Pioneered in 2007Two U.S. Patents
CastleVision: Patented Real-Time Virtual Production
We film a real place, with its real light and movement, and bring it onto our stage, so your cast performs inside it, live, in camera.
- The finished shot on the monitor
- No travel days, no company moves
- Burbank and Albuquerque, one pipeline
- Virtual set operator included
Or call 818-934-3775 Burbank 818-861-7317 Albuquerque
Productions that have trusted us
The networks, the streamers and the studios have all shot here.
Hart to Heart, Aquaman 2, Inventing Anna, Bosch, The Mummy, Greenland, Deadliest Catch and national spots for T-Mobile, Amazon and Domino's. Full credit list
What it is
Live environments. Live actors.
One image in camera.
In plain terms, CastleVision is our patented method for filming a real place, with its real light and movement, and bringing it onto the stage, so actors perform inside it and the camera can move as if it were there. Instead of building a digital copy of a location, we film the place itself, with everything that makes it real:
- Pedestrians walking
- Cars driving
- Birds flying
- Restaurant patrons interacting
- Natural lighting shifts across the day
That living environment is composited live, in camera, onto our green screen stage in Burbank or Albuquerque. The location appears around your talent while you shoot. You see the finished shot on the monitor while you film, with no background added later in post, and the operator who runs the virtual sets is included in every rental.
The result is the authenticity of on-location shooting with the control of a studio day. No travel days. No company moves. No weather delays. The director composes the final shot in camera, the cast reacts to the world they are in, and the producer skips the line items that used to be unavoidable.
Three paths
Three ways to put a place on our stage
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Load it from the library. 250+ photoreal sets are ready now, from a classy restaurant to a New York street. Browse every city street set or the full virtual set library.
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Have it built. Our in-house artists build custom environments in our Unreal Engine virtual production studio from photographs, plans or an address.
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Capture the real one with CastleVision. Including your own restaurant, bank, store or office, so it never has to close for the shoot. See how we recreate any location.
How it works
How CastleVision works: capture, integrate, composite live
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Capture
We film the real location with multi-element photography, a standard technique applied our own way to keep its natural movement, lighting and parallax. Parallax is the way the background shifts as the camera moves, and it is what makes a place feel real.
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Integrate
The captured place goes into the same real-time pipeline that runs our Unreal Engine sets, at our virtual production studio in Burbank, Los Angeles and in Albuquerque. Lighting, camera tracking and depth response are aligned so the stage and the captured plate read as one image.
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Composite, live
On the day, the captured world composites onto our green screen stage in real time and plays on the monitor as the final shot. The director sees what will ship, and the cast performs inside it. Each camera gets its own render, so a multi-camera setup covers the scene at once. The same live composite runs under our virtual talk show sets and music videos shot live in camera.
The keyers, camera tracking and render systems at each studio are listed on our virtual production technology page. For a real place scanned into a 3D set the camera can move through, see Gaussian Splatting capture (CastleVision 3D).
Real places, live on the stage
See CastleVision and the live composite on camera
Old Town Albuquerque is a real place captured with CastleVision. The City and The Mall are virtual sets, composited live the same way. The News Set clip cuts from raw green to the finished frame, and Celebrity Crime Scene: Princess Diana was shot entirely in Burbank. Hover to preview; click to play with sound. Tap to play with sound.
Why it matters
The line items traditional production can't avoid, you can.
The location is on the stage. The lighting is locked. The schedule is yours.
Decisions on set, not in post
Traditional VFX puts the look off for months, and the plates and comps are only a guess at it. By the time the final composite lands, dozens of decisions have been made with incomplete information. CastleVision closes that loop: we composite live, in camera, so the director makes the final-look decision on the day with the actual shot in the monitor.
Performances against a real world
Actors reacting to a comp they will see months later are guessing. Actors reacting to a real captured world, composited live onto the stage, are performing. The lighting on their face matches the environment behind them, the parallax responds to camera movement, and the cast knows where they are.
No travel. No company moves. No weather.
Multi-day shoots cut together cleanly because nothing about the environment drifts between days.
Pickups without a rebuild
Capture a set before you strike it, during production or on wrap day, and it is stored on drives with no storage fee. Pickups, reshoots or a press junket inside the film's world reload the same look, lighting and framing months later.
