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Star Wars Prequels Movies Television Technology

The Filmmaking Tech Behind 'The Mandalorian' Is Straight Out of the Star Wars Universe (qz.com) 90

In a Quartz article, Adam Epstein writes about the filmmaking technology used to film The Mandalorian on Disney+: Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) -- the Lucasfilm subsidiary George Lucas founded in 1975 to make the visual effects for Star Wars -- deployed a real-time 3D projection system called "Stagecraft" on the Disney+ series that could, eventually, replace green-screen as the film industry standard for rendering virtual environments. The company has been testing Stagecraft for five years -- most recently on the Star Wars spin-off movie Solo in 2018. But The Mandalorian, the flagship series on Disney's new streaming service, likely marks the most extensive use yet of the new system.

Stagecraft's chief innovation is that it can project a 3D visual environment around the actors that changes in real time to match the perspective of the camera. When the camera moves, the background moves too, simulating the experience of filming in a different location. It's a significant upgrade from green-screen technology, which requires the filmmakers layer in a static image or footage after filming in front of the blank backdrop. [...] The tech has a wide range of benefits. For starters, it can draw better performances from the actors, who don't have to imagine the environment they are in, as they do when filming in front of green-screen. They can instantly be transported to any location, real or made-up, and feel as though they are there. And that's another big advantage: Stagecraft allows films and TV shows to simulate environments without actually having to send an entire production there to film.
"One downside is that the displays used in Stagecraft require liquid crystals that take several years to grow," the report adds. "Growing and maintaining these crystals, which are the backbone of LCD (liquid crystal display) screens, can be expensive and time-consuming, perhaps complicating the attempts of other companies to adapt the technology."

This video from Unreal Engine shows a smaller scale version of the tech in action.
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The Filmmaking Tech Behind 'The Mandalorian' Is Straight Out of the Star Wars Universe

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  • by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2019 @02:32AM (#59455910)
    The real story of The Mandalorian is how audiences actually like it, unlike the Kathleen Kennedy controlled works that go out of their way to shit on both the fans and lore.
    • The Mandalorian and Jedi: Fallen Order are convincing me that there are still compelling Star Wars tales to tell, and that perhaps the big screen needs to take a break from it.
      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by war4peace ( 1628283 )

        I watched two episodes of The Mandalorian so far. I think it's crap so far, but as a Star Wars fan I am willing to give it a chance, hoping it's going to improve as time goes by.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by bloodhawk ( 813939 )
          As a star wars fan I have seen 3 now and your right it is shit. I will probably watch 1 or 2 more to see if it can be saved but my hopes I pretty low for it at this point. They seem to have forgotten to hire any decent writers to go with all their tech.
          • Completely agreed with the bad writing. I was thinking that they could have taken the storyline so far and put it into pretty much any setting, and it would have worked equally well / badly. Might as well have been watching a western show. It's pretty shoddy. The episode structure is also pretty uninteresting - basically it's 1. Introduce obstacle 2. Clear obstacle 3. Credits. Booooring.

            • by 605dave ( 722736 )

              You just can't please some people ; )

            • by Davess ( 1035554 )
              you fucking idiots it IS a western. legit not sure if i'm being trolled or not. jesus christ people are insufferable
              • It is a Space Western, for sure. But it's the kind of Space Western where the the main character is totally confident badass in this scene, only to suffer a humiliating defeat further down the road from the hands of a species widely known in the Star Wars as being cowardly and skittish. He's "the best" in his bounty hunter job but totally forgets to secure his space ship when landing on a wild desert planet. The first two episodes left me wondering what exactly is this guy (not who, but what). Is he a badas

        • I didn't like the first two episodes, but I am warming to it now I have seen ep 3.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The Mandalorian is a bit underwhelming at the moment. It might be going somewhere but right now it's just a few decent but not amazing action scenes set in the Star Wars universe.

      They have the luxury of taking their time with a longer series so can build up to something interesting. Films have to get to the point a bit quicker.

