Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. How much film and TV production uses LED volumes, green screen and real-time engines, and the evidence behind it: our own count of virtual production in 24 years of SEC 10-K filings; FilmLA's virtual production stage days in Los Angeles; how many LED volumes exist and how big they are; what Sony, Unity, Autodesk, Epic Games and the studios report; public money for virtual production stages; the visual effects workforce from BLS and the Census Bureau; modelled carbon savings; and where five popular virtual production numbers came from.
Virtual productions logged 264 stage shoot days on participating Los Angeles studio lots in 2024, 3.3 times the 2021 level (our calculation) but about 3% of the 7,940 stage days there (FilmLA). (FilmLA)See details
Only 13 10-K annual reports filed with the SEC from 2002 to 2025 mention virtual production, 0.03% of 10-Ks filed in 2025, and 0 of 7 major studios' 2025 10-Ks name it (our count). (Our count)See details
Futuresource counted 200 LED volumes worldwide at the end of 2023; Altman Solon counted 84 virtual production stages in the U.S. in 2022; the often-quoted 300 is a count Epic Games gave a reporter and has not published itself. (Futuresource, Altman Solon, Epic Games)See details
The suppliers are retrenching: Sony took 27.1 billion yen of costs to wind down Pixomondo in fiscal 2025, and Unity's Create Solutions revenue fell 27.7% from 2023 to 2025 (our calculation) after it cut about 1,800 roles. (Sony 20-F, Unity 10-K)See details
Experienced executives said 40% of their current productions used virtual production tools (Altman Solon, 2022), but only 37% of UK micro and small production companies had any practical experience of it (2026). (Altman Solon, Convergence journal)See details
The UK has put £75.6 million into the CoSTAR virtual production R&D network, plus £25 million for five more labs in 2025. (UKRI, DCMS)See details
Modelled on hypothetical scenes, an LED-volume shoot emitted 9% to 22% of a conventional shoot's CO2 (UCLA, 2023); we found no real production that has published a measured comparison. (UCLA IoES)See details
"Over 50 percent" of The Mandalorian Season One is ILM's own unaudited wording, and the 20-30% cost saving credited to Deloitte does not appear on Deloitte's pages. (ILM, Credence Research)See details
How often do U.S. public companies mention virtual production in their annual reports?
Almost never. We searched every 10-K annual report filed with the SEC from 2002 to 2025 using EDGAR full-text search. Only 13 filings, from 5 companies, used the phrase "virtual production" in those 24 years. The peak was 3 filings a year in 2023 and 2024, 0.05% of the 10-Ks filed in 2024. In 2025, 0.03% of 10-Ks mentioned it: 2 companies, and 0 of the two reports described LED-volume filmmaking (Comcast lists a subsidiary with the words in its name; Super League Enterprise sells remote esports production). Nobody else publishes this count; the yearly figures are in our EDGAR counts file and the 2024-2025 filers in this list.
10-K filings mentioning "virtual production" (SEC EDGAR, all industries)
We read every hit. Of the 13 filings, 31% used the phrase in a film or TV sense, 54% were esports or gaming companies selling remote "virtual production" services, and 15% used it for unrelated manufacturing software. The earliest, 1 filing in 2002, named a supply-chain product; a media sense first appears in 2020 and a film or TV sense in 2023. In 2024-2025, 40% of the 5 filings were film or TV, both of them the same Comcast subsidiary list.
The studios that buy virtual production do not name it. None of the 2025 10-K main documents of Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Lionsgate, AMC Networks and IMAX mentions virtual production, LED volumes, green screen, Unreal Engine or real-time rendering (0 of 7). No 10-K in 24 years used "in-camera visual effects" or ICVFX (0), none named ILM's StageCraft (0), and 0 of 24 filings matching "LED volume", "LED wall" or "LED stage" meant filmmaking: they were lighting products and hyphenation accidents such as "demand-led volume".
