TV Discussion The Mandalorian Cinematic techniques in the tv shows

I have found this very interesting video about the use of virtual sets as opposed to green screen in The Mandalorian.

It has several advantages. Of course, the most evident is that the characters can see their surrounding during the filming.

But there is much more than that. The light on the filmed objects will look more natural and they can avoid technical difficulties like the spill (green light reflected by objects in the scene).

Here we can discuss about the filming technology and visual effects in the show.

If the thread already exist, please link it to me 'cause I couldn't find it.

 

I'm sure it's nice for them but it's really done for the shooting not for the actors. Besides that it's not like they don't still use plenty of screen work.

It still comes down to them using their imagination at times because so much of what is going on around them just isn't there.

Some of the times anyway because a lot of the time it's just about the script and getting directions to react to what is going to be there even when it isn't.

 

@Qui-Riv-Brid
Well, the difference is rather striking, as you can see in the video. Just compare to the scene of Avengers.

Then yes, you are not wrong that there are still several elements that are added on a later stage, but the main background is already there during filming and I can believe them if they say that it makes a big difference.

 

There are massive benefits to the Volume.

1. Actor immersion

2. In-camera lighting from the screens is FAR superior to lighting greenscreen sets and adding digital lighting later. It looks 100% natural.

3. You can create exactly the kind of realistic, natural lighting you want for scenes. If you want to use "golden hour" lighting from before sunset, you just turn a dial and you have it. And can shoot in that lighting forever, if you want. No need to rush against the sun, or shoot during the harsh noontime, or worry about the weather.

4. Much cheaper than location-shooting, and arguably, BETTER than location-shooting due to the ability to control the environment while capturing a completely natural look. Greenscreen studio or backlot sets were never, ever better options (in terms of capturing naturalistic visuals) than on-location shooting. The Volume changes that completely. IMO, there's literally no need to shoot on-location anymore.

5. The only episode of the Mandalorian that shot on-location was The Tragedy which shot in Simi Valley. And IMO (and a lot of people felt this way) it's worst-looking, visually, of the episodes. At times it looks fan-made. This is a very compelling argument, to me, for Volume-only filming for Lucasfilm in the future.

 

You are pushing it too far.

While I agree that it has several benefits, arguing that on-location shooting at this point is obsolete sounds rather exaggerated.
The fact that The Tragedy looked worse for some people means rather little. You'd need to compare it to the exact same scenario made virtually. I'd say that if they decided to go for that, they must have concluded that for that specific scenario on-location actually had its merits?

 

Yea, I don't think I'd be too interested in a Mission Impossible movie shot only on digital sets.

 

While the Volume certainly works well as a replacement for green screen, it's a poor replacement for on-location filming. Season 2 showed this off as much as it did the benefits, in my opinion. There's often a claustrophobic feeling to the locations, and frankly a lot of the integration with the actors still looks fake and unconvincing. Cobb Vanth on the speeder, appropriately, is some Justified driving-level stuff. It's a great advancement, and a fantastic evolution of green screens that seems immensely helpful to actors and provides accurate lighting. But a replacement for location stuff? Definitely not. Maybe it'll get there one day, but for now I don't think it's a serviceable replacement for real location work.

 

Also, it seems to me that the camera movements remain limited with respect to on-location. I don't see how they could do long sequence shots with this technique (indeed we rarely see them in the show).

 

They still have in-between approaches, too, like the boat in Chapter 11.

 

It doesn't seem super popular an opinion on here, but I find The Tragedy to be visually one of their best episodes and that's part of the reason why. You can't fake the dimensonal quality of those hills on a flat backdrop and the choices made in terms of camera movements and shot choices really highlight the benefits of on-location shooting. @HolyKenobi93 brought up the Mission Impossible movies, and whil budget is absolutely part of the disparity in visuals between the two - you can't fake something like Tom Cruise booking it across rooftops or that chase through the streets of Paris on a thirty foot stage and have it look as good. The Volume is a fantastic substute, but for green screen. It provides automatic feedback, correct lighting, and allows for the actors to understand the environment they're playing off. But it's too flat to replace real location work.

 

The rationale given was that the action was too big to be captured on the Volume, given its size limitations. Thus far. But the Volume has expanded in size since season 1, and is likely to just...keep getting bigger (at least as big as affordable studio space is). So I think the "it isn't big enough for some things" rationale may become increasingly rare. And in this case, I thought the direction could've benefited from being geographically limited a bit. Because they roamed around wherever they wanted, Rodriguez wasn't constrained into carefully staging shots. And so it all looked rather...poorly staged. Of course, a different director could've taken a wholly different approach. But I think most directors that like to carefully stage their scenes would have been able to work within the constraints of the current Volume. I mean, look at Favreau's episode, The Marshall. The action was absolutely huge and epic, all done in the Volume, and looked much better than in the Tragedy.

In short, as the Volume gets bigger, the rationale for shooting on-location will likely diminish to almost zero. I really think that's the future.

For me, that's good, as I much, much prefer a shallower depth of field. It simply looks more realistic to me, especially when the scenes are lit naturally. But that's admittedly a particular bias of mine.

 

Read what TCF has to say above. He knows his stuff.

As a less competent comment, I was more naively arguing that long, dynamic sequence shots would be very difficult with the virtual sets, I think, due to practical space limitations. Imagine if you wanted to follow a character walking with a single shot on a long distance, with some interesting camera movement following them. It seems to me that it could become prohibitive with virtual sets. I mean I don't work in the field but it sounds rather challenging to properly adapt the background. On the other hand, on-location the background can be pretty much as large as you want it too be.

 

Yup, I responded. I get that, and get that TCF knows far more than I do on the subject. Though as my aesthetic preferences for film and TV are heavily biased towards a shallow depth of field, I have an interest in technologies that force directors to go that route.

I actually think that was one of the issues with The Tragedy looking fan made. The large depth of field. Though there were many other aspects of Rodriguez's direction that contributed to that feeling.

And that's exactly the kind of limitation I like...

I didn't feel any claustrophobia in the locations, apart from the planet in the opening scene of season one, and some sequences on Nevarro and Sorgan. Tatooine and Arvala-7, for example, look vaster than any locations I've seen thus far in Star Wars, barring perhaps Lahmu from Rogue One.

 

Of course it makes it cooler for them on an actor level so they can feel they are actually on-location. For the actual technical shooting it means that you can capture in camera that much more which presumably takes a fair amount of time off of the post-production which helps on a TV series budget with it's faster turnaround compared to a movie.

That said I doubt that the same kinds of movie-makers who insist on shooting on film rather than digital would be so inclined to recreate desert planets in a studio or back lot instead of going to do the raw shooting on locations. Even though most of what is seen on screen will still be done in post-production.

The test of these techniques will be if they recreate the Lars homestead for the Obi-Wan series. They certainly aren't going back to Tunisia like AOTC did. Comparing the feel of such a well known place all within the studio environment will be interesting.

Which brings up the point of it's supposed budget of 15 million per episode. TPM costs 115M in 1999 dollars and about 180M in today's dollars. That'd be roughly 45M per half hour or 3 times the budget of Mandalorian.

Obviously then 15 million can't get you much!

Surely they could do better?

 

Agreed. I felt the potential from the beginning, and believe that in a short amount of time, most if not all of the limitations will fall away.