The big technological breakthrough of “The Mandalorian” has been StageCraft, also known as ‘The Volume’.
Located in Manhattan Beach Studios in Los Angeles, the production uses a large soundstage surrounded by a high-quality 270-degree semicircular LED video wall displaying a virtual landscape image rendered in the Unreal gaming engine.
The tech is linked to the camera used, changing the light and parallax of the image as the camera moves – allowing for a convincing illusion that can be shot ‘in camera’. More than 50% of the show’s first season was filmed using the tech.
Whilst the series has employed it well, there are some obvious limitations to the technology. In addition, poor use of it in some Marvel Studios projects like “Thor: Love and Thunder” and more recently “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” have led to a backlash and some strong criticism of it when used poorly.
Speaking with Vanity Fair about the just-launched third season of “The Mandalorian,” showrunner Jon Favreau went into detail about the technology which he admits is still very much evolving and which they are learning about its strengths and weaknesses as they go.
That includes the environments it portrays and which ones it can or can’t convincingly portray. Favreau says hard surfaces are fine, but more organic scenes – especially in daylight – are the hardest of all:
“The [technology] is going to get better and better and better… ‘Star Wars’ lends itself because of hard surfaces – rocks, metal, droids. It makes it easier to make it look real faster. Organic stuff is harder. The exterior stuff with sunlight is the one thing you really can’t do well here. So we still have outdoor sets that we go to with traditional blue screen…What we’ve learned is when the light hits the walls, it reflects. The screen reflects.”
The comments come as the third season premiere is now up on the Disney+ service and as the story suggests, the desolate landscape of Mandalore should offer a hard enough background for the Volume tech to play well with. In addition
