10 Filmmaking Trends & Predictions for 2025

Welcome to 2025!

Hope everyone had a great holiday break. With Christmas and New Year falling on Wednesday, every day has felt like a series of Mondays and Fridays.

Some last-minute update: heading to CES this week.

Not doing the extensive coverage we do at NAB (50+ videos 😅), but enough companies were popping up on my radar with virtual production, AI, and AR/VR that I thought it’d be worth going.

So I’ve got a question for you:

Also, putting out a soft feeler to anyone who would like to consider becoming a part-time contributor to VP Land, because I’d love to work with someone who already gets it.

If you’re tech-obsessed, love the magic of moviemaking, are excited about the creative possibilities from the new tools that are coming, and want to help shape and make this the most useful creative industry newsletter, then please hit that reply button!

Thanks everyone - here’s to an amazing 2025!

Joey

10 Filmmaking Trends & Predictions

Here’s what’s on our radar.

More Accessible Virtual Production Tools with Smaller Set Ups

Virtual production is becoming more accessible through compact, modular solutions that don't require dedicated studio space.

• Nant introduced dynamic volume systems with movable LED walls for flexible space configuration

• Vu released smaller-scale offerings like Vu One Mini for space-constrained productions

• ARWall's StudioBox provides a self-contained computer system for plug-and-play virtual production

3D Space is Going to be the Next Big Gen AI Focus

Converting 2D images into navigable 3D environments is becoming a key capability for virtual production and environment creation.

• World Labs, Genie 2, CAT4D, and Playbook demonstrate single-image to 3D space conversion

• Technology enables consistent environment creation across multiple camera angles

• Particularly valuable for pickup shots and virtual production planning

• Opens new possibilities for location scouting and pre-visualization

Rise of LED Wall-less Virtual Production

While it probably won’t be final pixel ready, more solutions and workflows will pop-up that’s virtual production without the walls.

• Beeble (SwitchLight) showcasing advanced environment replacement technology

• Skyglass integrates environmental imagery and composites it in real-time

• New tools enable lighting and background modification without LED walls

• Technology focuses on maintaining realistic lighting and reflections

• Current solutions show promise but aren't yet production-ready

More Visual and Intuitive Ways to Steer Gen AI

We will hopefully see a lot less text prompting for generating visuals, and a lot more intuitive interfaces.

• Luma Dream Machine emphasizes visual inputs over text commands

• Sora introduced storyboard-based prompting for timing control

• Runway exploring visual graph structures for video generation

• Real-time AI generation and hardware interfaces - see prediction 10

Immersive Content Will Increase, But Not for Apple Vision Pro

Despite lackluster sales of the AVP, demand for high-quality immersive content continues to grow, particularly in venue-based experiences.

• Venues like Sphere and Cosm demonstrate market interest

• Tools like Blackmagic’s URSA Cine Immersive support impressive content creation

• Growing demand for large-scale immersive experiences

Shift Back to On-Prem Storage

Rising cloud costs and storage management challenges are driving production teams to reconsider local storage solutions, with new tools emerging to support this transition.

• Monthly cloud storage fees continue to increase, with limited ability to reduce costs. Media teams managing petabytes of data find cloud solutions increasingly expensive.

• Growing interest in NAS systems and local servers for active project storage

• We see a shift back to teams looking for on-prem solutions, and Media Asset Management solutions (MAM) that don’t require cloud intermediaries (like Axle AI)

Read The Rest of the Predictions

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👔 Virtual Production Gigs

Technical Program Manager
Mo-Sys Engineering Ltd

Production Coordinator / Video Systems Engineer
Phil Galler

Internship - Virtual Production
Orbital Studios

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