Anna Daniels
Everybody is familiar with the tried and true method of matte painting in film — creating large, intricately painted backgrounds to blend the physical set with a simulated background for shooting. When the entertainment world shifted to more digital post-production, this process began operating backwards instead, sometimes so completely simulated there are no physically-constructed sets at all. Everything is draped in that characteristic green, and people talk to tennis balls hung on a string. We take it for granted now, but the bad texturing, mismatching perspective, and wooden camera work of early-2000s post-production effects isn’t that far behind us.
This new technology marries both eras of set production: pre-rendering entire environments, then projecting them onto LED screens that track the cinematographer’s camera filming in real-time with IR readers. One of The Mandalorian‘s two directors of photography, Greig Fraser, welcomes the technology in his interview with ICG Magazine: “It’s phenomenal because it gives so much power back to the cinematographer on set, as opposed to shooting in a green screen environment where things can get changed drastically in post.”
With StageCraft technology, the static two dimensions of traditional matte painting become dynamic. The LED screens onto which the background is projected is curved into a semicircle. It doesn’t just simulate an entire environment as if the camera exists within it, it can also be changed on the fly as the cinematographer wants or needs. The digital sun can stay at dusk all day, or change to high noon if so desired; perspective shifts with the camera’s focus. Now, a practical set can be built again as best fits the strengths of all possible methods. For example, part of the Mandalorian’s (Pedro Pascal) ship, the Razor Crest, was physically built for the sake of actors’ need to walk inside it, but the rendering environment meant the team didn’t have to build anything more than what was necessary for the tactile interaction.
Written by: Looper
