The Virtual Production of The Mandalorian Season One

A behind the scenes look at the groundbreaking virtual production technology used on The Mandalorian, Season One.

Over 50 percent of The Mandalorian Season 1 was filmed using this ground-breaking new methodology, eliminating the need for location shoots entirely. Instead, actors in The Mandalorian performed in an immersive and massive 20’ high by 270-degree semicircular LED video wall and ceiling with a 75’-diameter performance space, where the practical set pieces were combined with digital extensions on the screens. Digital 3D environments created by ILM played back interactively on the LED walls, edited in real-time during the shoot, which allowed for pixel-accurate tracking and perspective-correct 3D imagery rendered at high resolution via systems powered by NVIDIA GPUs. The  environments were lit and rendered from the perspective of the camera to provide parallax in real-time, as if the camera were really capturing the physical environment with accurate interactive light on the actors and practical sets, giving showrunner Jon Favreau, executive producer and director Dave Filoni, visual effects supervisor Richard Bluff, and cinematographers Greig Fraser and Barry Baz Idoine, and the episodic directors the ability to make concrete creative choices for visual effects-driven work during photography and achieve real-time in-camera composites on set.

The technology and workflow required to make in-camera compositing and effects practical for on-set use combined the ingenuity of partners such as Golem Creations, Fuse, Lux Machina, Profile Studios, and ARRI together with ILM’s StageCraft virtual production filmmaking platform and ultimately the real-time interactivity of the Unreal Engine platform.

[Lines]

The disney+ page for mandalorian has only the trailer. They need more stuff like this. Documentaries, commentary ...

[lifeinsf]

"The ability to shoot a 10-hour dawn" was the real eye-opener for me. Shooting a sunrise or sunset always seemed like such a time-sensitive crap-shoot, and now you just film/create the perfect moment and re-live it as many times as you need. Incredible.

[bicky]

"We really wanted to take Star Wars to the next level, so we built a holodeck."

[blenderguru]

Incredible. This might replace the green screen one day.

[dindjarjarin]

I honestly thought these scenes were shot on location, and I have a 4K tv. This is awesome

[beckamodeo]

most developers overuse the word "mind blowing" but this is actually mind blowing. using a game engine to make the sets is genius!

[Leprechaunproduction]

I love that line about being able to do sunrise shots for ten hours; this really is a game-changing technology, and I can't wait to see where it goes. Even better, I can't wait for the inevitable home version that will let hobbyists and amateur filmmakers create their own epic sets without having to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on props or location shoots.

[checotey]

come on guys, this report of new technologies you came up with, would have easily filled a 60 minutes video, at least. we love to watch these videos, so come and help us out here!! but thx 4 this video though

[ZachFoxPhotography]

there are some extremely cool moments in here that they don't even talk about...!


like the moment at 3:40. as the camera moves, the geometry in the background on the LED wall shifts to create a very specific kind of shot that only works when viewed from the 2d perspective of the camera. that is some incredible attention to detail. i love it!

[DanteYewToob]

Holy shit.
I'm almost speechless. That is absolutely incredible.
It reminds me of the cool sets used for Oblivion but taken to a whole new insane level.
I absolutely need to go rewatch the show now and see if I can tell where this was used.

[superdougie]

This is almost like a real life holodeck! Incredible!😮

[Nardril]

Crazy that realtime graphics have come so far

[angrydalek]

Everyone thinks Star Wars is George Lucas’s only Legacy. Without George Lucas, there’d be no ILM.

[StarWarrior]

Knowing how it’s done the final product still completely fools me. It looks 100% real. Congratulations

[rade-blunner]

So this is the thing Bill Burr's been raving about in interviews. I've seen examples of this done before in recent years, but onto a single, flat wall, not to this scale. That it could be also used to actually create the insides of a room is surprising, doesn't it mean the projected room is actually smaller than the space it's projected into? I suppose that doesn't matter when it's tracking the camera position.

For all the talking in this video, which is clearly a promotional tool for this technology, I feel the visuals didn't actually demonstrate what was going on very clearly. I guess this is intentional?

[lucatorta]

ILM proving once again to be the absolute Grand Masters in terms of VFX. with you guys, Jon, Dave (true visionaries like George) and the rest of the crew, Mando is in very good hands. This is the way!

[adolfopena]

This NEEDS to win the Emmy for Best Visual effects. And I also want a nomination for Best Original Score.

[ZakEmber]

I work in Los Angeles in TV and Film, and I can NOT overstate how game-changing this is! This has the potential to re-write the book on filming big-budget shows. So much time is lost in a day due to rearranging the lighting, cameras, actors, etc. With this technology, you move the WORLD. It's incredible, and it's only going to get better!

[CinematographyDatabase]

so happy they released this BTS footage <3

[_MaZTeR_]

Prequels or the original trilogy with this short of tech... Would be a dream.