TV producer and entrepreneur Tim Pipher recently announced plans to film a soap opera (working title: "Vero Beach") in his new HD studios located in the title city. The Florida facility is scheduled for completion in about 90 days. The facilities (to be known as Southeastern Studios) will include both HD and 3-D virtual set systems, making it one of perhaps less than 20 such facilities in the world housing both production components.
Actors will perform in front of green screens with the 3-D system, while computers digitally insert backgrounds and other components of the "sets." Pipher said the technique not only allows for some imaginative sets, but will save huge amounts of floor space and money.
Set in Vero Beach, the studios said in a statement "the daily drama will pit the past against the future as the principals of an old agricultural and citrus-based economy clash with the leaders of more modern businesses and influence."
The first soap reportedly produced in HD is the longtime serial, "The Young and Restless." Pipher said he plans to film other programs -- along with infomercials and feature-length HD motion pictures -- in his studios. Two feature-length movies are in the pre-production stages, according to published reports.
