When that light hits the LED sky: Selling virtual production in The Batman (2022) and beyond

In LED Virtual Production (VP), environments for film and television shooting are designed and rendered in advance and then displayed and filmed on-set using camera tracking and a panel of screens. This article explores the visual promises and consequences of this technology – and in particular the way these promises and consequences are framed by stakeholders in circulating discourse. It uses The Batman (2022), a film leveraged heavily into LED VP, as its primary case study. The article is concerned with two forms of image: 1) the images generated by LED VP through its on-set use, and 2) the images of LED VP that are discursively produced in promotional and other ancillary material. The interaction between these two images reveals the promises, tensions, and accommodations that are made as stakeholders negotiate this technology’s migration into the mainstream of screen media production.