U.S. director Lynn Hershman Leeson’s latest film Conceiving Ada is notable tech-wise not only for its digerati cameos (Timothy Leary’s last film turn, and Well-master John Perry Barlow as an encryption expert), but for its use – which producer Henry S. Rosenthal believes is a first for features – of virtual sets (not to be confused with virtual sex, of which there are also a few cameos).

‘It heralds a new age in low-budget independent filmmaking,’ says Rosenthal, of San Francisco-based Complex Corporation, ‘in that we have proven that this kind of technology is feasible at a price that independents can afford.’

The film, which screened at this month’s Toronto International Film Festival, melds two stories and two time periods. Ada stars Tilda Swinton as Lord Byron’s daughter, a Victorian-era mathematician who creates the first computer language and inherits her poet dad’s healthy sexual appetite. The present-day tale is premised on a young American cyberwhiz whose genetic memory project enables a computer link with Ada and a window to her past.

Footage set in the present is shot in 35mm while the period half of the film is shot on Digital Betacam and employs the virtual sets. Shooting took 18 days, with seven days going to virtual set shots. Post took a year.

To create the montage, background images were captured on 35mm still film, scanned on the computer, and then altered in Photoshop to create the desired set design. Actors were then placed in the environment which existed only in the computer, and background elements were animated to suit the interaction. This makes matching perspective with camera movements tricky, and somewhat limiting, however, Rosenthal says it’s technology that is still in its infancy and that ‘with increases in speed and memory, sophisticated camera movement will be possible.’ In the online session, zooms, tilts and pans were added.

The film dop is Hiro Narita and the virtual set dop is Bill Zarchy, who has previously worked with the Ultimatte compositing process. The tape-to-film transfer process was developed by Sony’s High Definition Center.

Rosenthal describes it as ‘not a cheap process,’ but then we’re talking in the low-budget indie film range here, specifically, under $2 million. If done conventionally, it would have cost about double that. Which is significant. ‘The movie would not have been possible to make conventionally.’

Rosenthal says that with the virtual sets route, indies can afford to create footage that would not have been doable, either because of cost or access restrictions. In the case of Ada, Rosenthal says they could not foot the bill for the extent of art direction and Victorian interiors set construction that was possible via Photoshopping the backgrounds.

Rosenthal says it was relatively smooth sailing, given that ‘there were no experts.’

Rosenthal credits California-based digital phenomena as integral in digital animation and background manipulation, and says Jim Rolin, the Ultimatte guy, was also ‘the linchpin of the whole matter.’

The Complex Corporation and Hotwire Productions film was greenlit by zdf/arte.