More companies are taking a page out of Hollywood’s playbook today, creating branded cinematic shorts and documentaries to connect with modern audiences. However, these projects must often work with smaller budgets and same-day delivery timelines, requiring an unconventional production approach. Masterwork Films CEO Biro Florin sees green screen virtual production as the answer to this fast turnaround challenge. He recently launched a stage in Brighton, England that houses all the necessary gear to deliver cinematic branded stories quickly and cost-efficiently, including a workstation running Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, an AJA ColorBox for color management, and AJA GEN10 for sync gen among other technology. He tells us more about the new stage and its pipeline in our latest interview. 

What’s your role, and how’d you get started in the business? 
I’m CEO, but I also play the role of DP (Director of Photography) on client shoots. I figure out the best solutions to use for projects and our virtual production studio and rental kit; I also play a role in marketing and business development. I got my start as a software engineer, built a project management SaaS (software as a service) business, and sold it in 2022. After, I realized I wanted to do something more creative that would allow me to channel my inner filmmaking, cinematography, and gear nerd. 

I’d done a little content creation and video production work to support my previous businesses, so starting Masterwork Films wasn’t too much of a stretch. We launched early last year, and even though it was a completely new industry for me, I got up to speed fast. I’ve become a pretty good DP because I now know a lot about cameras, audio, video, and lighting. I quickly started to build relationships and network, as I know they’re core to building any good business. 

Describe Masterwork Films in more detail. 
We began as a boutique film production company specializing in documentary storytelling and quickly evolved into more. Today, we support everything from film and commercial work to master classes and brand videos. We also run a green screen virtual production studio and kit rental business. All our projects share one thing in common: a strong narrative core. Being able to vocalize what a brand does and build a connection with the audience is essential to any brand building effort. Most of our work is here in the UK, but we also work with brands in Canada and the US. 

Why did you decide to build a green screen virtual production studio?  
The idea came out of a realization I had while working on a commercial project. We quickly found that building props, sets, and decorations from scratch was taking up a significant chunk of our budget. Recognizing we had quite a few future projects slated, I had to find a better way to ensure we could deliver a high production value without overspending on location logistics or set building and prop design. I was aware of green screen virtual production, and I saw some companies doing it really well, so I started to explore their tech stack and decided to build a stage.

Tell us more about your stage and what the setup looks like.  
It's a u-shaped green screen stage that’s six meters wide and by three and a half meters deep and includes a ton of tech. We use a real-time keyer, which takes our camera feeds – with the foreground, the talent, and the green screen in the background – and removes the green screen in real time, leaving a transparent background. We feed that into Unreal Engine 5 to apply the virtual background. 

Our setup supports multi-cam switching, so we can record up to three 4K camera feeds simultaneously, and we have a motion system, so our cameras and lenses are tracked in virtual 3D space. All that data is sent to Unreal, so whenever we move the cameras, the background also moves, or if we’re zooming toward the subject, the background automatically changes focus. 

Describe a typical workflow in more detail. 
Up to three cameras send a REDWideGamutRGB (log) SDI signal, which shows the talent and the green screen, and our PC sends another SDI signal transporting the Unreal Engine virtual camera feed that also uses REDWideGamutRGB (log) to our keyer. The keyer receives the camera signal as the foreground feed and keys out a flat looking green backdrop, leaving an alpha foreground layer of the talent. The same keyer also receives the Unreal Engine SDI signal as the background feed and applies it as the background layer of the foreground keyed talent. 

Given both foreground and background signals are REDWideGamutRGB, the composited image on the keyer has the same flat look. We send that flat video signal via SDI to an AJA ColorBox and use Assimilate Live Looks to color correct and grade it. We then send the graded output to director and talent confident monitors using the ColorBox SDI output, and the loop out to a focus puller and for low-latency critical tasks.

How did you come across ColorBox? 
I started looking at how I could color correct and grade in near real-time on set with a LUT box, which is when I first encountered AJA ColorBox. There aren’t a lot of 12G-SDI LUT boxes on the market that will give you 4:2:2 10-bit up to 4:4:4 12-bit, so it instantly caught my attention. Since then, it’s been a huge boon to my workflow. 

Whether on a virtual production or traditional set, there’s something magical about being able to use a device like ColorBox to upload a LUT and get a rough view of how things will look, plus have the control to tweak the color and contrast in real time. It gives you an extra layer of confidence as you light the scene, and it can affirm you structured it the right way. I also love that ColorBox is integrated with so many great color grading and correction tools to support live grading on set and that I can easily export changes to a LUT or a grade and send them down the pipeline in post to editors and colorists; it’s very, very useful. 

