Mind the Gap: How Lumostage and Assimilate Live FX Studio Solved BC’s Subway Problem

For decades, motion picture productions in British Columbia faced a recurring logistical nightmare: the “Subway Gap.” Vancouver has long doubled for many North American cities in film and TV, but filming realistic subway scenes in Vancouver has always been a logistical challenge. Local transit authorities have strict regulations, and building a high-fidelity, movable train set from scratch is a budget-breaker for most productions.

That was until the team at Lumostage Virtual Production saw a decommissioned Translink Skytrain car and had a vision. By gutting and converting the 30,000 pound transit car into a New York-style subway set—complete with integrated lighting and functional doors—Lumostage could place the train in front of their LED volume and provide the British Columbia film industry with the ultimate location it had been missing. 

However, building the train was only half the battle. “A subway train is essentially a giant fishbowl,” said Daniel Hsia, CEO of Lumostage. “There are windows everywhere. We needed convincing footage of a subway tunnel to project on the LED volume outside of the train, or else our new subway train set would be useless.” 

The Search for the “Impossible” Plate

The Lumostage team initially scoured stock footage libraries for cinema-quality subway tunnel footage, but the results were limited and unusable by professional motion picture standards. Lumostage briefly considered mounting cameras to a moving Skytrain to capture their own plates, but reality hit a wall.

“Safety rules strictly prohibit mounting equipment to the exterior of a public transit train,” Hsia notes. “Even if we could, you can’t exactly light miles of underground tunnel for a perfect cinematic exposure. It was a technical dead end.”

Then Hsia had an idea: Could Sim-Plates, creators of customizable, perfectly lit spherical driving plates, generate a subway tunnel plate for the train project? By a stroke of serendipity, Sim-Plates CEO Alex Pearce had been working on a similar idea. 

“Sim-Plates had started work on a subway tunnel plate early on,” said Pearce. “But we put the project on pause because a subway tunnel plate isn’t very useful unless someone has a subway train to put in front of it. When we got the inquiry from Lumostage, it was a match made in heaven.”

The Power of Assimilate Live FX Studio

While Sim-Plates worked on the content to project on the LED volume, Lumostage still required a media server capable of handling the spherical video content. There was only one choice: Assimilate Live FX Studio.

As the only media server purpose-built to project spherical video for professional virtual production, Live FX Studio became the key final piece in the subway train project. The software allowed the Lumostage team to manipulate the Sim-Plates environment in real-time, adjusting lighting, color, size, and position to match the physical train car’s orientation.

“Live FX Studio stands above other media servers because it’s built for filmmakers,” says Hsia. “Cinematographers love the control it gives us over virtual production content, in particular the ability to control the lighting and color reflecting off of windows or onto actors’ faces. Many thanks to Jeff Edson and the team at Assimilate for creating this amazing software!” 

Results That Move

The proof, as they say, is in the footage. Almost immediately after the first successful test of the subway train, Lumostage welcomed the film The Way To You and two high-profile commercials, all of which had key scenes set inside of a moving subway train. 

By combining physical craftsmanship with the cutting-edge spherical projection capabilities of Assimilate Live FX Studio, Lumostage hasn’t just built a set – they’ve built a portal. British Columbia filmmakers can finally film on a subway train with more control, safety, and realism than ever before.

About Assimilate

Assimilate’s Live FX Studio, the industry standard for image-based lighting, provides filmmakers with an all-in-one toolset for live compositing, LED-wall staging, and real-time VFX. By unifying camera tracking, projection mapping, lighting control, and recording into one platform, Live FX Studio accelerates creative decision-making, reduces turnaround time, and enhances in-camera storytelling.

Assimilate also develops a full suite of post-production tools, including:

• Live FX – the industry standard for image-based lighting
  
• Live Assist – multi-cam VTR for video assist with green-screen support
  
• Live Looks – live grading and instant look creation with Scratch integration
  
• Play Pro Studio – professional player for VFX reviews, ProRes RAW QC, and transcoding
  

Assimilate tools are trusted worldwide by DITs and post artists for stability, speed, and flexibility.

Learn more at www.assimilateinc.com.