Finnish cinematographer explains to Nordisk Film & TV Fond how his awarded project GaussianScout will make today’s big-budget technology accessible for smaller productions.
“With new capture technology, spaces can be scanned faster and in more detail, as well as explored on ordinary computers,” says Antti Ahokoivu, founder of GaussianScout (formerly Virtual Location Scouting).
With his new digital location scouting technology, Finnish Antti Ahokoivu took home two prizes in the Zinemaldia Startup Challenge Awards – a competition highlighting technology and innovation in the audiovisual sector at San Sebastián Film Festival. Ahokoivu wins both the Best European Project prize (€10,000), and the Special Mention to Entrepreneurship prize (€3000). The Special Mention to Entrepreneurship prize was selected among both the Spanish and European competitors, and rewards entrepreneurship and innovation in relation to cinema.
Being a cinematographer himself, Ahokoivu’s idea has emerged from real-life experience – that is, the limitations of using 2D images when scouting for locations. Additionally, the market value the project could bring was central in the motivations given by the two juries.
Jury members for the Special Mention to Entrepreneurship, Pablo Ayala (CEO, Innovae) and Elena Ceballos (Senior Marketing and Communications Leader), highlighted the originality of Ahokoivu’s project and its ability to combine advanced technology with a business case. “The project will create a lot of value for the cinematography sector,” Ayala said.
Similarly, the jury for the European prize explained their decision by emphasising the market value Ahokoivu’s tool could bring. The jury members Anne Pouliquen (Futura Cinema), Martin Gordon (Filmuniversität Babelsberg) and Lone Garde (Creative Europe MEDIA desk, Denmark) stated in their motivation:
“Virtual location scouting is an innovative tool that has a very relevant potential in the market, and will help directors, DoPs, VFX supervisors, production and set designers, and location managers make better and more efficient choices throughout development and production.”
After bringing home the two prizes, Ahokoivu spoke to NFTVF about what makes his project unique in today’s technical landscape.
Can you elaborate on what your project brings to the industry, and how?
It is a browser-based, collaborative platform for digital location scouting. It uses Gaussian splatting, a new technique, to present digital twins of real locations. The aim is a lightweight way for the whole team to explore locations in 3D, together, straight from a web browser. This makes it possible for the whole crew to walk through a location together – each from their own laptop – before anyone travels there.
What does GaussianScout enable that is not possible today?
Digital location visits have existed before, but only for big-budget productions. Now it is affordable for normal productions too. With new capture technology, spaces can be scanned faster and in more detail, as well as explored on ordinary computers. GaussianScout gives these captures a platform in the web browser.
Technical details like measurements and sun paths can be checked virtually, so the time at the actual location scout is spent on creative discussions. You can also do simple blocking and simulate the field of view of real lenses. It also reduces unnecessary trips, which helps lower the carbon footprint.
The project is said to allow more creative risk on set. What does this mean in practice?
With GaussianScout you can test creative ideas in advance, such as complex camera movements, lighting ideas, and blocking. You can even do a simple edit to get a sense of the pacing. This provides the courage to try more complex setups, or to do less, knowing it's enough. With good plans, the crew can also give early feedback on what's possible to execute, and it takes less time to build on set. That leaves more time to fine-tune and find the small nuances.
How will your wins in San Sebastián support the further realisation of the project?
The wins gave me a lot of motivation and belief to continue. They also showed that people in the industry see a real need for this kind of tool, which was an important validation for me. And financially, the prizes help me start the next step, that is, building the cloud backend, so users can save their own locations and share them with their team. After that, the goal is to get GaussianScout tested in real productions.
The Best Spanish Project prize went to Luis Zabala for his project Pixentinel, which is an operational intelligence plattform for live streaming.
For more about the awards: CLICK HERE.
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