ColorBox also saves us a ton of time. We can do everything on the computer, and I don’t have to process the 4:2:2 10-bit signal we're shooting; it receives the feed and outputs the exact same signal with our LUT. And we can do an SDI loop out or pass through, so I can send a signal from the ColorBox to two recorders, one with the color grading, and the original signal as it comes out of the compositing server. 

What other gear do you use in-studio? 
We also use the AJA GEN10 sync gen because most of our devices have genlock reference SDI inputs. When you synchronize a camera, you can specify if you're using genlock or not, and our camera and lens trackers use EZtrack Hub, which also has a genlock and SDI reference input. Prior to GEN10, when we’d move the cameras, the background would stutter. With a little research, I quickly found that to have everything in sync, we needed a device like GEN10 to synchronize all these other devices doing genlock. I installed one, and the stuttering disappeared. 

What are the benefits of virtual production over a more traditional approach? 
In general, green screen virtual productions allow you to get super realistic, believable compositions quickly and affordably. That’s important because a lot of creative agencies and brands have very short delivery deadlines and tight budgets. Virtual production can prove costly if you’re building sets and virtual worlds from scratch, which is why we try to strike that middle ground, where we can get a nice output with stock and marketplace type assets. Another big benefit of using virtual production with a tool like ColorBox, alongside the lighting or variety of backgrounds, is that it minimizes post production work so that we can reduce costs and production times for our clients all around. 

We also work with a lot of clients who have expressed interest in featuring more distinctive backdrops for brand videos. It’s partially why we created our studio; we saw it as a solution to diversify the look and feel of projects, especially for our more consistent clients, without it costing an arm and a leg like most LED studios do. So far, they like the variety of options we can offer at an affordable price point, as there aren’t many non-LED options in the south of the UK.

Which industry trends are you tracking, and why? 
I’m keeping an eye on AI developments related to virtual production, game development, and motion tracking. We’re heading into a very disruptive world, especially with the advent of generative AI. We’re seeing a lot of generative AI features being pushed out by creative tools, and we're rapidly evolving towards a world where mixing AI outputs with your creative self and more real scenes could become a new norm. Virtual production presents an opportunity where AI, green screen, and motion tracking developments can converge to truly reshape how we create content.  

What advice would you offer to people entering your line of work?
Be obsessed with the craft and love what you do. Enjoy what you do and be willing to spend late nights learning. Check out online forums and YouTube tutorials to soak in all you can. Starting a virtual production studio for the sake of starting one or to only make money is a bad idea because figuring out how to make everything work is hard, and it requires a time and dedication that only a passion for the craft can provide.  

Where do you see Masterwork Films heading in the next few years? 
Continued growth is a huge priority for us, and we’re looking to take on new clients and projects. As we do, it’s very possible we may start taking more of our studio equipment, like ColorBox, on location, as I could see it being useful for real time visualization of color grading and correction on projects outside the studio. 

About AJA ColorBox
AJA ColorBox is a powerful video processing device designed to perform algorithmic and LUT-based color transformations and offers advanced-level color management with AJA Color Pipeline, as well as several color transform approaches including Colorfront, ORION-CONVERT, BBC HLG LUTs, NBCU LUTs, and ACES. Featuring 12G-SDI in/out and HDMI 2.0 out and ultra-low latency, ColorBox is capable of up to 4K/UltraHD 60p 10-bit YCbCr 4:2:2 and 30p 12-bit RGB 4:4:4 output, perfect for live production, on-set production, and post-production. ColorBox’s browser-based user interface makes it simple to adjust color processing settings, whether connecting directly via Ethernet or via a third-party Wi-Fi adapter. 

About AJA GEN10
The GEN10 is a cost effective and flexible sync generator featuring seven outputs including two groups of independently controlled sync outputs and one AES-11 output. SD outputs can be switched between Color Black or Color Bars. HD tri-level sync can be switched between 19 different HD formats. The AES-11 output can be switched between SILENCE and TONE. All outputs are in sync with each-other and are sourced from an accurate master time base. 

About AJA Video Systems
Since 1993, AJA Video Systems has been a leading manufacturer of cutting-edge technology for the broadcast, cinema, proAV, and post-production markets. The company develops a range of powerful, flexible video interface and conversion technologies, digital video recording solutions, and color management, streaming, and remote production tools. All AJA products are designed and manufactured at our facilities in Grass Valley, California, and sold through an extensive sales channel of resellers and systems integrators around the world. For further information, please see our website at www.aja.com.

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Media Contact:
Katie Weinberg
Raz Public Relations, LLC
310-450-1482, aja@razpr.com