More here:
In depth look at the new tech:
Game changer for smaller scale productions.
edit:
Article can be found here. Page 45.
Last edited:
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The Mandalorian Set Photos Reveal Seamless “Stagecraft” Technology at Work
- Thread starter Lifejumper
- Start date
More here:
In depth look at the new tech:
Game changer for smaller scale productions.
edit:
Article can be found here. Page 45.
Holy crap that's cool.
Really neat technology being used here.
So this is pretty much the new green screen, but now with elements that the actors can actually interact with in real time as opposed to...green screen.
Really neat technology being used here.
So this is pretty much the new green screen, but now with elements that the actors can actually interact with in real time as opposed to...green screen.
Eager to see the results with the improved version of the tech they're apparently gonna be using for season 2. It looked really great in season 1, though apparently brightness was a bit of an issue (which is part of the reason even the HDR version is pretty dark). Apparently the updated tech is able to output at much brighter levels.
oh fuck I didn't realize the background of the ship with all those moving pieces was green screen.
Yeah, the foreground lighting especially had a 'look' to it, relying on more diffuse lighting situations since I don't think the ability to match direct sunlight brightness with their setup was quite there.
Wowser, this tech is amazing. It works so well I always assumed it was an actual green screen, but I never got that 'Green Screen' feel in most/all(?) of the shots, which is something that hadn't ocurred to me until now. Mandalorian had a lot of good environmental shots too, always looked super high budget.
(What I call the the 'Green Screen' feel is where the actors look like they're in another dimension next to the sets or background. You can see it a lot in the Prequel Trilogy. There's probably a better term, I dunno.)
(What I call the the 'Green Screen' feel is where the actors look like they're in another dimension next to the sets or background. You can see it a lot in the Prequel Trilogy. There's probably a better term, I dunno.)
Yeah, same with Marvel movies. It's very obvious when they were lit or shot in front of blue or green screens.
Amazing, this is the kind of tech Lucas needed for the Prequels. The challenge has always been to try and get all these types of elements to mesh properly and now you can just see it and adjust in real time, maddness.
From playing a film out of focus behind a car to this!
From playing a film out of focus behind a car to this!
I know folks sort of think of this stuff as cheating or "we'll fix it in post" and thanks to how the prequels were made, it gets a bad rap for actors, but the amount of craft and skill and prep to make it not just work, but additive holistically is seriously impressive. We're making tons of practical sets and objects and stuff for our project, but seeing VAST soundstages completely dressed for blue screen kinda triggers the imagination. You see the people and props and your brain starts filling in the missing vistas.
And great actors and directors do that automatically to immerse themselves and us in the reality of it.
And great actors and directors do that automatically to immerse themselves and us in the reality of it.
So Slash Film just cropped the leaked imgur pictures? OK.
Does anyone know where I can buy this issue of American Cinematographer to read the full thing? Or is there a link online?
Does anyone know where I can buy this issue of American Cinematographer to read the full thing? Or is there a link online?
It's hard to do on a green-screen as well, but at least now, the lighting department and cinematographer can look through the lens and see a phyisical representation of any light sources, and attempt to match them up with stage lights. And if they can't get it to work, they can change the real-time video screen to get the virtual lighting closer to the physical lighting.
OP
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Really cool. I didn't know it was being used for Mandalorian, but I saw the tech before. Maybe it was just the Unreal demo video in the OP.
It really is incredible and seems like a breakthrough in filmmaking potential. I think Favreau also used Unity to prerender sets for Lion King and Jungle Book and used virtual camera rigs to figure out shots. This is a pretty awesome blend of the practical and the digital though, and it really seems like it could be a huge help in making the Disney Plus shows look amazing while keeping the budgets manageable for TV.
It really is incredible and seems like a breakthrough in filmmaking potential. I think Favreau also used Unity to prerender sets for Lion King and Jungle Book and used virtual camera rigs to figure out shots. This is a pretty awesome blend of the practical and the digital though, and it really seems like it could be a huge help in making the Disney Plus shows look amazing while keeping the budgets manageable for TV.
They could also replace the backgrounds or up-res them if they have to. I found an article where Favreau talked about the technique:
It also seems like it makes it so the lighting of the LED screens helps a lot for reference, even if they have to replace it with better quality versions later.
If you think about it, it's combining greens screen sets a lot of movies use now with the older style of having a built set with a painted backdrop. In this case, you get the advantage of the former (any background you want) with the presentation of the latter (a "real" backdrop) but without the drawbacks you would normally have with each of them: green screen seams, the work associated with not having them or the background looking like a painting and having no life.
