This Baltimore video production company is building an Unreal Engine-powered LED wall at its HQ

As it takes new space inside its Baltimore headquarters, video production company Rock Shore Media is adding a virtual studio.

The company is set to install an LED wall inside its offices at the Caton Research Center, which will be operational in the fall. It’s part of an expansion that will take its space from 1,500 square feet to 6,000 square feet at the 60-acre business park located near the southwest border of the city and Halethorpe, overseen by commercial real estate firm St. John Properties. Along with the wall, it will add two studios inside the space.

In a news release, founder Nate Brubaker said the wall, which is powered by 3D creation platform Unreal Engine, is designed to better replicate real-world environments during film production. Going beyond a green screen, it places actors in an environment that’s designed to look and feel like an on-location scene.

“The technology allows the production team to quickly modify the backgrounds from, for example, a dense forest to an empty desert with the touch of a button,” he said. “Details such as these are typically added in the post-production phase and are not present during the actual filming. Providing this realism earlier in the production process dramatically improves the finished product and saves money.”

The wall is the kind of technology that big movie studios use. Rock Shore wanted to bring it to the Baltimore region.

“Among the reasons we felt compelled to purchase and install this technology was to retain and attract video projects to the Baltimore region which benefits many different artists and vendors in our area,” said Brubaker. “Until now, advertising agencies and companies interested in this type of system needed to travel to New York City, Atlanta and Los Angeles to access similar systems. … We love how Halethorpe has become the video production hub in Baltimore, and with the support of St. John Properties, our community will continue to grow.”

The studio, which was founded in 2012, has six employees. The company secured a loan from M&T Bank to fund the new technology, which Brubaker called “a calculated risk for our company, but one that we confidently believe will yield tremendous dividends in the future as we capture an increased volume of production opportunities and make this technology more accessible.”