Real-time engines show up more, for other reasons. "Unreal Engine", "real-time rendering" or "real-time 3D" appeared in 0.10% of 10-Ks in 2015, 0.08% in 2019 and 0.21% in 2023 and 2024, then 0.17% in 2025; 0 of 61 of the 2021-2025 mentions concerned film or TV production. "Unreal Engine" alone first appeared in 2008, in two video-game publishers' filings, and was in 4 10-Ks in 2025. "Green screen" or "blue screen" was in 0.05% of 10-Ks in 2015, peaked at 8 filings in 2013 (0.10%), and was in 0.02% of 10-Ks in 2025; only 38% of all 72 such filings meant chroma-key video, and 44% meant old computer terminals.
A mention is not a measure of practice, and three of the companies most associated with virtual production are outside this count: Sony and WPP file annual reports on Form 20-F, and Epic Games is private. The method, the recall check and every classified hit are in the methods section and the counts file.
How much film and TV production uses virtual production?
A small but growing share, wherever someone has counted it. On the stages of the 17 Los Angeles studios that report to FilmLA, productions FilmLA classes as virtual logged 264 stage shoot days in 2024, up from 217 in 2023 and 79 in 2021 (FilmLA Sound Stage Production Report, March 2026), 3.3 times the 2021 level (our calculation). That was about 3% of the 7,940 stage shoot days on those lots in 2024 (FilmLA). Virtual production projects rose from 13 in 2021 to 66 in 2024, out of 1,287 projects of all types (FilmLA). FilmLA does not define the category, and its count covers participating studio lots only, not independent LED stages.
Virtual productions on participating Los Angeles studio stages (FilmLA)
Surveys of people already doing it report much higher use. Executives with more than three years of virtual production experience told Altman Solon in 2022 that 40% of their current productions used virtual production tools (Altman Solon, 132 executives). Half had used motion capture in the previous 12 months, and 48% had used cloud-based editing (Altman Solon). The sample was chosen for experience, so it describes adopters, not the industry.
Smaller companies are further behind. In a peer-reviewed 2026 survey of 71 UK micro and small production companies, 51% claimed familiarity with virtual production but only 37% had any practical experience of it (Convergence journal). 24% had firm plans to adopt it (Convergence), 68% had no experience with game engines such as Unreal or Unity (Convergence), and only 7% owned a professional camera-tracking system (Convergence). Cost and a perceived lack of business need tied as the top barriers, each at 32% (Convergence).
The organizations that do it are small too. StoryFutures' 2022 UK skills survey drew 35 organizations, 19 of them actively using virtual production (StoryFutures, Royal Holloway). Of the active ones, 79% were doing research and development on it and only 42% had an in-house virtual production team (StoryFutures); 60% of all respondents had 1 to 10 employees (StoryFutures).
What the work is depends on who you ask. A 2023 survey by SHOWRUNNER, which sells virtual production software, of nearly 800 filmmakers and 72 stage operators found more than 60% of working film producers expected some virtual production work that year (SHOWRUNNER), and about one-third of stage operators' work was car shoots, with film and TV each nearly 20% (SHOWRUNNER).
Epic Games, which licenses Unreal Engine, said the engine had been used on over 160 major films and episodic TV shows in May 2021 and over 550 by December 2023 (Epic Games, archived page). Epic counts any use of the engine, including previsualization, and has not published a newer figure on that page.
How many LED volume stages are there?
About 200 worldwide at the end of 2023, by the only count with a stated date and method. Futuresource Consulting, a market research firm, counted a global installed base of 200 LED in-camera visual effects volumes at the end of 2023, with Europe the largest region at 65 (Futuresource Consulting). It put spending on the LED displays inside them at more than $42 million in 2023, almost three of every four dollars spent on the volumes (Futuresource), and forecast installs to grow 18% a year through 2028 (Futuresource).
