Introduction

Walking along the 60 meters of red carpet and up the 24 steps leading to the top of the Palais des Festival and the Louis Lumière Theatre is an iconic ritual for any filmmaker. Winning in the competition is even more so. With a 19-minute standing ovation, Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value won the Grand Prix of the 78th Cannes Film Festival. This is a behind-the-scenes look at one of this year’s most talked-about feature films and Norway’s newest Oscar nomination.

Written by long-time friends Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt, and starring top actors Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, and Elle Fanning, the comedy-drama Sentimental Value is an intimate exploration of family, memories, and the reconciliatory power of art. The story unfolds in a family house over the years from 1918 to 2023.

Pre-production

Capturing the various seasons, shooting winter scenes in the summer, showcasing trees and bushes that grow over the years, and featuring cars from different generations, as well as shooting in a drone-prohibited embassy district, was a production technical challenge, to say the least.

Early on, the film crew recognized the opportunities in virtual production, particularly in its ability to capture the various seasons and environments from many decades for one studio location. The challenge was assigned to the VP supervisors Johannes Skoog and Rasmus Eriksson from the virtual production company VP Nordic. The production chose to build the complete two-floor villa within a large studio in Norway, surrounded by LED walls at Gateway Studios.

VP Nordic at Cannes Film Festival 2025, when the film received the Grand Prix. Left to right: Johannes Skoog, Saskia Lange, Rasmus Eriksson, Marcus Sangren.

Johannes explains, “The real house is pretty overgrown, so it needed to be rebuilt in the digital world”. Johannes and Rasmus began by breaking down the script to determine the right technology for the project, while also taking on the challenge of bringing analog filmmaking into the virtual production studio.

Shooting on 35mm film is a privilege we don’t often get, but it comes with both opportunities and unique technical hurdles. To make it work, we had to develop custom solutions, genlocking cameras with the LED wall, ensuring precise color accuracy, and essentially reworking all of our established digital pipelines and workflows. This added an extra layer of complexity to the entire production.

“The script was incredibly fun and inspiring to read. It was relatively easy to get into the structure, but the scope and ambition of the project still made it a big challenge. Many scenes that at first glance seemed quite straightforward turned out to require advanced technical solutions when we started to break them down, both visually and practically,” says Johannes. “There was a clear vision in the text, but much of the visual and technical stuff lay between the lines and required interpretation, creative thinking, and close dialogue with both the director and the VFX team. Everything that could be solved had to be solved practically. It was important to always be one step ahead and think about how each environment and scene could be solved as effectively and believably as possible, without losing the emotional core of the story.”

Another challenge was the house itself. Over the years, the owner had chosen not to alter the garden, allowing the lilacs to grow so tall and dense that the view from the windows was almost entirely hidden. For the film, the crew needed to find a way to capture this present state of overgrowth while also evoking the past, shifting between seasons to tell the story.

Dailies and production

Sentimental Value takes place in a villa with seasons and the characteristics of the years 1918, 1930, 1950, 1960, 1985, 2008, and 2023. This proved perfect for virtual production and an Unreal Engine workflow.

Every detail of the original villa and the surrounding street was captured through 3D scans, Lidar scans, and photographs. The entire location was then recreated digitally in 3D by VP Nordics senior environment artists Saskia Lange and Marcus Marcus Sandgren. The set was designed to reflect winter, spring, summer, and autumn, complete with period-specific cars and people.

Left to right: Lars Thomas Skare (Co-producer), Kasper Tuxen (DOP).

Working closely with production designer Jørgen Stangebye Larsen, who had been a strong driving force behind finding a VP solution, the team benefited from his thorough research into references across different time periods and his detailed feedback throughout the process.

“We also had information on how the interiors of surrounding houses were decorated, including curtains, lamps, and other details from the time. The street appeared in archive images as well, which showed how the plaster looked on certain houses or if parts had been rebuilt. Our digital bushes and trees were also designed to grow over time, starting as small and newly planted in 1918 and becoming large bushes and mature trees by 2023.”