The same patented method runs in Burbank and Albuquerque. Productions that need both, talent in LA and the New Mexico film tax credit in ABQ, can split between studios without losing continuity. Same capture quality, same in-camera composite, same shot the audience will see.
We do not shoot against LED walls as the background; the composite happens live, in camera, on green screen. If you are weighing the two approaches, read virtual production beyond LED walls.
Already in the set library
Real-world places that are already built and ready to load
Not every location needs a capture. These are library sets built in Unreal Engine, not CastleVision captures; each loads in seconds and composites live the same way. When the place you need is not here, CastleVision brings the real one in.
Check availability
Tell us the place your production needs, and your dates
Name the location, the format and the shoot days. A producer reads it, not a sales queue, and replies with availability at both studios and a quote.
- The operator who runs the virtual sets is included in every rental, at Burbank and Albuquerque
- Many real-world places are already in the library of 250+ sets, ready to load before anything is captured
- Quoted against your shoot, never a rack rate. See what drives the cost
Rather talk it through? 818-934-3775 · Burbank
818-861-7317 · Albuquerque
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Your inquiry is in.
A producer will reach out to talk through your project and next steps. Need us sooner? Call 818-934-3775 (Burbank) or 818-861-7317 (Albuquerque).
Questions
CastleVision questions from producers
- What is CastleVision?
- CastleVision is our patented method for filming a real place, with its real light and movement, and bringing it onto the stage, so actors perform inside it and the camera can move as if it were there. The place appears around your talent live, in camera, on our green screen stage. You see the finished shot on the monitor while you film, with no background added later in post.
- Is CastleVision patented?
- Yes. CastleVision was pioneered in Burbank in 2007 and is now covered by two U.S. patents: one for the CastleVision method itself, and one for filming with a video game engine.
- Is CastleVision an LED wall?
- No. CastleVision is not an LED volume: we never shoot against an LED wall as the background. The environment is composited live, in camera, on a green screen stage, and each camera gets its own render. That means several cameras can move in different directions at once and each one sees the right background, which a single shared LED wall cannot do.
- Can CastleVision capture a place that is still open for business?
- Yes. We film the real place with its real light and movement, then bring it onto our stage, so the business keeps running while you shoot. If you only need a close match, the library or our in-house artists may be faster; see how we recreate any location.
- Can we capture our sets before we strike them?
- Yes. Capture key sets while they are still standing, during production or on wrap day. They are stored on drives with no storage fee, so pickups, reshoots or a press junket can reload the same look, lighting and framing months later without a rebuild.
- Where can I shoot with CastleVision?
- At both studios: L.A. Castle Studios, 154 S. Victory Blvd, Burbank, California, and ABQ Castle Studios, 8610 President Pl NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Both run the same pipeline, so a production can split between them without losing continuity. Albuquerque is a New Mexico Qualified Production Facility, which puts qualified in-state spend on the 30% refundable film credit track.
- Can I watch a CastleVision demo before I book?
- Yes. Studio tours run by appointment for producers with a project, at either studio, and include a live CastleVision demo: we load an environment and you watch the composite on the monitor.
- What does a CastleVision shoot cost?
- Every production is quoted individually; there is no rack rate. Shoot days, crew size, set complexity and which studio you use drive the number, along with the format, cameras and any custom environment work. Send your dates and a producer replies with availability and a quote.
Where the patented method shows up next
The studios that run CastleVision, the technology behind it, and the productions that use it.
- Any location, recreated the library, a custom build, or a CastleVision capture
- CastleVision 3D a real place scanned into a 3D set the camera moves through
- Unreal Engine virtual production the engine that draws our virtual sets in real time
- AI-generated virtual sets optional, human-led AI set drafting in prep
- Virtual production technology keyers, camera tracking and render systems at each studio
- Green screen studio rental the cyc the live composite runs on
- Virtual production beyond LED walls green screen live compositing next to an LED volume
- The Burbank studio where CastleVision was pioneered in 2007
- The Albuquerque studio the same pipeline, on the New Mexico credit
- New Mexico film tax credit 30% refundable on qualified in-state spend
- Virtual set library 250+ sets ready to load before anything is captured
- Film studio rental features and series finished in camera
- Press junkets the junket inside the film's own world
- The story behind CastleVision who built it, and the two patents
- Rates and what drives the cost how a shoot is quoted before you call
See the method on the stage: tours and live demos run by appointment in Burbank and Albuquerque. Send your dates and a producer replies with availability and a quote.
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