Other counts differ because they count different things. Altman Solon counted 84 virtual production stages in the U.S. and 40 in the UK in December 2022 (Altman Solon). Epic Games told The Hollywood Reporter in October 2022 that it was tracking roughly 300 LED stages, up from three in 2019 (The Hollywood Reporter); Epic has not published that count itself, and it includes any stage running its engine. LED maker AOTO says it alone has delivered more than 130 virtual production stages (AOTO sponsored post on the ASC site, 2026).
Individual volumes vary widely in size. ILM's first StageCraft volume for The Mandalorian was a 20-foot-high, 270-degree LED wall and ceiling around a 75-foot-diameter performance space (Industrial Light & Magic). By September 2020 ILM planned a fourth permanent volume, at Fox Studios Australia (ILM), and in November 2021 it announced a fifth in Vancouver of over 20,000 square feet (ILM). Amazon MGM Studios' Stage 15 in Culver City, reopened as a virtual production stage in 2022, is a 34,000-square-foot space whose drum-shaped wall is 80 feet across (Amazon) and holds 3,000 LED panels (Amazon). In Melbourne, NantStudios' Docklands volume uses 6,000 panels (VicScreen), on a stage listed at 30.7 m wide by 37.7 m long (Docklands Studios Melbourne). London's Garden Studios runs a 20m x 5m curved wall and says it has supported almost 100 productions (Film London).
Volumes are getting smaller, by one vendor's account. Vū Technologies, which builds and sells virtual production studios, says on its own report page that new studios are getting smaller, not larger (Vū Technologies). The percentage that trade press attributes to its report sits behind a download form, so we left it out.
How much studio space is there, and is it full?
Los Angeles has the most and it is emptier than it was. FilmLA counted 484 certified sound stages in 74 facilities in the Los Angeles market as of March 2026, with 8.3 million square feet of total stage space in Los Angeles County (FilmLA). Average occupancy of participating studio stages was in the mid-90s percent through 2022, then fell to 63% in 2024 (FilmLA) and 62% in the first half of 2025 (FilmLA). Two new facilities still opened in the first quarter of 2026, and FilmLA was tracking seven more planned builds or renovations (FilmLA).
Studio landlords report the same slack. Hudson Pacific Properties, which owns Sunset Studios, had 45 owned sound stages plus lease rights to 20 more at the end of 2025 (Hudson Pacific 10-K). Its in-service stages averaged 69.1% leased in 2025, down from 84.7% in 2023 (Hudson Pacific 10-K).
The UK figures conflict even within one report. Olsberg-SPI's 2024 study for Hertsmere Borough Council puts UK stage space at 550,000 square metres, 34% of it around London, but gives the number of facilities as 112 in one passage and 67 in another (Olsberg-SPI). The same study says new UK soundstages are mostly 1,900-2,300 square metres each (Olsberg-SPI) and says it is not expected that virtual production will hurt existing traditional studios (Olsberg-SPI).
What do the companies behind virtual production report in their filings?
Retreat as often as growth. Sony decided in fiscal 2025 to wind down Pixomondo, its visual effects and virtual production business, and its Pictures segment's operating income for the year to March 31, 2026 absorbed 27.1 billion yen of impairment and shutdown costs (Sony Group 20-F). That included 22,110 million yen of impairment losses, writing Pixomondo's assets and goodwill down to zero (Sony 20-F). Two years earlier Sony had named virtual production among the creation businesses that produced more than 80% of operating income in its electronics segment, without breaking it out (Sony 20-F, fiscal 2023).