“We also worked exclusively with car models that we knew or had clear references for, which were available in Norway during the relevant years. The Model T Ford, Volvo 240, and Saab 900 were among them,” says Johannes.

The team needed an asset review platform. “We used KLASH as our primary feedback tool, which was invaluable, from providing feedback on 3D objects in the early stages to comparing reference footage. Since we were recreating a real-world environment, we made extensive use of the swipe feature, where our VFX Supervisor, Esben Syberg, would insert reference images and HDRI footage that we could match directly into our Unreal world. This way, we could easily switch between images and determine exactly what worked and looked real, and what still felt too 3D,” says Johannes.

The shooting took place in the new 1,800 square meter Drammen facility at Gateway Studios, VP Nordic’s Norwegian studio partner. “The space is perfectly adapted for virtual production, offering advanced and highly flexible facilities,” said Rasmus. It was here that the villa was constructed in full, with the upper and lower floors set wide apart. The collaboration itself began when Åsmund Knutson from Gateway Studios initiated the first conversations with VP Nordic, paving the way for the project to take shape.

In total, 440 LED panels (110 sq m) distributed across four different screens were used. The team had two main walls placed outside the hero window and two so-called wild walls that were on wheels, which allowed the film crew to move around with ease and flexibility. “This was a very smart way to save time and money,” says Johannes. “We planned the coordination with the moves very closely, so we always knew which screens would be visible. This allowed us to minimize costs by only having screens where it was needed. But it also placed high demands on the planning to determine in detail where each screen would be placed and which digital environment would be used.

“One of the biggest technical hurdles we faced was keeping the 35mm camera perfectly in sync with our servers and LED walls. It wasn’t just plug and play. It meant weeks of testing, trial and error, and even digging through old Arri manuals to uncover solutions that had almost been forgotten. Finding the right equipment and making it all work together was a challenge, but also one of the most rewarding parts of the project,” said Rasmus.

For Joachim, shooting digitally was never even on the table. With Kasper Tuxen on board, the decision to go all-in on film was clear. “We didn’t just shoot on 35mm,” Rasmus explained. “We also filmed scenes with 16mm and even some hand-cranked analog footage. Each format brought its own character, but also added new layers of complexity to the process.”

Waiting for the dailies after everything had been processed was always nerve-racking. Days would pass before the team could actually see the footage, and during that time there was constant uncertainty about whether the material had worked. “With digital, you get instant feedback on set,” said Rasmus. “With film, you don’t have that safety net. We put in a huge amount of effort to make sure everything was right before moving on, but the waiting still tested our patience every time.”

He added: “Using 35mm in virtual production gives the image a unique texture. What really surprised us was that we had no issues with moiré at all, since 35mm stock doesn’t have pixels like digital cameras do. That means you avoid those unwanted artifacts, and it even opens up creative possibilities, like pulling focus to the background which we actually did and made the cut.”

Johannes was the one who had contact with the camera team on set and who also handled the dialogue with the operator for the material shown on the LED screens. The operator could then, together with the VP Supervisor, make adjustments based on the director and photographer’s wishes – for example, changing the brightness, horizon adjustments, or defocus.

VP Nordic using KLASH to compare real reference images with 3D environment.

KLASH became very valuable tools throughout the production. For VP Nordic, it streamlined communication between departments, kept feedback organized, and made it easier to compare real-world references with virtual assets in Unreal for the internal team. From early 3D models to final environments, KLASH ensured that every detail was aligned with the vision and the VFX team’s standards. By centralizing reviews and enabling quick, precise feedback, the platform helped the team stay efficient and focused, making it an important part of VP Nordic’s workflow in bringing Sentimental Value to life.

Learn more about the Dailies workflow, 3D models, and Comparison split-screen on KLASH.