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Virtual production has given filmmakers an extraordinary amount of control, but it has also made the stage itself part of the VFX imaging pipeline. A cinematographer can arrive with a carefully tested camera, lens package and colour workflow, only to discover that the LED volume has poor calibration, compromised dynamic range, mismatched panels or an unexpected interaction with the camera. StEM3 is designed to identify those problems before the first day of principal photography.

Sony has launched a new compact full-frame Cinema Line camera with 5K Open Gate acquisition, internal 16-bit X-OCN, and thus offered a new level of distinctly stripped-down approach to production. Gareth Edwards, director of The Creator, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Jurassic World: Rebirth, took the new FX5 to Cambodia, Thailand and Nepal, to film his own camera test. “Guerrilla filmmaking just went to the next level,” Edwards says, speaking to Yaroslav Altunin.

Foundry has released SmartRoto, a new AI-powered plugin for Nuke, NukeX, Nuke Studio and Nuke Indie that aims to take the grind out of one of the most tedious jobs in visual effects: rotoscoping. We spoke to Adam Cherbetji, Foundry’s Director of Product for AI Research, ahead of the launch. The first thing to understand about SmartRoto is what it is not. It is not a magic bullet, and it is not another automated matting tool that draws a spline around a segmentation mask.

Beeble has announced SwitchHDR, a new AI model designed to reconstruct HDR imagery from conventional SDR video and output scene-linear 16-bit EXR sequences for professional post-production. The company is positioning the tool squarely at filmmakers, colourists and VFX artists who need to bring older, conventional, or otherwise limited dynamic range material into modern HDR finishing pipelines.

The 2026 visual effects nominations underline just how broadly high-end episodic VFX is now spread across the major streamers, but Apple TV had the strongest showing in the top seasonal/movie category.

We recently had a chance to think about and hear about advanced and professional immersive video, something we confess we don’t cover enough here at fxguide. The first was at FMX and the clever recording of audio  and the second was regarding understanding ASAF for Apple Immersive Video, one of the most technically interesting ways to experience believable audio.

I’ll be attending FMX again this year and it’s hard to believe it was 16 years ago when I made my first trip to Stuttgart for the event. Mike is also curating a track at FMX this year, which I’ll be highlighting in this article listing just a few of the many sessions I’m interested in checking out this year. The conference runs from May 5 – May 7 with an online/on-campus day on May 8.

We have been working with Main Course Films on producing technical workflows for the AVP. As Apple Immersive Video (AIV) production starts to move beyond experiments and into real-world delivery, one question keeps surfacing: how do you actually get high-end immersive content onto streaming platforms without drowning in data? Working with Main Course Films, this video shows a new approach and testing of a practical delivery pipeline using the short film The Dobos Connection as a case study.

At NVIDIA GTC 2026, Jensen Huang introduced DLSS 5 as the next major step in NVIDIA’s long arc of graphics innovation. “Twenty-five years after NVIDIA invented the programmable shader, we are reinventing computer graphics once again, DLSS 5 is the GPT moment for graphics,  blending handcrafted rendering with generative AI to deliver a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.

The 98th Academy Awards once again highlighted the extraordinary artistry and technical innovation that defines modern films. Hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the annual ceremony honours the craftspeople and storytellers who push the boundaries of filmmaking, around the world. PricewaterhouseCoopers representatives arrive on the red carpet of the 98th Oscars at the Dolby Theatre.