      Strange you would single out Kennedy. Most people blame Abrams and Johnson for what they dislike about the new trilogy. She was only producer, it's mostly a managerial role while they

      • I'm not overly impressed with it either, but I think the fact that people are generally heaping so much praise on it shows just how bad the recent films have been by comparison. I think it's a lot less "Wow, this is great!" and more "Hey, this doesn't suck!" which is kind of sad, but since when have people really managed to be objective?

        Kennedy is just another idiot that managed to fail upward in Hollywood. She's not particular special, but she does occupy the figurehead position and draws more blame/pra
  • What the F (Score:2, Interesting)

    by halaloszt0 ( 6411070 )
    "Growing and maintaining these crystals, which are the backbone of LCD (liquid crystal display) screens, can be expensive and time-consuming" Where does this bullshit come from? Growing liquid crystals? U mean the LCD technology that is decades old and mass produced?
    • They're special Star Wars liquid crystals I guess. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy also said in the article that the result of the technology is not believable so I guess they have to have some reason to charge Disney a bunch of money and their unique (but very slow, not good for the millions/billions of devices that already use them) of growing liquid crystals seems fair.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      TFA's author is full-of-shit anyway. Stagecraft operates using screens they call "LED walls," Real-Time In-Camera VFX for Next-Gen Filmmaking | Project Spotlight | Unreal Engine [youtube.com]
    • by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2019 @06:52AM (#59456282) Homepage

      Kathleen speak: {something something whatever grow crystal}

      Actual engineer: They are high resolution LCD or OLED walls with a very special *ROOM SIZE* dimension. They are custom: these panels cost insane shit to make.
      Because most of the panels this size are usually used in completely different setting - such as billboards - which don't require such high resolution and precise colour control. Thus the currently mass produced (and hence cheap) walls this size use simple RGB leds and are designed to be looked accross the town plazza or accross a stadium. Whereas this thing requires a ultra high quality LCD or OLED that needs to look spotless while being recorded a mere few meters away by some ultra-HD 8k cinema camera, and all lights including the ambient reflection on the actors' skin has too look perfect.

      Kathleen : Na, never mind. My liquid crystal blurb sounds cooler, I'm going to use that in the interview. It sound like Kyber crystals, I'm sure the crowd will love it.

      Geek crowd: Pfff... we used to that already back when hacking wiimote for the actual tracking used to be cool [youtube.com]

      Glass-painting artist: you think you invented imaginary scene filmed in-camera instead of in post? You yunguns, get of my lawn!

      ---

      The one-eyed cyclop: You invented StarTreck holo-decks !

      Every normal human actor with functional depth perception, while the display is jerking around to follow the motion of the camera and its perspective: Nausea !

      Kathleen: It's unbelievable, like the set is here !

      • Dammit, I can't mod you funny and informative at the same time!
      • Aliens used a back projection on a screen behind the actors, which is an old technique from the earliest days of cinema. That scene with the crashing ship, or her on the platform with the burning collapsing infrastructure behind her.

        This is a modern version of that. Only the projection tech is new.

        • Aliens used a back projection on a screen behind the actors, which is an old technique from the earliest days of cinema. That scene with the crashing ship, or her on the platform with the burning collapsing infrastructure behind her.

          Or any old black and white movie with a driving scene...
          (Bonus point for actor frenetically wiggle the steering wheel left and right while absolutely not matching the motion depicted on the rear projection).

          This is a modern version of that. Only the projection tech is new.

          And the motion + perspective.

          - Old school glass painting: no motion, you're stuck with a static picture. And because it's a static picture, you can't change much of perpective so you're stuck to faraway objects (without parallax) and thus can only use for landscape and other distant backdrops (fixed in t

      • They are high resolution LCD or OLED walls with a very special *ROOM SIZE* dimension.

        You could probably achieve same results by using smaller panels, separated by thin green gaps, and fill those in during post-processing using suitable neural net.

