SNL’s 50th Anniversary to Red Rocks Live, Matt Celia and Robert Watts Deliver Five Film Production Realities for 2026

Light Sail VR, a 2025 Emmy-winning immersive cinema studio, today marked its 10th anniversary with a look at how film and live production realities are shifting in 2026. This milestone reflects a decade of production work that has shaped how virtual reality and live immersive formats have changed and enhanced cinematic storytelling.

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Celebrating 10 years of cinematic VR production. Light Sail VR

Founded in 2016 by Matthew Celia and Robert Watts, Light Sail VR has delivered more than 200 immersive projects across narrative, live performance, and hybrid formats. In 2025, the studio earned a Primetime Emmy Award for its work on the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary immersive experience, reinforcing a long-standing focus on disciplined execution. The studio’s work spans platforms, including Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest, and partnerships with global entertainment and technology teams.

A Decade of Immersive Work Across Formats

Over the past 10 years, Light Sail VR’s work has spanned multiple production environments, each with distinct technical and creative demands:

• Live Capture
  
  Whether it’s immersive production for Saturday Night Live’s 50th Anniversary or concert projects, including Shawn Mendes: Red Rocks Live and Arcade Fire: Red Rocks Live, we operate under live conditions in a delicate balance, working with established production teams with one chance to get it right.

• In-Universe Original Programming
  
  Extending beloved fan universes such as Amazon Studios’ The Boys and Gen V with immersive 360 set reconstruction and narrative games to engage audiences in memorable ways.

• Narrative and Documentary-Style Storytelling
  
  Projects such as The Faceless Lady, where collaboration with established filmmakers pioneered new immersive techniques to be treated as a storytelling discipline rather than a novelty layer.

Across categories, the studio has collaborated with artists, creative producers, directors, and platform teams, reflecting the range of partners highlighted in its 10th anniversary industry visibility during awards season.

Why 10 Years Matters Right Now

The anniversary comes at a moment when production expectations are tightening across film, live events, and immersive formats. Capital is returning, but cautiously. Budgets are more disciplined. Decisions are being locked earlier. Reliability now carries as much weight as creative ambition. Those production dynamics mirror the conditions Light Sail VR has operated under for the past decade.

“These pressures are not new to immersive production,” said Matthew Celia, chief creative director and co-founder of Light Sail VR. “We learned early that structure cannot be fixed late. You have to commit earlier, protect creative intent, and plan for real constraints. That mindset is now spreading across film and live production more broadly.”

Five Film Production Realities Shaping 2026

Drawing on its decade of immersive work, Light Sail VR outlines five production realities guiding projects long before they reach audiences:

• Capital is returning, but it is disciplined.
  
  Tools are expected to hold up across long sessions, repeated cycles, and real workflows, not demos.

• Cost discipline has moved upstream.
  
  Teams are resolving creative and technical questions earlier because late fixes are no longer considered acceptable insurance.

• Live environments set the reliability bar.
  
  Concerts, broadcasts and event-scale productions expose weak pipelines immediately, forcing earlier commitment.

• Multiformat delivery is assumed.
  
  Projects are expected to move between traditional screens and immersive environments without requiring a complete rethink of the production approach.

• Labels stopped helping real decisions.
  
  Broad category labels no longer explain how projects are actually delivered. What matters now are concrete commitments. When teams commit. How uncertainty gets resolved. Where creative intent is protected under real constraints.

“Our goal was never to chase trends,” said Robert Watts, co-founder of Light Sail VR. “It was to build a studio that could collaborate well, deliver reliably, and treat the immersive space with the same discipline commonly found in robust studio pipelines.”

Looking Ahead

As Light Sail VR enters its second decade, the studio continues to work with creative teams and partners, navigating the convergence of film, live production, and immersive formats. Rather than announcing new offerings, the company remains focused on refining production frameworks that hold up under real conditions.

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 created narrative projects for platforms that include Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest along with global entertainment partners. Light Sail VR translates established filmmaking craft into virtual reality and builds each production on a framework that spans story intent, production discipline, technical stability, and audience impact. The studio is known for 180 and 360 work that supports emotional connection inside the story and treats immersive space with the care of film. Light Sail VR is privately held. 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 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, SXSW

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"Light Sail VR learned early that structure cannot be fixed late. You have to commit earlier, protect creative intent, and plan for real constraints. That mindset is now spreading across film and live production more broadly."