The Tech Driving The Mandalorian
Photo Credit: Disney
What makes the “Star Wars” universe so appealing to the masses? Is it the creatures? The robots? The spacecrafts, or just the fact that they make every aspect of the scenes feel like you’re in the middle of the scene yourself? Since the beginning, Lucasfilm has been pushing the limits of technology in order to deliver a film that would entertain for decades. They’ve used virtual production technology to take The Mandalorian further than any Star Wars feature has ever gone and they’ve done it in a way that no one else has.
In the latest episode of The Mandalorian, we were on the edge of our seats, enduring the nail-biting action, fights, and chase scenes. Just when we thought the suspense was too much, the show released some of it’s best comedy to date. I’m not one to enjoy any kind of creepy crawly creatures, but it brought a weird and dangerous vibe that we have yet to see on The Mandalorian.
So how do the experts make you feel immersed in every single scene? If you’re a fan of The Mandalorian, then you’ve probably heard about the technology that is driving it. Virtual Production has advanced filmmaking in ways that can’t be replicated. From the massive LED walls to the super computers rendering the environments onto the walls, The Mandalorian has brought out all the stops to ensure that every viewer gets the experience they deserve.
Photo Credit: Disney
The innovation in StageCraft and other, smaller LED walls is not only that the image shown is generated live in photorealistic 3D by powerful GPUs, but that 3D scene is directly affected by the movements and setting of the camera.
The key innovation in virtual production is not just that a photorealistic 3D image, generated by powerful GPUs appears on the walls. The breakthrough comes with real-time camera integration. If the camera moves to the right, the image alters with the movement. The camera sends its real-time position and orientation to a massive render farm running Unreal Engine, which then renders it exactly in the 3D environment all while considering perspective changes, lighting, distortion, depth of field and so on, with zero lag time to top it off.
Virtual production has nearly eliminated on-location shooting. Nearly everything from the first eight episodes of season one was shot indoors at Manhattan Beach Studios using ILM’s StageCraft technology. A location scouting team was sent around the world to places like Iceland and Chile to scan the locations so they could then be integrated into the virtual sets built with Unreal Engine. Not only did this keep the vast majority of the cast and crew in California, it significantly reduced production costs. And the results? The most technically advanced show on the market today.