Why The Mandalorian Changed Filmmaking Forever | Star Wars Talk

[00:00] one of the most important and integral

[00:02] aspects of star wars has been

[00:04] pushing the boundaries with visual

[00:06] effects and filmmaking techniques

[00:08] the original trilogy did wonders for

[00:10] what people could achieve with

[00:11] motion capture the prequels introduced

[00:13] the idea of mocap performance in merging

[00:16] cgi with practical elements and sets

[00:19] especially with the phantom menace and

[00:21] while the sequel trilogy

[00:22] and anthology films did a few novel

[00:24] things such as using

[00:25] gigantic projection screens to capture

[00:27] realistic lighting cues

[00:29] as well as more authentic reactions from

[00:31] actors to the situations at hand it was

[00:33] the mandalorian which truly became the

[00:36] next

[00:36] star wars product that literally changed

[00:38] the way filmmaking was done forever

[00:41] the mandalorian with the aid of

[00:42] stagecraft technology has essentially

[00:45] created its own hollow deck

[00:46] and i want to explain why this is an

[00:48] amazing change in how stories can be

[00:50] crafted

[00:50] as well as explaining why this new

[00:52] process eliminates so much tedious

[00:54] post-production work in that it allows

[00:56] people to focus on the story

[00:58] rather than being engulfed with worry

[01:00] regarding if this will all look real

[01:02] in the end when this all goes to

[01:03] post-production with this technology

[01:05] you are already 90 of the way there in

[01:08] regards to the final shots that you want

[01:10] and you are inside of this gigantic room

[01:13] with enormous led panels the entire time

[01:16] now to go back in time the biggest hang

[01:19] up that the prequel trilogy had

[01:20] were actors interacting with

[01:22] non-existent objects or

[01:24] in fully green or blue stages for

[01:26] arguably

[01:27] 75 percent of the production if you

[01:29] happen to remember the stories coming

[01:31] out during the production of the hobbit

[01:33] movies

[01:33] which heavily utilized green screen and

[01:35] blue screen you would recall the actor

[01:37] ian mckellen having a

[01:38] kind of breakdown on set because of how

[01:41] frustrating it was

[01:42] to act across from a tennis ball versus

[01:44] actually acting across from a human

[01:46] being

[01:46] there was no frame of reference to what

[01:48] was happening around the actor

[01:50] and with the prequels in a large portion

[01:52] of the hobbit films as mentioned

[01:53] the acting in action feels a bit wonky

[01:56] and i can only assume

[01:57] that that's because of being dropped

[01:58] into an artificial environment being

[02:00] surrounded by just green and blue

[02:02] your brain knows that nothing is there

[02:04] so you have to focus on two things at

[02:06] once

[02:06] envisioning the environment that you're

[02:08] in and then performing your scene the

[02:10] mandalorian

[02:10] eliminated needing to visualize anything

[02:13] it's taken the idea of rear projection

[02:14] and then ramped that up to ten thousand

[02:17] now using real-time game engine renders

[02:19] that the actors can actually see

[02:21] and react to as if they exist in that

[02:23] setting in real time

[02:25] and in real life the realism of these

[02:27] rooms is truly uncanny when you look at

[02:29] dinjar and looking at this forest from

[02:31] episode 5 of season 2 of the mandalorian

[02:34] dinjarn actually sees that forest

[02:36] rendered in its final form his

[02:38] performance in my opinion is therefore

[02:40] more visibly authentic and you can spend

[02:42] less time as a director

[02:44] explaining how your actor should react

[02:46] to their surroundings

[02:47] you've eliminated that problem

[02:48] completely now to be fair as i said not

[02:50] everything in the mandalorian was filmed

[02:52] in these gigantic

[02:54] volume led rooms there were some bits of

[02:56] green screen as well as fully built sets

[02:58] for locations

[02:59] but as i said the bulk of the show took

[03:01] place inside of these enormous

[03:03] led stages in order to give the actors a

[03:06] way to

[03:06] actually engage in these alien

[03:08] environments and i think it paid off

[03:10] tremendously

[03:11] to my eyes the volume and game engine

[03:14] renders look flawless

[03:15] especially in season 2 and while i'm

[03:17] sure that this room takes a bit of

[03:19] getting used to as an actor you can't

[03:20] deny the benefit of being able to

[03:22] actually see

[03:23] what your surroundings are rather than

[03:25] being surrounded by the color green

[03:27] now in regards to the technical side of

