01Stage
Capture
Actors perform on a neutral stage with even light, tracking markers and witness cameras.
Approved by the performerTake 07 · within tolerance
Nova Mundi Studios · with King Bee & Elstree Studios
ActorCaptor
Capture the performance once. Protect it. Build the world around it.
Layer · Grade & light
The light is built.
Colour, firelight and haze are designed and added around the take.
Layer · World
The hall is built.
Sets, crowds and architecture come from the virtual art department. The cast never needed to travel to Northumbria in 627.
Captured · Performance lock
The performance is captured once.
Pose, face, timing and voice are locked as a signature. Every AI-built shot is measured against it.
Signed off
Everything else is replaceable. She isn’t.
Shoot the actors. Build the world.
Actor Captor records a real performance at full fidelity on a neutral stage: grey box, green screen or LED volume. AI and virtual production then build the environments, the lighting and the effects around it.
The performance itself is never rewritten. That is the difference, and it is measurable.
The method already works at feature scale.
20
shooting days on one stage
1
grey room in West London
~200
scripted locations the cast never visited
Doug Liman’s Bitcoin: Killing Satoshi captured its cast in a grey box and built the sets, backgrounds and light in post. The method behind it is proprietary. Actor Captor builds an open, affordable and performer-safe version for UK independent productions.
Sources: TheWrap · No Film School · VP Land
One take, five stages
Every AI step is checked against the locked performance. Two of the five stages are new, and they are what make the performance a measurable asset.
02New
Performance lock
From the approved take we extract a signature: body pose over time, facial landmarks, timing curves and the recorded voice.
03Build
Build the world
Environments, relighting, character refinement and marker clean-up, under creative direction. The performance layer stays untouched.
04New
Fidelity check
Each shot is measured for pose deviation, timing offset, lip-sync and expression. Anything outside tolerance goes back to be rebuilt.
05Deliver
Finish
The performer or director signs off. Then grade, sound and edit to broadcast spec.
New stage
Existing tools in a documented order
Outside tolerance → back to stage 03
First on the stage
Nova Mundi’s North East slate is the pipeline’s first customer. Each project uses it differently.
Returning historical drama · 8 × 60′
Crown of the North
Seventh-century Northumbria, told through the women at King Edwin’s court. Lost halls, moors and royal estates are built around performances captured on a neutral stage in the North East.
Co-created with Dr Christopher Ferguson of Ad Gefrin. Pegged to 2027, 1,400 years after Edwin’s baptism at York.
- Captured
- Cast performances
- Built
- Halls · moors · weather · firelight
YA adventure series · from the novel by John P. Greenan
The Axe of the Northmen
Longships, storms and Viking settlements at a children’s-TV budget, with young actors’ performances kept intact.
Optioned by Nova Mundi and developed as a live-action children’s series and a premium YA series.
- Captured
- Young cast performances
- Built
- Sea · sky · longships · settlements
Shot
Extended in post
Feature film · Northern boxing drama
Rosie Knuckles
Here the technique works in post-production. The fight performances are real. Selected scenes have venues and crowds extended afterwards, which cuts budget and schedule without touching a single punch or a single line.
A film by Marie Hynes, screenplay by Marie Hynes and Kyle Titterton. Produced by Marc de Launay and Mike Noble for Nova Mundi Studios.
Crown of the North and The Axe of the Northmen images are AI-generated visual development. No real performers appear in them.
Principles
AI may change the world around a performance. Never the performance itself without consent.
Paid properly
Performers are engaged and paid on recognised industry terms.
Never used for training
Capture data is not used to train AI models. It is deleted or returned at the end of a project.
Approved on screen
Nothing reaches the screen without the performer’s sign-off.
Who it’s for
Productions that need a big world on a careful budget, starting with the ones least able to afford a volume stage or a 200-location shoot.
Independent features & HETV
Period, fantasy and scale on an indie schedule.
Children’s & YA television
Ambitious worlds at children’s-TV budgets, with young casts on short days.
Live music & immersive
Real performances placed in worlds that could never be built on location.
Short-form & social
Fast turnaround on branded and social content without losing the performer.
Built in the Tees Valley
Captured here. Finished here.
Actor Captor is led by Nova Mundi Studios in Teesside and is under development with King Bee Studios and Elstree Studios. Academic partners are to be confirmed, including Teesside University and The Northern School of Art.
It is a capture service productions currently travel south for. Students and graduates will train on a real production pipeline, and the skilled roles it creates are added to existing crews, not taken from them.
New roles on the crew
- Performance Capture SupervisorRuns the stage and protects the master take
- Performance Fidelity AnalystMeasures each AI shot against the locked performance
- Generative Pipeline ArtistBuilds environments under creative direction
- Virtual Art Department ArtistDesigns the worlds performances are placed in
- Grey-box Stage TechnicianTracking, witness cameras and neutral light
- Performer Data & Consent StewardManages consent, approvals and performer data
In development with
- Nova Mundi StudiosLead · Teesside
- King Bee StudiosProduction and AI pipeline
- Elstree StudiosStudio partner
Academic partners · to be confirmed
- Teesside UniversityTo be confirmed
- The Northern School of ArtTo be confirmed
Contributors
- ByteDance · BytePlus Generative video models
- CoSTAR National creative-tech R&D
- Joshua M Kerr Virtual production advisor
Contact
Bring us a scene.
Tell us what the world needs to be and who is performing in it. We will show you what can be captured, what can be built, and what it costs per finished minute.
Producers
Book a capture test
Bring a scene and a cast. We capture it on stage and show you the same scene finished three ways: grey box, green screen and LED.
Partners & funders
Build it with us
Studios, universities, technology partners and regional investors who want performer-safe AI production to grow in the North East.