by Casey Weiss

2024 was an extremely busy year for Local 695’s Education & Training Department. Class was in session sixty times, which was a 300% increase to prior years. Four hundred and forty-nine members broadened their skill sets and most excitingly, we celebrated a first in Local 695’s history: being awarded a training grant with the state!
This grant did not come to fruition quickly. The incredibly arduous process began in May 2022, in development with the BRIC Foundation. This organization specializes in training within the entertainment industry and was pioneering a state-funded grant not yet to be available for the world of filmmaking. “Break, Reinvent, Impact, and Change,” or BRIC, coordinates with government agencies, education partners, and industry organizations to create inclusive opportunities for those who are traditionally underrepresented, and incumbent workers seeking career advancement. During their pursuit for the first grant of its kind, BRIC identified both IATSE unions and entertainment workforce affiliates to provide skills training and/or on-the-job training within the industry. This grant was novel, as California has historically only funded formal apprenticeships like you would see with welding or public electricians. This is a drawn-out model that is not typically conducive for the state’s third-largest economic contributor. Developing a brand-new program to support the initiative was necessary, and with Local 695’s Y-16A Training Program already nationally recognized, implementing a new curriculum that could deem us eligible to participate was right up our alley. The grant process was no easy feat. There was ample red tape as officials came to better understand our gig lifestyle. The process required numerous iterations of proposals, budgets, and ever-evolving qualifications. We were all learning about this new blended world together, with the commitment to making this a success for the participants apparent on both sides.


We submitted our finalized Scope of Work, then waited. And waited. A year later, in August 2023, BRIC announced the approval of this grant, partnering with the California Workforce Development Board to launch the Arts, Media, and Entertainment – High Road Training Partnership (AME-HRTP), a trailblazing grant intended to support participants over the course of a multi-year initiative. Then came even greater news: Local 695’s Education & Training Department was to be among the first registrants of this grant, being awarded $108,817.00 from the state for training! With an on-the-job training program already established in-house thanks to the Y-16A Training Program, Local 695 recognized the growing need for training in our ever-evolving technologies. With this grant, we now had the opportunity to offer a unique program to the membership in the developing field of virtual production.
The moving pieces of the grant were finalized in early 2024, and we could officially move forward on implementation. One of the requirements for the grant was to train eighteen participants in an established cohort for the duration of three or more physical training courses. The time requirements were going to be lengthy, and the state had additional requirements participants had to meet. An open call to the Local 695 membership was sent out, seeking those either in the early stages of their careers interested in virtual production, or esteemed members seeking to change directions, or expand on prospective work opportunities. There were more than fifty initial interviews, where expectations and requirements were explained before we could move on to the next step of the application process. This rigorous verification process resulted in multi-series meetings with each applicant, and finally our cohort of eighteen was established! The first LED Video Wall cohort was now onboarded with the state’s database and represented a mix of sound and video members and Y-16A Trainees. The shared goal was to become certified in three training modules designed around Local 695’s virtual production jurisdictions.
The first was an intensive two-week course using the Unreal Engine, mirroring on-set exercises to play back content to large displays, such as interlocking video panel walls.
Unreal Engine has existed since the late 1990’s and was developed by Epic Games as a tool for first-person point-of-view video games. It soon became a popular choice for game development due to its capacity for high-quality visuals and comparatively easy to user interface. Each new generation of the program brought improvements in visual fidelity and a wealth of new features that made it more appealing for a wider variety of game genres. When Unreal Engine 4 was unveiled in 2012, it was able to achieve near photorealistic environments and, for the first time, the film industry realized the opportunity it created. Films like 2013’s Oblivion had started experimenting with virtual production by stitching images from front-screen projectors together to simulate environments that could be captured in camera instead of using a green screen to composite scenes together in post-production. Unreal Engine took this process to the next level. Rather than shooting environmental plates, it was suddenly possible to play back virtual environments rendered within a video game engine to create realistic scenery on a film set.