        • (If not precisely planned for) Is the worse thing to say because there's ALWAYS something that can go wrong and require manual fine tuning.

          the fixing DNN spilling over the actor, or on the contrary missing some spot.
          that is going to generated additional unplanned costs (the salary of people fixing the stuff).
          Better have a big upfront fixed and planned for cost, and optionally brag about how much you're investing to make you movie look cool.

        • You could probably achieve same results by using smaller panels

          They use video projectors.

      • Whereas this thing requires a ultra high quality LCD or OLED that needs to look spotless while being recorded a mere few meters away by some ultra-HD 8k cinema camera, and all lights including the ambient reflection on the actors' skin has too look perfect.

        I'm don't believe that how this works. The scene projected on the LCD is not in the final video. It still treats it like a green screen, stripping out the background, doing some processing, and then compositing it with the final (usually CGI) background. So it doesn't need to be super high resolution.

        • The scene projected on the LCD is not in the final video. It still treats it like a green screen, stripping out the background, doing some processing,

          Still it makes it easier if the final picture looks more or less okay, and all you need to composite in a few high details in the background, rather than needing to perfectly strip out an imperfect background that looks like a pixelated glassdoor seen though a grate.
          Less things that can go wrong, and a simpler upfront cost, instead of needing to pay unexpected salary and suffering delays while some technician needs to fix and fine tune the part that didn't work 100% perfect.

    • This will make it complicated for other companies to replicate this technology. Other companies these are not the droids you are looking for should stick with traditional green screens and flashlights.

  • Huh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Psychotria ( 953670 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2019 @03:00AM (#59455972)

    Kennedy said a Disney executive visited the set of The Mandalorian and thought that the Stagecraft-generated environment was physically there. “He had no idea he was standing in a virtual set,” Kennedy said, according to Slashfilm. “That’s how unbelievable it is.”

    (emphasis mine)

    Shouldn't the goal be to make things believable? If the executive found it unbelievable it must be pretty shit, so where's the news?

    • Unbelievable how believable it is... that’s the thrust of his statement.

      I saw this tech demoed at IBC this year, and it’s pretty impressive. Mind, everything looks real funny when standing on the stage yourself, it’s an optical illusion that only looks right from the point of view of the camera. Through the camera it all looks pretty real, though the demo I saw was a virtual (and rather fake looking) news desk; an actual backdrop meant to look like something real would have been much mo
      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        When I was in grad school we were going to build a CAVE, but then someone got a big grant and actually bought one.

    • by Davess ( 1035554 )
      "unbelievable" meaning the technology behind it, not literally unbelievable, you autist
    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Sounds like Disney has some pretty stupid executives.

    • So overt, it’s covert.
  • Buying into tech (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2019 @03:31AM (#59456026) Journal
    cant make up for the need for a plot... that the fans like.
    • by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2019 @03:44AM (#59456050)
      Not a problem. No fans are left.
    • These VFX/SFX people are the ones selling the films these days. Say what you want about the lack of plot, crap characters and general laziness. They look and sound fucking gorgeous! That's why people go and don't notice the story problems. The light speed ram, probably one of the most problematic scenes is also one of the most stunning visually.
      • I honestly can not watch movies without a story or only a crap story.
        The main reason I no longer go into the cinema. Sometimes when I'm curious I try to find the movie online aka on youtube.
        Interesting is only "the making of".

        • I totally agree. To be honest, its starting to affect my enjoyment of games as well. I'm fed up with game narratives always being tired old cliches - like the story doesn't matter, just plug in any old garbage. It doesn't have to be world shattering or even original, just give me a compelling narrative that's engaging and well plotted, rather than the same old filler.

          • by Tom ( 822 )

            ditto, though I find that quite a few recent movies (though often not the blockbusters) do have interesting stories. Might just be my selection of movies.

            But for games - oh yeah. I am so much starving for a game with a really good storyline. Instead you drown in micro-transaction DLC bullshit.

