be done via green screen, but LED Volume allowed for a much more fluid and dynamic creative process for all those involved. Of course, there were still production challenges. Luhrmann'.