Why Virtual Production Is Key For Creating Seasonal Commercials

Seasonal commercials provide a vital opportunity for businesses to engage with customers during high-spending periods. From preparing for summer holidays to Christmas present shopping, tapping into these seasons can capture the attention of your existing customers and new audiences, driving sales and growing your business.

However, seasonal commercials also bring various challenges. Due to the time-sensitivity of these campaigns, many companies film far in advance to avoid any delays. Yet, the seasonality of these adverts often calls for the appropriate weather to feature — consumers typically want to see snowscapes in winter and sunshine in summer. 

To create the expected visuals, businesses have previously built sets or travelled to locations with the desired weather, but these options are often costly, time-consuming, and significantly increase the carbon footprint of the shoot, jeopardising an agency’s Ad Green standing.  

Virtual production (VP) offers a solution that’s changing how seasonal commercials are being made. In this blog, we’ll discuss the benefits of using VP to produce adverts out of season and how we’ve tried and tested this approach at Garden Studios.

VP is a filmmaking technology that positions actors and sets in front of a 3D virtual environment or 2D video plates. While a green screen enables editors to add visual effects post-production, VP displays the background in real-time and “in-camera” so the director, director of photography, and crew can see what they are capturing while they are filming. With 3D rendering, the visuals on the screen appear highly realistic and shift perspective while the camera moves, whether it’s a sunny beach in Ibiza or Santa’s workshop in the North Pole!

Historically, VP has been rooted in high-budget Hollywood productions, but this method has become much more accessible for commercials in recent years. Film productions used to build costly bespoke LED stages and recruit highly specialised staff for each project. However, studios like Garden Studios now offer permanent VP stages that can be hired on a daily basis, complete with the required technology and the team to operate the wall. After launching our state-of-the-art production studio in 2021, Garden Studios has delivered over 120 productions, including dozens of commercials.

Garden Studios collaborated with Tropic Skincare to create their 2025 Christmas advert on the VP stage. Despite being filmed in the summer, the festive commercial showcased an idyllic British house in a cosy winter setting, adorned with snow and twinkly Christmas decorations.

Our Lead Technical Artist, Liam Wedge, used the Unreal Engine (UE) Procedural Content Generation (PCG) system to generate the winter city street. This technology allows for real-time adjustments of road widths, garden lengths, and foliage variations for flexibility.

Using the 3D software, Houdini, he added festive touches to the backdrop, such as fairy lights that naturally wrapped around objects and appeared realistic with the use of vertex colour variations. Houdini was also used to shape the snow caps, perfectly matching them to the buildings’ geometry.

To balance automation with artistic control, Liam developed several bespoke Blueprint tools, including a door numbering system that assigned each house a unique ID, and a removal volume that could selectively clear PCG-generated assets near the camera for manual detailing. This allowed the art team to refine ‘hero’ houses and props for close-up shots while keeping the rest of the scene procedural.

Tropic dressed the stage with props and the delivery truck, and added snow effect in the foreground that helps “sell” the optical illusion to the viewer. Voila! A realistic winter scene that was filmed entirely in July. 

As well as creating visually stunning backdrops with the appropriate weather, there are many business benefits to using VP for seasonal commercials.

Creative control

With VP, businesses can let their imagination run wild. Commercials are especially well-positioned to exploit the unlimited creative potential of the LED stage since brands are often interested in imaginative approaches to reaching customers. The 3D rendering can showcase anywhere that exists in the world, and the environments that don’t! The director of photography can bring their creative vision to life through automated colour-work and lighting that syncs and matches with the content.

As the virtual background is displayed in real-time, actors can better envisage their locations to support their performance and respond to their surroundings naturally. Whereas, with a green screen, actors can only mentally visualise the image.

The UE PCG system also allows clients to make last-minute changes to the visuals while it’s being filmed, rather than having to wait for the post-production edit. Additionally, creative decisions aren’t dictated by the weather conditions and lighting, as the VP equipment is all safely confined to an indoor production stage.

Sustainability

Travel is the biggest contributor to a production’s environmental impact. VP allows businesses to film multiple backgrounds on a single stage without having to physically change locations. This logistical benefit drastically reduces the production’s required travel and, therefore, its carbon footprint.

VP also eliminates physical set waste. Instead of building extensive physical sets just to tear them down, businesses can create digital sets to conserve materials, energy, and resources. However, if any physical materials are used on set, we have instituted an extensive reuse and recycling system, facilitating donations into the local community.

Garden Studios works continuously to reduce our own and our productions’ emissions, having reached B Corp Status. We source 100% renewable electricity, too, and have campus-wide Zero Waste to Landfill, No Diesel Generator, No Idling, and Zero Single-Use Plastics policies.

Cost and time efficiency

Eliminating the need for multiple locations dramatically reduces the production budget and simplifies the schedule. As well as not having to transport the cast and crew far and wide, businesses can skip time-consuming tasks, such as scouting locations and acquiring expensive permits.

Additionally, the real-time rendering allows for immediate creative changes, which can reduce the post-production process and avoid expensive reshoots, ensuring clients can get the shot right on the day. As the virtual background removes the need to construct physical sets, businesses can cut this expense, too.

VP has been game-changing for businesses and their marketing campaigns. Not only can it lower budgets, streamline workflow, and support the environment, but the opportunities are also endless for creative visuals. Whether your commercial aims to transport viewers to a hot summer’s day or conjure the Christmas spirit, VP can bring your vision to life.