Extending a Decor: (Very) Special Work - Text 9
This new technology, developed in particular for Jon Favreau’s Disney+ series The Mandalorian (2019-20) by the visual effects company ILM and called StageCraft (a screen six metres high and twenty-two metres long, curved to encompass the stage in a 270-degree arc) is based on old principles involved in the use of backdrops, painted decors, rear-screen projection and front projection. It is more easily adapted to mise en scène choices during the film shoot, thanks to creation engines derived from the video game industry (the 3D Unreal Engine produced by the Epic Games company). With this system the actors, filmmaker and production designer can see and interact directly with the projected decor, something not possible with blue and green screens. And because what is shown on the LED walls is computed and shown in real time, all the camera movements, actors’ movements and images on the LED screens match. Parallax and lighting are computed and shown during the shooting, based on the positions of the camera and the actor, to obtain a result close to that of shooting in a real decor.
The use of “visible” images on the film set, without the viewer noticing any great difference with other films of the same kind and with equivalent resources, appears to be a practice which could gradually become widespread in coming years, thanks to the creation of a dynamic immersive environment which is entirely interactive and photographically realistic.
These extensions of “visible” decors thus appear to meet a need which has existed since cinema’s beginnings, with the use in particular of painted or three-dimensional models, or the rear-screen projection of backgrounds. The evolution and transformation of technologies, whether these are apparent or not – because the use of blue or green screens is still dominant – do not call into question the essential question around the use of trick effects in a film’s set design: that of creating one from scratch or extending a decor, if not an environment or an entire world, in the most credible manner in the eyes and mind of the viewer, using methods which can meet the needs at one and the same time of an artistic vision, economic cost and the working conditions of the film crew.
