Awesome Set Photos From THE MANDALORIAN Show How the New "Stagecraft" Filmmaking Tech Is Utilized
As we’ve heard before, Jon Favreau implemented a new filmmaking technology while shooting Lucasfilm’s The Mandalorian. It’s called “Stagecraft,” and Favreau built a set for the series that he called The Volume. This new way of filmmaking uses a rear-projected LED screen to create a reactive environment with ultra-high resolution that works as an immersive real-time green screen. It puts the actors in the action, and thanks to American Cinematographer (via The VP Movie Club), we have some awesome photos to share with you that show this tech in action!
Actor Giancarlo Esposito previously shared his experience working with the cutting-edge technology used to develop the series:
“Jon Favreau’s brilliant. Technically, this show has a new technology [that’s] never really [been] refined as much as it is right now. We’re in a place called The Volume, where we do most of our acting, where set pieces are brought in, where we can control the physical atmosphere of what is projected on the walls and control how gravity is; you get a feeling that gravity is being played with.
This looks like a seriously cool environment to shoot big sci-fi and fantasy film projects in. I would love to visit the set of The Volume to see how Favreau and his team utilize the tech and shoot these scenes. Hopefully, we at least get a behind-the-scenes video one day! In the meantime, enjoy the photos, and you can watch a video showing you how “Stagecraft” works.
When previously talking about “Stagecraft” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said (via:/film):
“Jon Favreau and myself went into Disney and said, this is something that we would like to try and they said, what exactly is it? And we said we’re not exactly sure. We have no idea what this is going to cost, and we hadn’t ever built anything with the technology, which we’re now calling “Stagecraft” inside ILM, but it basically is a projection system on screens, and the real innovation is that when you move the camera inside this space, the parallax changes. So suddenly you’re in an environment that actually begins to behave in the same way it would in an actual 3D environment like this.
“It means that if you want a big establishing shot in Iceland, and you don’t want to take 700 people, spend four months prepping a set because you only want to do the establishing shot and you can bring everything back to shoot interiors on a stage, that becomes very meaningful on big, huge projects and small projects. So the interesting thing with Mandalorian, the fact that we tested this technology inside of television and not on the big screen was the way we felt that we could take a big risk but not a giant risk.
“What we refer to a game-changer, that’s how it happens: you have a story that offers you the opportunity to do it differently, and to push technology that you know is right on the edge. We’re incredibly fortunate with Lucasfilm because we have ILM inside our company. And this defined the company from the time that George created Star Wars. Star Wars creates ILM. And so, ILM continues to be at the forefront of this kind of innovation, because we’re constantly telling stories that are content in search of technology. That’s what it is.”