Unity Software bought the tools business of Weta Digital in December 2021 for about $1.5 billion (Unity 10-K), and character-simulation maker Ziva Dynamics for about $127.7 million (Unity 10-K). Weta FX prepaid about $200.0 million of license fees in 2022 (Unity 10-K). Unity ended that arrangement in November 2023, booking about $99 million of one-off revenue (Unity 10-K) and $121 million of amortization expense (Unity 10-K). In January 2024 it cut about 1,800 roles (Unity 8-K). Its Create Solutions segment, which holds the engine and creation tools, had revenue of $859.2 million in 2023 and $621.4 million in 2025 (Unity 10-K), 27.7% lower (our calculation), and about $90 million of 2024 revenue came from a portfolio Unity is winding down (Unity 10-K).
Autodesk, whose Maya and 3ds Max are standard visual effects tools, reported Media and Entertainment revenue of $332 million in fiscal 2026, up from $219 million in fiscal 2021 (Autodesk 10-K).
Epic Games charges companies that use Unreal Engine commercially without shipping a game or app, film, TV and virtual production users included, $1,850 per seat per year once they earn over $1 million a year (Epic Games). Games and apps that run on the engine pay a 5% royalty on revenue above $1 million instead (Epic Games).
Agencies are building stages too. WPP says nearly 10,000 producers and craft staff form WPP Production, which it is growing through a network of virtual production studios (WPP Annual Report 2025).
How much do the studios that buy virtual production spend on content?
Tens of billions of dollars a year each, and the filings never break out virtual production. Netflix added $17.10 billion of content assets in 2025, against $12.55 billion in strike-affected 2023 (Netflix 10-K), and amortized $16.42 billion (Netflix 10-K). Disney's content amortization was $23.3 billion in fiscal 2025 (Disney 10-K). Warner Bros. Discovery's fell to $11.65 billion in 2025 from $15.81 billion in 2023 (Warner Bros. Discovery 10-K). AMC Networks paid $815.2 million for program rights in 2025, down from $932.3 million (AMC Networks 10-K). Sony's Pictures segment had sales of 1.50 trillion yen in the year to March 2026 (Sony 20-F).
Tax incentives decide where much of it is shot. Production incentives cut Netflix's produced-content amortization by about $1,000 million in 2025 (Netflix 10-K), up from $719 million in 2022 (Netflix 10-K). They reduced Disney's costs by $0.7 billion in fiscal 2025 (Disney 10-K), and Disney held $1.8 billion of production tax credit receivables (Disney 10-K). Paramount Skydance held $1.2 billion of non-current production incentive receivables at the end of 2025 (Paramount Skydance 10-K), and Lionsgate's production tax credits fell to $151.4 million in fiscal 2026 (Lionsgate 10-K). Disney's 10-K mentions Industrial Light & Magic only as a post-production service and does not name StageCraft; Netflix's does not mention virtual production.
The studios own the lots the stages sit on. Warner Bros. Discovery owns a Burbank lot of about 2,600,000 square feet (WBD 10-K) and the Leavesden studio in the UK of about 1,300,000 (WBD 10-K). Paramount Skydance's Melrose Avenue lot has about 1.85 million square feet (Paramount Skydance 10-K), and it has leased about 285,000 square feet of stage and office space on a lot to be built in Bayonne, New Jersey (Paramount Skydance 10-K).
How much public money goes into virtual production?
The UK has committed the most that we could find. UK Research and Innovation's CoSTAR programme, a national network of research labs for screen and performance technology including virtual production, is a £75.6 million programme (UKRI). Its 2022 funding call offered £51.1 million over six years for a national lab (UKRI) and £12.6 million for up to three network labs (UKRI). In June 2025 the government's Creative Industries Sector Plan added £25 million for five more CoSTAR labs (DCMS). The Budget 2026 line of over £75 million for the CoSTAR network appears to restate the same programme rather than add to it (HM Treasury). The flagship CoSTAR stage at Pinewood, first announced for January 2026, is now due to open in late 2026 (Royal Holloway).