[03:29] things as an editor myself

[03:30] and individual who has had to rotoscope

[03:32] things key out green from footage

[03:34] and attempt to composite various

[03:36] elements into one image that looks real

[03:38] that entire process is tragic and slow

[03:41] and very outdated

[03:42] so this stagecraft technology by ilm

[03:44] dramatically reduced

[03:46] all of these compositing needs now you

[03:48] can achieve what is called

[03:49] in camera finals for the majority of the

[03:52] shots you can pose on set

[03:53] and just a quick explainer of what

[03:55] in-camera finals

[03:56] really means it's just that there is no

[03:58] compositing required to make the actor

[04:00] or set pieces merge perfectly together

[04:02] what's in front of the camera while it's

[04:04] recording is the final composite before

[04:07] you go into color grading

[04:08] with the background literally

[04:10] surrounding the actor you already have

[04:12] all the natural light of the location

[04:14] that you are digitally creating there is

[04:16] no more need to artificially create

[04:18] natural lighting around the subject in a

[04:20] compositing program

[04:21] again as i said it's just all there in

[04:23] front of the lens and to add to this

[04:25] you can shoot for as long as you want

[04:27] without worrying about lighting changes

[04:29] such as the sunset the sunrise etc you

[04:31] can shoot a sunrise for hours if

[04:33] necessary

[04:34] all of these seemingly small things have

[04:36] huge payoffs because

[04:38] weather location scouting natural

[04:40] lighting all of this stuff is controlled

[04:42] in one room with a render engine

[04:44] and the most critical aspect to this

[04:46] beyond how hyper real the led walls look

[04:48] and how the lighting aids and in camera

[04:50] finals as we previously discussed is the

[04:53] fact that the camera and led panels

[04:55] operate as if the physical camera was in

[04:57] that virtual environment

[04:59] being projected on the walls so that

[05:01] means that as the camera moves with your

[05:03] subject you get that realistic

[05:05] background movement which is called

[05:07] parallax now

[05:08] in the volume outside of the camera this

[05:11] actually looks really bizarre

[05:12] but through the lens in the final

[05:14] product it looks very natural

[05:16] so with three brand new gigantic stages

[05:18] being built

[05:19] as well as pop-up stagecraft sets which

[05:22] actually were recently utilized

[05:24] for that netflix film the midnight sky

[05:26] it seems that going forward it makes

[05:28] more practical sense in monetary sense

[05:30] to use this technology it's going to

[05:32] look real anyway

[05:33] and you have complete control over your

[05:35] location and sets to a degree

[05:37] never imagined you get to have your

[05:39] editorial director photography

[05:41] post-production team all working

[05:43] together at the same time

[05:45] as well as ensuring that what you film

[05:47] on that stage comes out basically

[05:49] perfect

[05:50] soon we will be experiencing our first

[05:52] feature film using this technology

[05:54] via taika waititi i imagine that the

[05:56] film will be using one of the

[05:58] bigger stages available to make sure

[05:59] that the cinematic experience is as

[06:01] impactful as possible but i also imagine

[06:03] that if this film goes extremely well

[06:06] then all studios will adopt this

[06:07] technology even the mcu is going this

[06:09] route with its tv shows in future films

[06:11] like thor

[06:12] love and thunder and filming on location

[06:14] will always be something that exists in

[06:16] the filmmaking world however

[06:17] just like people were initially dealing

[06:19] with the transition to cgi

[06:20] and movie making or transitioning from

[06:22] 2d animation to 3d animation

[06:24] the ilm stagecraft tech is the obvious

[06:27] next step

[06:27] in filming cinematic experiences when

[06:29] you can have every stage of creative in

[06:31] one room working together as shown in

[06:33] the mandalorian documentary you become

[06:36] an efficient machine without losing the

[06:37] heart of what it is that you were trying

[06:39] to create

[06:40] so i hope you've enjoyed this video i

[06:41] know it's tech heavy but it also has to

[06:43] do with star wars and as an editor

[06:45] myself

[06:45] a guy that loves post-production and

[06:46] editing i thought this would be a cool

[06:48] video to cover

[06:49] and just to give you some information on

[06:50] how the mandalorian is made so as always

[06:53] may the force be with you

[06:54] and adapt is signing off

[07:20] you