Today, Unreal Engine stands as the most popular game engine in the world and is used on virtual production sets around the globe. In late May 2024, the Local 695 BRIC Grant cohort met at the Mo-Sys offices in Hawthorne to begin learning the ins and outs of this system. The classes were primarily taught by Local 695 member Eric Rigney, who currently serves as the Global Director of the Mo-Sys Academy training program. Both Eric and Mo-Sys were incredible partners throughout this process and were incredibly generous with both their time and the support of our members.
As many of the participants within the cohort are new in their careers or come from other areas of the craft, it was important to start out with a foundational overview of signal routing, video engineering, and computer networking. These are foundational skills in the field of virtual production, and anyone interested in learning more about this area of the industry is encouraged to spend time on LinkedIn Learning (all IATSE members have access to a free LinkedIn Learning account through the union). With that done, the course shifted gears into how Local 695 members would utilize Unreal Engine on set.
Virtual production is a complicated crossroads of crafts, requiring input from the art, lighting, camera, and video departments to implement the final scenes. It is important for members to understand where their jurisdiction begins and ends on set. For example, Local 695 members are not responsible for creating an Unreal Engine environment, but they do need to be able to set up a project, import an environment, and manipulate it so that the image being played back is correct for the scene being shot. This means everything from adjusting the 3D viewer to see the right part of the virtual map to adjusting the size or lighting of objects in the scene to adding graphics or effects to an existing map to create a specific look.
After their two weeks with the Mo-Sys Academy, the cohort moved onto training modules with Lightning LED, facilitated by Local 695 members Shahrouz Nooshinfar, Seth Fine, Storm Flejter, and Connor Solomon.


On the first day of the second training module, students were given an intensive overview of how LED walls work, down to the circuit level. By starting with basic electrical engineering and going through the nitty-gritty of tile management, maintenance, and replacement, participants were exposed to a variety of panel types and workflows so that they would be prepared to start on any production, regardless of its particular LED infastructure.
Then the group moved onto WATCHOUT. Virtual production often requires sending video signals to many displays at the same time, with very large video walls sometimes being made up of dozens of individual panels. WATCHOUT is one of several media-server products that allows video engineers to map images in a multi-display environment. Both the second and third modules of the BRIC Grant training revolved around this platform in separate two-day training sessions, with our training partners conducting the classes at their facility in Santa Clarita, CA. As Local 695 video engineer members who actively do this work on set, the team went above and beyond to ensure the participants were set up for success. They even graciously coordinated additional half-day training for participants who needed the extra support. The first WATCHOUT module was academic, focusing on a common framework of understanding, terminology, and on-set communication.
For the final module of the training, the cohort was able to put all their training together. The group struck a magnesium LED wall build, built an aluminum wall (where each panel was approximately seven pounds heavier), and then mapped images across the panels to create and simulate a true virtual production environment.
All in, the participants spent almost a month focusing solely on Local 695’s virtual production workflow jurisdictions, resulting in certifications for the entire cohort!



The goal of this training has always been to leave the cohort with the skills to begin working in virtual production workflows, but the work is not yet done. While Local 695 is one of the first BRIC Grant partners to complete its cohort training under the grant, we are dedicated to supporting the cohort over the remaining two years of the grant with trainings specific to building upon the tools they learned in the three initial modules. As representatives for the virtual production field under Local 695, this community will continue to help educate the industry and serve as an example as to the caliber of what Local 695 members are capable of. With time, we hope to be awarded more grants so we may continue to develop skills training for many more members, protecting jurisdictions and work in California.
A huge congratulations to the cohorts for their hard work and accomplishments thus far. They devoted themselves to something entirely new and have certainly raised the standard. After so many intensive days together, the cohort has organically become a community of dedicated, supportive, and good people. They consistently asked excellent questions, keeping the instructors on their toes, and tapped into their unique skill sets or expertise to aid one another and the development of the curriculums. This shared level of ingenuity and curiosity is what continues to spur on the advancements of virtual production, and we are pleased to represent a cohort of incredible workers adding value to this field. A big thank you to our training partners for their shared mission in furthering the expertise that has garnered Local 695 its reputation for excellence. Finally, thank you to the BRIC Foundation and all the associated affiliates that made this grant possible. As work picks up with the start of the new year, we look forward to interfacing with more productions on virtual production solutions and expanding our goal for industry security.



