New Golden Hour Tech Attracts Global Client Interest

The Virtual Wall in Grand Rapids -- one of only six worldwide

Days of Heaven (1978) filmed in Alberta, Canada with a legendary year-long production schedule. Director Terrence Malik ordered all exterior shots filmed only in the Golden Hour – the first hour after sunrise and the last hour of light before sunset. Technically, the position of the Sun must be calculated based on geographical positioning between six degrees below the horizon and six degrees above. Get it right, with no clouds and a huge production budget, and you get the light and the film that Malik is famous for.

Today, spend a lot less money and time when you step your project into Studio A, housed in Lowing Studios off Airway Drive on the north end of Grand Rapids.

Chandler Forbes, Studio Manager, puts it this way. “You want to shoot in the morning, and then you want to shoot that same thing in the evening, you can take the sun and you can change it through the sky, so the shadows are moving in the other direction.”

The god-like powers come from the Golden Hour wall, a technical marvel that dominates the huge space in Lowing Studios, the only such installation with this 1.5 pixel pitch resolution found in maybe six other locations in the world.  The wall at rest is a hulking, black 40 foot long monster with a 7degree curve. Towering 16 feet above the floor, an LED ceiling suspends over the top. Add an additional ten foot modular wall on wheels and you become Master of the Universe -- able to film anywhere in the world inside the immersive environment powered by the Unreal Engine and a raft of refining processors.  

The world at your keyboard -- travel to ancient Viking seas when you bring in the artifact and the Virtual Wall does the rest (with lots of tech expertise)

Physical assets can become virtual assets in foreground or background, compressing perspective into a 3D “reality.” A Mo-Sys Star tracker system placed on a production camera aligns with sensors in the ceiling that connect to the Golden Hour virtual production system to tell the wall where your camera is in real time and adjust accordingly.

Josh Ralya, owner of Ideology Productions, a full-service creative production company, decided to invest in virtual production last year and has been working ever since to bring Golden Hour to Grand Rapids. His specific wall comes directly from the set of The Batman (2022). “It is so exciting to see the future of our industry, right here in Grand Rapids,” says Ralya, “anyone can use this wall and step into the virtual production world…the immersive opportunities for video and photography are endless.”

Josh Ralya and Dave Lowing

Ralya (left) teamed up with Dave Lowing (right), owner of Lowing Studios, to house the Golden Hour wall, the one studio with sufficient space as well as facilities for production support.  Virtual production on the wall can still involve models or talent, hair and makeup, wardrobe, props and cameras.

Forbes notes, “Lowing Studios has all of the support equipment and space as far as hair and make-up rooms, conference rooms, soundproofing and the grid in the ceiling…plus the power to run this (wall). If you just chucked this into a warehouse somewhere, you couldn’t even turn it on.”

For all the advanced tech, Forbes and Lowing maintain the production process remains largely the same, mainly, pull your project and team together, make a phone call and reserve the space. The one exception lies in the emphasis now placed on pre-production.   “It’s not like shooting on green screen, where you do your work in post,” says Forbes. “Here you do the work in preproduction…. You need to design your stuff in advance.” Despite the sophisticated capability, the wall is versatile, just as effective with a single static visual in creating an undetectable version of reality.

Dave Lowing speaks from decades of experience lighting every conceivable type of set, most of which have a flaw. “You go to a location; you’re stuck with the location. Maybe you’re bringing in a carpenter to fix it….Here, it’s a little more than flipping a switch to fix it, but you’re painting a picture of what you want to see.”

Forbes speaks from the heart when he credits Lowing for leading the way to innovation in West Michigan. “People walk into the studio and they see our 18kays and our five tons and the equipment that we have and they say, ‘You have this in West Michigan?’ That’s because Dave took a risk and a gamble. He believed in people and the work ethic in West Michigan and he wanted to support them.”

“I am for sure the biggest Lowing fan in town,” adds Ralya. “Many others, including me, have been inspired to push the envelope and invest into our creative community here in Grand Rapids.  Stepping up to take risks and bring creative tools like Golden Hour to our market shows our belief in the special community and creative abilities we have here! I’m excited for the future we are all working together to create.” 

Lowing himself is predictably modest. “Twenty years ago, I said, ‘I want to make film production an industry in Grand Rapids.” He pauses to survey the enormous Golden Hour wall capable of transforming the quality and quantity of production in West Michigan with clients from around block and around the globe.  “Well,” he says, “we’re getting close.”