Public money for virtual production facilities and programmes
We found no U.S. state tax credit aimed at virtual production itself. California's closest is its Soundstage Filming Tax Credit, $150 million over 2022 to 2032 for productions on new, renovated or converted certified stages (FilmLA). Training money is smaller: the UK's ScreenSkills High-end TV Skills Fund put £255,000 into four virtual production programmes in 2022-23 with 375 participants (ScreenSkills), after committing £200,000 in 2021-22 (ScreenSkills).
How big is the film and TV production market virtual production serves?
National screen agencies count production spend, not virtual production. UK film and high-end TV production spend was £6.8 billion in 2025 as first reported by the BFI (BFI), with feature films at a record £2.77 billion across 193 films (BFI) and high-end TV at £4.03 billion (BFI). Inward investment, largely U.S. studios and streamers, made up 91% of the film spend (BFI). In the rolling year to June 2026 the combined figure was £6.1 billion (BFI).
Australia's drama production spend hit a record A$2.7 billion in 2024/25, up 43% (Screen Australia), with twenty international features spending A$1.0 billion (Screen Australia). Canada's film and TV production volume was C$10.17 billion in fiscal 2024/25 (CMPA Profile 2025), C$5.32 billion of it foreign location and service work (CMPA), supporting 181,360 jobs (CMPA). In Europe, the number of TV fiction titles fell 5% in 2024 (European Audiovisual Observatory) and streamer commissions fell seven percent (European Audiovisual Observatory).
Los Angeles is shooting less on location. On-location filming in Greater Los Angeles totalled 19,694 shoot days in 2025, 16.1% below 2024 (FilmLA). California's expanded tax credit awarded credits to 170 projects in its first year, July 2025 to June 2026, with a projected $6.6 billion of in-state spending (Office of the Governor of California); that is applicants' projection at award, not audited spend.
How many people work in visual effects and virtual production?
No statistics agency counts virtual production crews. The closest U.S. occupation is special effects artists and animators, with 19,970 wage-and-salary jobs in May 2025 at a median wage of $102,030 (BLS OEWS). Only 5,910 of those jobs were in the motion picture and video industries (BLS OEWS). Counting the self-employed, BLS puts the occupation at 51.9 thousand jobs in 2025 (BLS Employment Projections), of which 63% were self-employed (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). BLS projects the occupation to change by -0.3% from 2025 to 2035, with about 4.2 thousand openings a year (BLS).
The work is concentrated in California. The state held 7,410 special effects and animation jobs in May 2025 (BLS OEWS), a location quotient of 3.17, meaning the occupation's share of jobs there is 3.17 times the national share (BLS OEWS). The Los Angeles metro area alone had 4,650 of them at a mean wage of $130,260 (BLS OEWS); New York State had 1,540 (BLS) and Georgia 350 (BLS), despite Georgia's stage building.
The production industry itself shrank in 2025. Private employment in U.S. motion picture and video production averaged 198,312 jobs in 2025 across 24,396 establishments (BLS QCEW), down -6.7% from 2024 (BLS QCEW), at average annual pay of $122,236 (BLS QCEW). California had 86,431 of those jobs (BLS QCEW) and Georgia 10,635, down -11.7% (BLS QCEW). Teleproduction and other postproduction services, where many visual effects houses are classified, had 14,561 private jobs in 4,002 establishments, down -8.7% (BLS QCEW).
Most businesses in the industry have no employees. Census counted 132,060 nonemployer businesses in the motion picture and video industries in 2024, up from 128,682 in 2023 (Census Nonemployer Statistics), against 17,366 production establishments with paid employees in 2023 (Census County Business Patterns).
Employers fill virtual production roles from other industries. Altman Solon found only 28% of experienced virtual production employers recruit through private networks; most look in adjacent industries such as gaming (Altman Solon, 2022). StoryFutures found 84% of active UK virtual production organizations provided or encouraged external training (StoryFutures, 2022).
Does virtual production cut a production's carbon emissions?
