We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Justin Kirchhoff. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Justin below.

Justin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

When my business partner, Kristina Smith, and I first set out to open a new studio space in Austin, TX, we were thinking about a more traditional studio model, like a green screen or white cyc background. However, when Covid shutdown the U.S. in March of 2020, we took a few steps backwards as the world seemed to stop. It gave us some breathing room to truly think about what would set us apart from the other studio offerings in the city. Kristina and I had decided to take a 3-week getaway in Colorado to enjoy the time we had together since everything, including work, had dramatically slowed down. During our time there, internet was limited (thankfully), but I had come across the Variety article about how the new Star Wars show “The Mandalorian” used LED panel technology to project custom 3D environments to create the worlds of the popular franchise. This lit a fire under my ass and I presented the idea of us shifting our traditional studio model to a new one driven with technology. She immediately understood how the LEDs could replace constructed green or white backgrounds, and from there I dove down the rabbit hole. In the 6 months leading up to our first phase of opening, I learned about LED panel options, processors, video wall splicers, camera tracking and our most important tool, Unreal Engine.

Justin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve always found new technology intriguing when it comes to telling stories. It started with me purchasing a RED One Digital Cinema camera back in 2007. At the time, RED was considered vaporware and the critics were harsh about the new camera technology start up and if they could make this huge change in the media industry. Almost 20 years later they’ve absolutely took the world on a wild ride while inventing new ways of capturing and processing image data.

I’ve harnessed this energy I have for breakthrough tech and have implemented it into my work. When Kristina and I made the decision to team up, she really believed in my abilities as a filmmaker and tech enthusiast, and I believed in her abilities as a great creative mind who is client-focused and has great business leadership. That’s how Virtigo Pictures eventually came to be. We use our combined skills to develop solutions for clients that fit best for the content they want to be produced.

Our virtual production services combine physical and virtual filmmaking techniques to create cutting-edge media. We provide solutions for commercial, film and episodic productions, including all of our virtual production services; environment creation, live action ICVFX, XR integration, scene pre-visualization, asset creation, robotic motion control arm, particle & fluid simulations, and cinematics.

Virtigo’s virtual production team develops content using complimentary software to create photorealistic environments, photogrammetric scans, motion graphics and animations to be used for LED volumes. The content can also double for virtual cinematic shots within the environments themselves.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

The story of how Kristina and I met is humorous as I didn’t make that much of an impression on her. When my brother, Kyle, and I both worked at the same Apple Retail store, he was introduced to one of her business partners at the time, who invited him to their office. Kyle extended the invitation to me and I met their video team, where Kristina was glued to her computer monitor working for probably the 16th hour in the day. I introduced myself to her and the rest of the team, but Kristina’s brother, Jason, was the one who remembered me first! I was reintroduced to Kristina a couple years later when Jason invited me to a small creative event they had at their new office location. I was asked to showcase some of my latest work, which was a music video I directed and shot for Quiet Company, and it was then that Kristina started paying attention to me.

We had kept in contact over the next few years as I had done a bit of contract work for her and Jason, and then ultimately ended up getting a drink with her at Austin Java, a coffee shop in town. During that meeting we talked about how we could join forces moving forward. I would shoot video for her client projects when I was freelancing and eventually that turned into a larger idea of starting a business together.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Funding the business was nerve racking, as me and Kristina took a huge leap of faith. I sold my house as my investment, and Kristina had equally matched with her life savings. For additional funding, we presented investor packages to a limited amount of friends and family to raise the additional capitol. All in all, we started the business economically by researching various B-Stock for LED panels and hardware.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.virtigopictures.com
• Instagram: @virtigopictures
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/virtigoproductions
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/virtigo-pictures
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@virtual.production

Image Credits
Photos by Kristina Smith, Hunter Bartley, Brittaney Ortiz and Justin Kirchhoff