Dexter Studios signs MOU with Impactrum… to “strengthen its competitiveness overseas in virtual production”

Visual effects (VFX) and content company Dexter Studios is looking to work together with Impactrum, a company specializing in LED screens with its own production facilities in Korea, to strengthen its competitiveness overseas in virtual production.

On September 16, Dexter Studios (CEO: Kim Wook, Kang Jong-ik) signed an MOU on the “VP·XR LED Wall Development Project” with Impactrum (CEO: Peter Lee) to bolster its competitiveness overseas and capacity in virtual production technology. With this new MOU in place, the two companies are expected to work with one another in developing virtual production (VP) technology and extended reality (XR) hardware technology. The two partners will also explore new ways to expand into overseas markets. The goal is to secure a technological edge in the global market given the anticipated growth in the industry of virtual production-based LED screens and expansion of the VP/XR market.

Meanwhile, Dexter Studios has built a virtual production studio, D1, in Paju, which the company is using to accelerate its production of video content. Impactrum plans to launch its “Version 3” product with the company’s latest upgrades based on panel tests to improve the function of its large LED Wall products, which function as backdrops when filming at the D1 Studio, before the end of this year. A D1 Studio official said, “Currently, the LED Wall used for filming purposes at the D1 studio uses a product that can adjust its brightness from 300 nits to 1,000 nits. Impactrum’s 300 nits LED, improves the gradation effect (level of density that changes from light to dark in drawings, photos, and prints) when expressing darkness or black colors, and it is expected to lead to better results and improved quality when shooting inside a virtual studio like ours.” An official at Impactrum said, “We applied camera-exclusive technology for VP·XR (LenzTHRU Technology) to increase the capacity of elements such as color reproduction and grayscale (a series of tones in which the ratio of white and black is changed to display a gray area between white and black) gradation expression, and we soon plan on introducing panels exclusively created for Dexter Studios in collaboration with Brompton (a company specializing in LED controllers for virtual production in the UK) for the first time in Korea.” Through this MOU, Impactrum promised to cooperate in the development and supply of hardware such as LED panels dedicated to VP and XR applications as well as regular LED panels. Very much in line with Impactrum’s moves, Dexter Studios is aggressively promoting its customized solutions to expand into overseas markets and expand the VP/XR business as a whole.

Dexter Studios is an all-in-one, one-stop comprehensive content company that can plan, shoot, produce, and take care of post-production as well. Recently, the company’s virtual studio, D1 Studio, successfully finished filming Director Kim Yong-hwa’s new film “The Moon.” Moreover, Dexter Studios has co-productions with Megabox Plus M and Toyou’s Dream coming down the pipeline. D1 Studio is expected to use its equipment and virtual production technology to produce live-action versions of “Wizard Boy Meoteol” and “Daughter of the Emperor,” both of which are based on cartoons.

Meanwhile, Impactrum, a screen specialist, produces LCD and LED screens exclusively in Korea out of its 11,000 pyeong production facility in Yangju, Gyeonggi-do. The company is renowned for its high level of technical security and inspection capacity, and has been hailed across the globe not only for the quality of its products, but also the reliability of its products. After starting out as a B2B vendor supplying LEDs to Peerless-AV, the no. 1 company in the US for installed mount structures, Impactrum has developed its own virtual LED products, the world’s first portable LED “Fold N” for conventions, and large advertising LED signage used in EVs.

Dexter Studios’ CEOs Kim Wook and Kang Jong-ik said, “Based on Dexter’s know-how in selling VP/XR content overseas and Impactrum’s well-oiled LED screen development pipeline, we believe we can generate synergy when it comes to expanding into overseas markets. We want to develop media-based hardware and content collaboration in various fields in the future, and we will focus our efforts on not only laying the foundation for the virtual production industry, but also delivering innovative achievements in similar but different fields such as metaverse applications.” Dexter Studios is also pushing hard to establish an industry network that could further bolster the competitiveness of virtual production studios and help develop cutting-edge technologies. Following its new agreement with EM-Tech I&C, the no. 1 company in the PC graphics drivers market in Korea, back in July, the company entered into a four-party business agreement for practical exchange with Korea’s top virtual production companies such as Vive Studios and Xon Studios to strengthen its ties across the industry.