Sphere Entertainment to open immersive content studio in Hollywood

Nevada-based Sphere Entertainment is launching Sphere Studios in Hollywood to create immersive film content for its entertainment venue in Las Vegas.

The goal is to have filmmakers work with directors and producers at Sphere Studios to create multi-sensory movies to appear exclusively in Sphere venues.

Sphere Studios will house a team of creative, production, technology and software experts to provide in-house services including strategy and concept, capture, postproduction, and show production. 

The landmark Sphere venue is scheduled to open Autumn 2023 in Las Vegas, with plans for a second studio in London.

The campus in California spans 68,000 square feet of development facilities; production, editing and postproduction suites; sound stages for mixing spatial audio; and camera and 3D printing labs.

It includes the 'Big Dome', a 28,000-square-foot, 100-foot-high custom geodesic dome with a quarter-sized version of the LED screen at Sphere in Las Vegas.

The multi-sensory films will give audiences the experience of sound, haptics (the sense of being physically touched) and environmental elements including heat, wind and scent, in addition to visuals.

To create films that suit the 16k resolution, Sphere will use their Big Sky camera system. It features a 316-megapixel, 3"x3" HDR image sensor, and  can capture content up to 120 fps at the “18K square format” (18Kx18K).

Its media recorder can capture full-resolution, 60 fps, uncompressed raw footage at 30 gigabytes/second, or 120 fps at 50 gigabytes/second to its custom 32 terabyte media magazines. It can handle 600 Gigabits/second of network connectivity, as well as built-in media duplication, to accelerate and simplify on-set and postproduction workflows.

SphereLab, an internally developed image-processing software, was created specifically for Big Sky, and uses GPU accelerated RAW processing.

They will also work with artists to create immersive visuals for their 16K screen.