Audiences aren’t just watching films and television anymore. The same stories and intellectual property are moving across VR headsets, AR glasses, spatial formats, and platforms that did not exist a few years ago, yet most production workflows were built for the traditional screen and still treat what comes next as an afterthought.
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Toronto International Film Festival Perspectives panel Source: Light Sail VR
Light Sail VR, a 2025 Emmy-winning immersive cinema studio, will raise that issue at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), running Sept. 10-20, 2026. Co-founder and Chief Creative Director Matthew Celia has curated a panel bringing together a film producer, an executive and a practitioner to examine the emerging role of the immersive supervisor, why immersive thinking belongs in pre-production rather than post-production, and how filmmakers can create new value from existing IP as formats continue to multiply.
TIFF ’26 Session Details
Panel: PERSPECTIVES The Role Hollywood Didn’t Know It Needed: The Immersive Supervisor
Joanna Popper is CEO of Laurel Beach, an AI and media consultancy, and former chief metaverse officer at CAA, with leadership across AI, XR and immersive media. She will moderate the panel.
Matt Celia is co-founder and chief creative director of Light Sail VR, with more than a decade of immersive production experience across over 200 projects for major entertainment and technology partners.
Lance Sloane is a media executive and producer at Paramount Skydance, with senior leadership experience across immersive entertainment at Sony Pictures and Warner Bros.
Darren Brandl is co-Founder of XRTV and former co-founder and COO of Crypt TV, with over 80 television and immersive productions totaling more than $100 million.
Where: Metro Toronto Convention Centre
When: Sept. 10, 2026 at 12:00 p.m.
“Traditional filmmakers already know how to tell stories. That part doesn’t go away,” said Celia. “What changes is where those stories can live and how an audience experiences them. If you wait until the traditional production is finished to think about immersive, some of the decisions you need may already be behind you. The immersive supervisor brings that thinking into the room early, while those set and production decisions can still be made.”
The Platform Shift Facing Traditional Filmmakers
Light Sail VR has spent 10 years translating traditional filmmaking into immersive production.
“Some filmmaking instincts carry over and some don’t,” said Robert Watts, co-founder and executive producer of Light Sail VR. “That matters now because more productions are being asked to work across formats that were never part of the original filmmaking process.”
Light Sail VR has applied that experience across narrative, franchise and live productions, including “The Faceless Lady,” projects for “The Boys Gen V,” and the Emmy-winning “SNL 50th Anniversary Special.” In each case, production decisions had to account for how audiences would ultimately experience the work outside traditional film and television.
The medium itself is still developing. On Light Sail VR’s “Inside the Shot” video podcast series, filmmaker and entrepreneur Adam Lisagor described the current moment in immersive filmmaking as “Lumière territory,” comparing it to cinema’s earliest years, when filmmakers were still establishing the language audiences now take for granted.
For traditional filmmakers, the issue is not abandoning established craft. It is knowing what carries forward and what changes with the medium.
The Immersive Supervisor Moves Into Prep
The immersive supervisor helps filmmakers make decisions early enough to preserve future immersive options while the set, performers and production resources are still available.
That may mean considering how a scene will be experienced, what should be captured for later use, and whether decisions made for one format will work when the same intellectual property moves somewhere else.
“Spatial video. AR glasses. Volumetric capture. Every format coming next is going to break a different traditional instinct on a set somewhere,” said Celia.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an immersive supervisor?
An immersive supervisor is a production role that helps filmmakers plan for immersive and emerging formats from the beginning of a project rather than adding those considerations after production.
What does an immersive supervisor do?
An immersive supervisor helps filmmakers make production decisions that will work for immersive audiences and preserve material that may be needed when the same intellectual property moves into another format.
When does a film production need an immersive supervisor?
A production may need an immersive supervisor when it is being created for immersive media or when filmmakers want the option to extend the project into spatial video, AR, location-based entertainment or other emerging formats.
How did the immersive supervisor role emerge?
Major shifts in filmmaking have often created new production roles. Digital filmmaking introduced the digital imaging technician in the 1990s. The growth of visual effects established the VFX supervisor in the 2000s. Today, immersive and spatial formats are creating new responsibilities around how stories are captured and experienced, leading to the emerging role of the immersive supervisor.
Why doesn’t a traditional monitor tell the whole story in immersive filmmaking?
A traditional monitor shows only one framed view. In immersive media, the audience may be able to look around the scene, so filmmakers have to consider what exists outside that frame and how the full environment will feel in the final experience. As Matthew Celia puts it, “The monitor is lying.” The image on screen may look right while the immersive experience tells a different story.
What skills do filmmakers need for immersive media?
Filmmakers still need strong storytelling and production craft. They also need to understand how audience experience changes when a story moves beyond the traditional screen. For the next generation of filmmakers, that knowledge will increasingly become part of the craft.
About Light Sail VR
Light Sail VR is an immersive cinema company based in Los Angeles and founded in 2016 by Matthew Celia and Robert Watts. The team earned a 2025 Emmy for its work on the SNL 50th Anniversary Special in VR and has delivered more than 200 projects across narrative, live performance, and emerging media formats, including work for platforms such as Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest. The studio works with global entertainment and technology partners and focuses on building production systems that support immersive storytelling in real-world environments. For more information, visit https://lightsailvr.com/ and follow the company on LinkedIn.
Light Sail VR is a trademark of Light Sail VR. All other brands and solution names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Tags: Light Sail VR, immersive supervisor, Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF, immersive cinema, immersive video, immersive experience, film production, VR, virtual reality, XR, extended reality, cinematic storytelling, documentary, Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest, Emmy, Matthew Celia, Robert Watts
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