In models, yes; nobody has published a measured before-and-after for a real production. A 2023 life-cycle assessment by a UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability practicum for the Sustainable Production Alliance modelled three hypothetical scenes. Shot on an LED volume, a cross-country location scene produced 9% of the conventional shoot's CO2 per minute of scene (UCLA IoES), a second location scene 19.6% (UCLA IoES) and a constructed-set scene 22% (UCLA IoES). The savings came mostly from avoided travel; the LED panels made up as much as 87% of the virtual version's energy emissions (UCLA IoES). The authors also assumed, citing "industry-wide consensus" rather than a measurement, that a volume captures about 30% more material per shooting day (UCLA IoES).
A 2022 analysis by the consultancy ICF for Sony Pictures, which also sells LED panels, estimated that two TV productions' scenes would have emitted 80% and 76% less on a virtual stage (Sony Pictures / ICF). Both comparisons model a hypothetical virtual shoot and leave out post-production. WPP reports an 80%+ average CO2e reduction for what it calls AI-enabled shoots, based on a sample of four virtual production campaigns compared against a modelled traditional baseline (WPP Annual Report 2025).
The baseline those savings come from is large. Tentpole films over $130 million made by Sustainable Entertainment Alliance members averaged 2,962 metric tons of CO2e per production in 2023-24 (Sustainable Entertainment Alliance), down 27% from 2016-19 (SEA), when the figure was 3,370 metric tons (Sustainable Production Alliance). Small films averaged 375 (SEA). One-hour scripted TV averaged 128.6 metric tons per episode, against 77 in 2016-19 (SPA). Fuel for generators and vehicles was 45-56% of emissions across film categories, the largest source (SEA), which is the part virtual production can cut. Arup's 2020 analysis for the BFI and BAFTA albert put an average tentpole film at 2,840 tonnes (Arup).
What the popular virtual production numbers really say
Virtual production guides, LED and stage vendors and market-research press releases repeat a small set of numbers. We traced each one to the organization that produced it. Pages that repeat a claim are linked only as dated evidence of how it spread, never as a source for the number.
"Virtual production cuts costs by 30-40%"
We found no study behind it. The range is said by people who sell stages or services: a CUBE Studio co-founder told a Kenyan outlet in August 2026 it can cut costs by 30 to 40 percent (Citizen Digital); Dark Slope's co-founder told Playback in 2024 it offers efficiencies of up to 40% for certain scenes (Playback); Display Daily wrote in 2023 that it reduces costs by approximately 30% (Display Daily); and a sponsored AOTO post on the American Society of Cinematographers site says more than 30 percent (ASC sponsored post). Credence Research attributes a 20-30% saving to "a Deloitte survey" (Credence Research). Deloitte's own virtual production pages carry no such figure; they say reshoots can be 5 to 20 percent of a big film's final cost (Deloitte) and visual effects as much as 20 percent of the budget (Deloitte), which are shares of a budget, not savings. The "up to 50%" variants trace to time claims, such as turnaround 30-50% faster (TV Technology quoting USC's Entertainment Technology Center).
Altman Solon's 2022 survey of 132 experienced executives found cost savings named as a top benefit, but published no percentage (Altman Solon); 89% credited savings to 3D data management in two or more productions (Altman Solon). The one production-level number we found is a dollar figure: FX's Snowfall saved up to $49,000 an episode in season 5 by moving location work to LED walls, almost $500K for the season, per its co-executive producer's own analysis (Variety). Against that, an LED stage costs $3 million to $30 million to build (The Hollywood Reporter, 2022), and one virtual production company's CEO says producers arrived expecting 10x savings that did not materialize (VFX Voice, 2025).
Use instead: no general percentage exists. Quote a named production's own figure with its scope, such as Snowfall's $49,000 an episode.
