The Mexican film, Cuando Duerme Conmigo (When We Sleep Together), Eduardo Román’s debut feature, was produced by 4Cento Films (USA) together with Estudio Cacodelphia (Argentina), Arttess Productions (USA), and 3C Films (Mexico), would be the first Latino production to use Virtual Production technology.
According to Juan Crespo of 3C Films, who is a producer with Román, this romantic drama film has been in the making for several years with Román as director and screenwriter. It was in November of last year when pre-production began and filming on January 9. Crespo estimates that it will be ready for March – filming ends this Friday – and the plan is to release it in theaters in Mexico in October and tour it across film festivals prior to its debut.
Virtual Production involves the use of motion tracking (camera tracking), gigantic TV screens (or LED “walls”), among other tools. At the heart of these new technologies is Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, used in titles like Fortnite.
The hyper-realistic virtual scenarios for When We Sleep Together were created with Unreal and by the Argentine studio Senscape. Beaches, airports, and hospitals are some of the locations that were filmed entirely inside the Cacodelphia studio led by Gaston Gallo, director of Virtual Production, thanks to the conjunction of Unreal and specialized equipment.
For Crespo, the use of this technology will be a milestone in production, since it saves time in post-production and solves moving to locations, which is complicated in the current covid’s outbreak.
“With this technology, one can imagine recording anywhere in the world, it offers speed and control of production costs. It speeds up the processes from pre-production to post-production” he emphasized.
The executive producer of the film is Mariano Dall Orso; starring the famous Mexican actors Ana Claudia Talancón and Erick Elías.