      • by Anonymous Coward
        Their plenty of shallow individuals that are entertained by stunning looks and sound, personally I am bored shitless after 10 mins of that if the story isn't decent as well. A good story can carry a poorly put together and cheaply done movie/show, the same cannot be said for special effects and sound in place of a plot.
  • by passionplay ( 607862 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2019 @03:31AM (#59456028)
    I think they don't know their lore well enough. LOL.
  • Or its just more verbal diarrhea from SlashDot's permanently stoned writers.
  • Straight Out of the Star Wars Universe

    It's not though, is it?

  • It's a shame they spent all that money and effort of the tech for The Mandalorian and forgot about story, script and character development.
  • about anything outside the original trilogy (I honestly haven't seen the rest)... The Mandalorian is good fucking TV.
  • The video on yt is really impressive, but i wonder about one thing.

    As the background is not created real-time, how easy is it to change afterwards?
    The strength of the greenscreen is that you do one take and then you can fiddle around with the background/environment as much as you want, change and compare and pick the best. As this new system puts already an whole environment in place it's not that easy to adjust or change afterwards.

    • Fixing lighting is probably the most difficult thing to get right in post. Having the walls light up with the "correct" colors helps a lot. Otherwise you need to plan where you need grips running around set with extra lights to get close to something realistic. The most effective CGI lighting, actually isn't CGI lighting.
    • Also, this would work quite well as a green screen, since you know exactly what image was on the wall, you could remove it again.
    • by CaseyB ( 1105 )

      In an nVidia video about this they show a green screen mode. The system knows the camera field of view and projects a green screen (with tracking markers) over only that area. The rest of the surrounding scene is displayed normally so that lighting and reflections are consistent.

  • is just straight out of meme heaven!
    • Yeah funny how this comes out right before the peak shopping season. As if the rights to Star Wars itself isn't a license to print money.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        It's from Disney. Disney has been doing merchandising a LONG time. Notice how Frozen 2 also came out just before Christmas.

        If you look at the list, in the early days Disney released films at all times of year. Now everything is June (right before school ends) and November (right before Christmas). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • " require liquid crystals that take several years to grow,"

    Huh? I'm more interested in this than the rest of the story.

  • Disney is growing a friggin TARDIS!!!! And whomever that executive is that was fooled by a bunch of flat panel displays should be fired immediately. Anyone that gullible should not be making high level decisions for a company the level of Disney.
  • Disney Uses Tech it Bought to Make Film - Entire World Shocked to the Very Core
    High Technology Used to Cover Up Disney's Crappiness
    Disney Desperately Seeking Ways to Make Money From Massive Star Wars Investment

    Gees... this is hardly illuminatory, is it!?

  • Their holograms are still stuttering like in the seventies though.

  • So it's from a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?

    What a shit article title.

  • We got the week trial, and won't be continuing service in part because the Disney+ interface is technically far behind every other player, although at least the video plays cleanly on our satellite connection — which you can't say for all of the other streaming services. Netflix and YouTube both also work well for us; most of the others do not. Exede throttles video pretty hard, and I haven't tried to find out if they throttle different services to different rates, which may account for the difference

  • How does the Mandalorian see out of that visor? It completely blocks his peripheral vision.

  • One quote from the articles puzzles me:

    One downside is that the displays used in Stagecraft require liquid crystals that take several years to grow. “It’s quite a process,” Kennedy said. Growing and maintaining these crystals, which are the backbone of LCD (liquid crystal display) screens, can be expensive and time-consuming, perhaps complicating the attempts of other companies to adapt the technology.

    Can somebody here shed some light on what this means? I find it utterly confusing.

  • I like movies where there are special effects graphics, etc. For good viewing you need of course high-quality TV, with good resolution of screens. But I don't have a new generation of TV. I watch movies using the MAG420w1 https://www.infomir.eu/ [infomir.eu]. this set-top box easily reproduces 4K content at 60 frames per second. I get a quality sound. The console has Dolby Digital support.
  • > Stagecraft's chief innovation is that it can project a 3D visual environment around the actors

    Do you mean, a giant LED screen that's live updated, and the composite image is processed in real time.

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