Theoretically, you wouldn't really need to do that because you can just go to the set and load your set and do it again. You're still filming anyway, you're still getting in reshoots for scenes, but now you can tweak it on-set.
It's... not stupid high but it's also not so low you can tell. Part of this is that you're going to soft focus the background anyway, so a lot of imperfections will be hidden by editing anyway. The brightness issues mentioned earlier are already being worked out, so we're going to have some really spectacular things going forward, to say nothing of much cheaper production costs.
I know I'm asking in the wrong place, but does anyone know if the article is in the Jan 2020 issue of American Cinematographer or the Feb 2020 issue? I want to buy the right one, though the Feb issue doesn't appear to be for sale yet. The TOC on the Jan issue lists nothing about Mando.
Yep. Been talking with my studio about this. Ever since Oblivion and special cases like Gravity (for the close ups on the helmets) it was something we've been very keen on looking into, as it would allow us to do a lot more with the smaller budgets we have.
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One thing I curious about, doesnt this mean more time in preproduction, locking in shots for these plates/set extensions?
I just know a lot of Studios dont like to operate that way, so I'm quite curious on how this meshes with the usual workflow
I just know a lot of Studios dont like to operate that way, so I'm quite curious on how this meshes with the usual workflow
What I don't get is how would they be able to replace the video stream in post when there's no color to key against anymore?
From the article, it seems like it's exactly what it sounds like.
The tech is probably a lot more handy when you're using CG sources.
Probably just use similar techniques as dealing with an actual green screen. They might have to rotoscope/manually cut out the actors from the background rather than just replacing the green screen, but the lighting on the actors should be accurate and they could probably use the virtual camera movement data to get the exact background shots in Unreal Engine without the actors.
Article + high res screens
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Article can be found here. Page 45.
Yeah, the bolded is what I was thinking. Seems like it would be faster to just do reshoots
But from what I understand Favreau said that most of their shots are good enough that they don't need to replace them, it was just the occasional shot that might not have looked sharp enough or whatever. Even with green screen, keying and compositing still requires an artist to make sure the edges look good, that foreground objects aren't mistaken as part of the background, and that the lighting of the green screen isn't noticeably being reflected in the foreground objects. I'm sure that while it may create more work in some ways, it also makes it a lot less work in other ways.
It does seem like this technique would be perfect for reshoots in general though since there isn't the need to reconstruct a set.
While you have much more immersion compared to green screen, the perspective of the actor is going to be some really weirdly scaled and angled imagery, since it's all oriented to the camera.
What I really like about this technique is that I have used pretty much the same kind of concept before, working on a Lego Star Wars webcomic:
Though the quality cannot be compared and I only used my TV as the background, the advantages of matching lighting, reflections and not having to key the background out in post were evident back then already. Though ironically, I ended up replacing most the backgrounds anyway in later shots, as the nature of miniature photography made the backgrounds too much out of focus most of the times:
If I were to design those setups, I would have the background additionally lit with infrared light and capture that with an infrared camera during the performance as to get a perfect inverted alpha matte as well.
Though the quality cannot be compared and I only used my TV as the background, the advantages of matching lighting, reflections and not having to key the background out in post were evident back then already. Though ironically, I ended up replacing most the backgrounds anyway in later shots, as the nature of miniature photography made the backgrounds too much out of focus most of the times:
Me in 2017 said:
Depends on the kind of rework they have to do. Though automated rotoscoping tools are getting better and better, plus if you have the camera motion tracked via gyro and the clean background plate, you can achieve a pretty good difference matte, too.
If I were to design those setups, I would have the background additionally lit with infrared light and capture that with an infrared camera during the performance as to get a perfect inverted alpha matte as well.
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I guess I was underestimating how much manual labor is still necessary for normal green screens. It just seems like cleaning up green screen footage would be far less headache inducing than cleaning up footage that obstenibly looks like the final product. The above infrared idea sounds genius though.
In some ways, this is a fascinating blend of new and old tech, or at least the concepts behind old tech.
Super cool.
Super cool.
Well thank you kindly! Good thing I emailed the ASC asking which issue of their magazine this was in! D'OH!
Had no idea they used that!
The translight of 2020.
Shame the blending with some of the other effects didn't always work.
The translight of 2020.
Shame the blending with some of the other effects didn't always work.
Working on Phantom Menace was the reason that Liam retired for the 20th time.
Never forget.
I bet this is used in combination with CG after the fact to create a combined look that works. I can imagine this being a godsend for actors though, mich better than sitting in a giant green room