"The Mandalorian was more than 50% shot on the volume"
This is ILM's and Epic's own wording, from a joint announcement on February 20, 2020: Over 50 percent of The Mandalorian Season One was filmed using the methodology (Industrial Light & Magic). Epic's blog the same day said more than half (Epic Games, archived). Neither says whether it means shots, scenes, shoot days or screen time, and both companies sell the technology. Two weeks earlier, American Cinematographer quoted Jon Favreau saying only that A majority of the shots were done completely in camera (American Cinematographer). Trade sites repeated the release wording (befores & afters, ProVideo Coalition), and some repeats now drop "Season One": "Over 50% of the show" (Bold Entrance, 2026).
Use instead: "ILM said over 50 percent of The Mandalorian Season One was filmed with StageCraft (February 2020)", with the season and the source.
"Green screen is dead"
No count supports it. The article on The Mandalorian that started the line says traditional green screen still played a significant role on the show (American Cinematographer). Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden's volume, opened in 2021, was set to revert to a traditional soundstage in 2022 because of demand for conventional space (The Hollywood Reporter). In a 2023 survey of 47 virtual production professionals for Sony Pictures, 51% said green screen would not become obsolete in the next 10 to 20 years (AMT Lab, Carnegie Mellon). Virtual productions were about 3% of stage shoot days on participating Los Angeles lots in 2024 (7,940 days in all), and the LED volume base was about 200 worldwide.
Use instead: the FilmLA series above: 264 virtual production stage days in Los Angeles in 2024, growing from a small base.
"The virtual production market will reach $X billion"
Every forecast comes from a market research firm selling the full report, and they define the market differently, so they should not be averaged or compared as a trend.
The 2025 base values alone run from USD 2.1 billion to 2.9 billion, and the forecasts for the early 2030s from USD 6.78 billion to 18.5 billion. Grand View raised its own forecast between editions.
Use instead: a count with a method, such as Futuresource's 200 LED volumes worldwide at the end of 2023 and $42 million of LED display spend.
"Virtual production cuts carbon by 20-50%" (or 52-76%)
The 20-50% range comes from Studio Ulster's own first report, published by Ulster University in November 2023: 20% to 50% or higher, depending on the production (Ulster University). Studio Ulster sells stage time and the report is not peer-reviewed; Playback repeated the range in 2024 (20% to 50%, Playback). "52-76%" is a misquote: British Cinematographer attributed it to Sony Pictures' 2022 report (British Cinematographer), but the ICF memo for Sony gives 80% and 76%, and no 52%. Variety's 2022 report of a hypothetical location shoot compared 0.74 on a virtual stage with 94.82 on location, without giving units (Variety).
Use instead: the UCLA model, which saved 5,777 kg of CO2 per minute of scene in its biggest location scenario (UCLA IoES), with its caveat that all three scenarios are hypothetical.
We started from the questions people search for about virtual production statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 233 figures from 59 publishers.
On November 1, 2026, each sourced figure on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (through the BLS data API), Employment Projections, the Occupational Outlook Handbook (through Internet Archive copies, because bls.gov refuses automated requests) and the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages open data; Census County Business Patterns and Nonemployer Statistics (through the Census data API); FilmLA's sound stage and on-location production reports; the BFI, Screen Australia, the CMPA and the European Audiovisual Observatory; UKRI, DCMS, HM Treasury, the Victorian and Louisiana governments and Singapore's IMDA; the 10-K and 20-F filings of Unity, Autodesk, Sony, Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Skydance, Lionsgate, AMC Networks, Hudson Pacific and WPP on EDGAR; Epic Games' and ILM's own pages; survey owners' own releases (Altman Solon, StoryFutures, SHOWRUNNER, Futuresource, ScreenSkills, the Convergence journal, AMT Lab); sustainability reports from the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance, UCLA and Arup; and the pages behind each popular claim. The 10-K figures are our own count with EDGAR full-text search, run on November 1, 2026, with every hit read. We left out Vū Technologies' market report (behind a download form), one Ulster University release (refuses scripts and browsers), Georgia's film office figures (unreachable), and the paid market-size reports, of which only the publishers' free summaries are cited.
