Inside USC’s Entertainment Tech Lab: Erik Weaver on AI, Virtual Production, and the Future of Story

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando sits down with Erik Weaver, Head of Virtual and Adaptive Production at the Entertainment Technology Center at USC, a studio-funded R&D group founded at the request of George Lucas. Erik explains how ETC bridges Hollywood and Silicon Valley, from drafting the first pass at digital cinema standards to today’s work on studio-grade AI pipelines. The goal is simple, make new tech practical, controllable, and copyrightable for professional storytellers.

Erik shares how the team moved from on-set virtual production to AI-first workflows, why control, consistency, and quality matter more than novelty, and how their short The Bends used custom LoRAs, zero-trust cloud, and 32-bit EXR outputs to hit professional finishing standards. He breaks down provenance tracking for copyright, clean model tiers, and why performance will be the next frontier for AI in production. The conversation stays focused on story, culture, and the people on set, technology is a toolbox, not the point.

Orlando and Erik explore

• What ETC at USC is, who funds it, and why it exists for the industry
• Lessons from digital cinema, volumes, and the VAD that still matter in AI pipelines
• AI as a professional toolbox, not a shortcut, control, consistency, quality
• Clean models, provenance, and the current path to copyright for AI works
• Building secure, on-prem or cloud zero-trust environments for training private LoRAs
• The Bends case study, custom blobfish assets, LoRA training at high VRAM, 32-bit EXR delivery
• OSVP to AI first, where Blender, Nuke, ShotGrid, and gen tools meet
• Cost, compute, and why practical workflows still need real artists in the loop
• Why multimodal will win, and why performance capture and synthesis are the next edge
• How to keep cinema culturally relevant for a generation that wants interactivity