01 / NETFLIX · MLB OPENING NIGHT
Building the Tunnel of Memories
An immersive gateway to baseball history
How do you make an entirely digital setting feel present around live performers?
Plan the integration before photography, then build the environment around the performances.
The creative challenge
Netflix set out to open MLB Opening Night with an emotionally resonant journey through baseball history. A family would walk through a stadium tunnel surrounded by moving archival memories, but the sequence was filmed on a blue-screen stage. The task was to make a complex CG environment feel physically present around the performers.
Planning before the shoot
The team advised during pre-production on blue-screen placement, tracking markers and practical lighting so the planned digital tunnel could integrate convincingly. Establishing those requirements before photography helped reduce avoidable extraction and compositing issues.
How the illusion was built
The sequence required a photoreal concrete tunnel with atmospheric depth; tracking and integration of numerous moving image feeds across curved surfaces; volumetric lighting, haze and bounce light; and detailed extraction around hair and fine edges.
The result
An immersive transition from an empty blue-screen stage into a stadium passage filled with the game’s history. Early production involvement kept the creative idea aligned with the technical execution.






























