“Avatar,” the highest-grossing film of all time, took viewers to a new world, Pandora, and it advanced filmmaking to its own new world: developing the field of virtual production. Leveraging a wide range of technologies such as performance capture, LED virtual environments, and advanced 3D imaging technologies, virtual production is changing the landscape of modern cinema. While millions of people have seen “Avatar,” only a fraction of that number understand the magic behind the scenes. Exposing filmmaking students to this magic is what MIT Media Lab alumnus Daniel Pillis SM ’24 is all about.“Motion capture, like that in 'Avatar,' bridges real human movement with digital technology,” says Pillis. “In this digital age, and as artificial intelligence becomes more involved in film studios, technology that enables the authenticity of human expression and performance is becoming increasingly important.” That is what Pillis, now an assistant professor at Emerson College, teaches his students in his filmmaking courses. To bring the lesson to life, each semester the class travels across the river to MIT, where Emerson undergraduate and graduate students use the capabilities of the MIT.nano Immersion Lab to create their own virtual productions.Donning full-body motion-capture suits that pair to the 28-camera OptiTrack system in the Immersion Lab, the students become their own avatars — generating virtual characters that dance, fight, or play the guitar like The Beatles. They see their animation data immediately on a computer screen and can change or add to their character’s movements in real time. Later, they take their data back to Emerson to build into short films for their final projects.“It has been truly gratifying to support this course and to see the curiosity and ingenuity students have brought to the stage,” says Talis Reks, who manages the MIT.nano Immersion Lab. “This class highlights the range of what our lab can offer, extending well beyond research and into art and the performing arts."