We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.
Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:
This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.
Limitations
Nobody counts virtual production directly. Statistics agencies count film and VFX jobs, stages and spend, not how a scene was shot. FilmLA's category covers participating Los Angeles studio lots only and is not defined.
Many sources sell into the market. Epic Games, Unity, Sony, AOTO, SHOWRUNNER, Vū and stage operators sell virtual production technology or services; Futuresource sells market research; Altman Solon is a consultancy.
Surveys are small and self-selected. The skills and adoption surveys cited here have between 35 and about 800 respondents, mostly people already interested in virtual production.
Carbon savings are modelled, not measured. The UCLA, ICF and WPP figures compare a real or hypothetical shoot against a modelled alternative.
Our filing count measures disclosure, not practice. Most virtual production happens at private companies and non-U.S. filers, and public studios do not break it out.
How to cite this page
For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/virtual-production-statistics#DRV-011. To cite the page as a whole:
Mark Studios. "Virtual Production Statistics." Last verified Nov 1, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/virtual-production-statistics
APA
Mark Studios. (2026, November 1). Virtual production statistics. https://www.markstudios.com/research/virtual-production-statistics
MLA
“Virtual Production Statistics.” Mark Studios, 1 Nov. 2026, www.markstudios.com/research/virtual-production-statistics.
Chicago
Mark Studios. “Virtual Production Statistics.” Last modified November 1, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/virtual-production-statistics.
BibTeX
@misc{markstudios_virtual_production_statistics_2026,
author = {{Mark Studios}},
title = {{Virtual Production Statistics}},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/virtual-production-statistics},
note = {Last verified 2026-11-01}
}
Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.
Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), with Department of Canadian Heritage, Canada Media Fund, Telefilm Canada, ISO and AQPM; research by Nordicity, Profile 2025: 1.1 Film and television production in Canada (2026-05-20). Accessed 2026-11-01.
Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA); research by Nordicity, Profile 2025: 2024/25 At a Glance (2026-05-20). Accessed 2026-11-01.
We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is February 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.
Nov 1, 2026: First published with 233 figures from 59 publishers, each checked against its original source.
Frequently asked questions
How much film and TV production uses virtual production?
Where it has been counted, a small share. FilmLA logged 264 virtual production stage shoot days on participating Los Angeles studio lots in 2024, about 3% of the 7,940 stage days there. Experienced executives told Altman Solon in 2022 that 40% of their current productions used virtual production tools.
How many LED volume stages are there?
Futuresource Consulting counted 200 LED in-camera VFX volumes worldwide at the end of 2023, 65 of them in Europe. Altman Solon counted 84 virtual production stages in the U.S. and 40 in the UK in December 2022.
Does virtual production save money?
No study supports the repeated 30-40% figure. The one production-level number we found is FX's Snowfall, which saved up to $49,000 an episode in season 5, while an LED stage costs $3 million to $30 million to build.
Was The Mandalorian shot more than 50% on the volume?
That is ILM's own wording from February 2020: over 50 percent of The Mandalorian Season One was filmed with StageCraft. It does not say whether it means shots, scenes or shoot days.
Is green screen dead?
No. American Cinematographer's 2020 feature on The Mandalorian says traditional green screen still played a significant role, and 51% of virtual production professionals in a 2023 survey said green screen will not become obsolete within 10 to 20 years.
How big is the virtual production market?
Market research firms disagree: MarketsandMarkets forecasts USD 8.76 billion by 2030 and Global Market Insights USD 18.5 billion by 2035. These are paid estimates with different definitions; Futuresource's count of 200 LED volumes at the end of 2023 is a firmer measure.
How many VFX artists are there in the U.S.?
BLS counted 19,970 wage-and-salary special effects artists and animators in May 2025, with a median wage of $102,030. Including the self-employed the occupation had 51.9 thousand jobs in 2025.
