Lights, Camera, LED Magic: Inside our Car Process Cinematography Workshop with Noah Kadner!

On August 21st, the Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center hosted an immersive, one-day workshop led by Noah Kadner, focusing on car process shoots on an LED volume. It was a huge success! Participants had the chance to work hands-on with cutting-edge technology, learning the workflows used by top studios to create cinematic driving scenes for film, television, and commercials.

Cinematography instructor Monica Reina of Simplemente provided comprehensive instruction on framing, lighting, and the deployment of primary and secondary cameras within the volume environment. The session was further supported by MaryAnn Talavera, MPS in Virtual Production's Assistant Director, and Engineer Grant Ng, both Unreal Authorized Trainers, who managed Pixera playback and Technocrane operation.

Participants got up close with a sleek Mazda Miata sports car from Progress Motorsports. They set up lighting and camera configurations to capture dynamic driving shots on our virtual production stage. Using filming plates from Plate Pros and SIM Plates, students experimented with matching reflections and motion for a truly immersive scene.

To manage image-based lighting, the workshop featured ENTTEC’s  ELM software in combination with our Creamsource Vortex8 and ARRI SkyPanel lights. Participants captured accurate reflections using the wall, ceiling, and wild wall LED panels from ROE Visual. The students learned to match the lighting environment of the background plates perfectly with the practical car on stage, a key skill in virtual production workflows.

Industry expert Noah Kadner shared insider tips on filming driving and travel sequences, not just for cars, but also for planes, trains, and even spaceships. Students applied skills from famous film and tv examples of driving scenes that leveraged virtual production, bridging the gap between theory and real-world practice.

The workshop dove into cutting-edge workflows for creating driving plates using camera rigs and newer technologies like Gaussian splats which can generate highly realistic driving environments. Thanks to AbelCine, participants were able to get a firsthand look at a driving plate camera rig using RED V-Raptor cameras, showcasing the same tools used by high-end productions.

Keep an eye out for more exciting, professional workshops that will take your career to the next level!

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For questions or more information, email us at virtualproduction@nyu.edu.

Team Bios

Noah Kadner is the Virtual Production Editor at American Cinematographer magazine and author of the Virtual Production Field Guide series for Epic Games. He also hosts the Virtual Production Podcast. Noah is a seasoned industry thought leader. His partners include Epic Games, Apple, and American Cinematographer magazine. Noah also has extensive production and post-production experience in film, broadcast, streaming, and virtual production. 

Mónica Reina, born and raised in Mexico City, studied cinematography and production at CUEC. A survivor of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, she took part in search and rescue efforts, an experience that shaped her commitment to purposeful storytelling. She later co-founded Simplemente, guiding its growth from a modest digital services firm into the first Apple Certified Training Center in Latin America.

As director of Simplemente, Reina has been a driving force in designing and operating the largest LED volume in Mexico. She is dedicated to making advanced production tools accessible and has collaborated with leading companies including Apple, Amazon, Televisa, and Netflix to help creators realize authentic, ambitious stories

Grant Ng is a Virtual Production Engineer at the Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center. With 8 years of experience spanning education, mental health, and the entertainment industry. Grant has held roles including Motion Capture Supervisor at Prysm Stages/LUX Machina at Trilith Studios, Real-Time Technical Artist at The Mill, and Virtual Production TD with Imaginarium Studios. He works as a VP Supervisor on student films at the Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center and his credits include projects with Marvel Studios (She-Hulk, 2022) and Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (2024).

MaryAnn Talavera is an award-winning, Dominican-American creative technologist, filmmaker, and educator with a love for storytelling. MaryAnn is the Assistant Director of the Masters of Professional Studies in Virtual Production program at the NYU Tisch Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center and teaches XR world-building at the New School. In 2024 she became an Unreal Engine Authorized Instructor. MaryAnn is a member at Onassis ONX Studio and her work was recently featured at Cultural DC’s Torrents Exhibition and the 2025 Augmented World Expo in Long Beach. She was selected as a 2024 BPM+ Fellow and an Artist-in-Residence at Barnard College’s Movement Lab. MaryAnn studied XR and virtual production in the Interactive Telecommunications Program(ITP) at Tisch School of the Arts.

Event photos by Kasey O'Brien.