The Long Walk Home: Virtual Production in Performing Arts 

The Long Walk Home: Virtual Production in Performing Arts was a project that seeked to extend the reach of Canadian art songs by embracing new media and digital storytelling techniques such as virtual production.

The CASP (Canadian Art Song Project) team had a significant barrier they wanted to solve; is it possible to create environments that are distinctly Toronto that take place at night, in the middle of winter and on a budget. The SIRT team found the answer to this in the form of a 3D capture technique called gaussian splatting. SIRT utilized 360 camera technology for capturing various scenery around Toronto, World Labs Marble, an AI that generates manipulatable 3D gaussian splats and Volinga AI which allows for 3D gaussian splat editing and relighting within Unreal Engine 5.

These workflows enabled CASP to achieve a high level of visual realism within a controlled studio environment, reducing production constraints while establishing a scalable and repeatable model for future digital storytelling initiatives.