Star Wars: The Mandalorian

[Hammock Parties]

Jon Favreau is directing this live-action TV series.

Looks TIGHT.

Production on the first Star Wars live-action streaming series has begun!

After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in the Star Wars universe. The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic.

The series will be written and executive produced by Emmy-nominated producer and actor Jon Favreau, as previously announced, with Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels) directing the first episode.

Additional episodic directors include Deborah Chow (Jessica Jones), Rick Famuyiwa (Dope), Bryce Dallas Howard (Solemates), and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok).

It will be executive produced by Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Kathleen Kennedy, and Colin Wilson. Karen Gilchrist will serve as co-executive producer. Stay tuned to StarWars.com for updates.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Everyone has to sign an NDA to work on projects like these so it's really all about the budget and the time involved. Although, I will say that due to COVID, there have been very few leaks about, well, anything Disney and Marvel related and that's because no one with half a brain would email or text "Inside Info" and leaks.

Those are best left to face-to-face meetings so there's no electronic trail. That's the reason why I've had so little info this year because I haven't really been allowed to see anyone, outside of those in my household. I mean, I knew about the 10 new Star Wars TV series and a few other things but I was given very little detail.

Speaking of NDA's, I had to sign an NDA in August just to see who I'd potentially be working with and for! That's the level of secrecy these days in Hollywood. You'd think I was being passed national secrets!

I have to sign an average of 5-6 NDA’s to even talk to them about a position, contract etc.
I have multiple 75 year NDA’s in place or it’s Leavenworth and a military trial. I worked at 5 Fortune 50 companies that got ransomware’d within a year helping them recover, not a peep in the press. I say anything, mention on the resume, bankruptcy and teams of lawyers will be unleashed in me. So needless to say..... NDA’s are no big deal to me. Just business.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by notorious

I can only imagine how much it helps the actors to see their surroundings.

I watched how the prequels were made and it shows exactly why the actors were shall we say, cold and withdrawn.

Yes, I know they weren't the best actors, but it's got to be hard to act when you are surrounded by nothing but green yet told to act like there is a lot of sci-fi shit going on around you.

Game of Thrones actors did okay with a lot of green screen. Pretending to sit on dragons etc.

[Tribal Warfare]

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Game of Thrones actors did okay with a lot of green screen. Pretending to sit on dragons etc.

The Star Wars prequels were 90% Blue and Green screen. They had very few on location shots and rarely worked on practical sets.

It was a technological breakthrough, because no one had really ever filmed entire feature films in front of a green screen and no one else had filmed big budget feature films with Digital cameras, either.

Those movies, as panned as they were/are, really ushered in a new age of filmmaking.

That said, the actors definitely struggled with the green screen, as did Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell in Pan.

Spielberg had to work extremely hard with her because she was absolutely miserable during filming. I've never seen the film but supposedly, it's one of the worst, if not the worst, performance of her career.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Dude, while I greatly appreciate the kind words, the last thing I want to do with my life is to go back to Admin and give up creating every day.

My soul was dying while making other people's dreams come true.

Yeah, Star Wars needs to find its Feige/Lou Esposito combo.

For all the attention Feige gets, my slightly informed impression is that Lou runs a lot of interference (or at least did at the beginning) to make sure the creative vision is allowed to be set up.

[underEJ]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Well here’s the thing, and UnderEJ is certainly far better suited to speak about VFX than I am, but “touching up” an already completed visual effect is a very, very different process than actually creating the effect. That takes a team of people working together with a singular vision and those people are "True" artists.

I mean, anyone can take a great photo and change it to look “better”, although 'better' is often times in the eye of the beholder. But creating a person's face using Motion Capture hardware and software while making it look “believable” is a completely different process altogether.

For me, the audio/visual sync was off on the DF version and immediately took me right out of the scene, which made it far more distracting than the original.

MoCap is getting better and better each year with faster processors and there are claims that Apple’s new ARM chip advances rendering time and complicated processes like these to a new level, so the future is brighter than ever before.

You pretty much got that right on. I just looked at the credits and while most of the work was done by ILM, there are a few other vendors listed. All seem to be trusted lucas/disney/marvel insiders so the work really could have gone to any of them.

I am pretty certain there is a color pass that may have done some damage to the vfx shot on its way to the final output. Somewhere an artist is seething, going "yea we had some trouble with it, but it didn't look THAT bad!"

Here's the other thing. We're all going to have to cut some slack for work created in 2020 because, and I can speak from the experience of closing a show during this pandemic, it has never been harder. Not everyone gets to look at it at full quality because everyone is remote. Even when you do get to physically go into the post vendors to check things, their operators are remote and playback is not frame by frame or even very easy to ask for stopping and backing up. Controlling the hardware of people at home on their own systems is impossible so some monitors are terrible. I feel bad for the team that did this. Every one of those companies has top people. It isn't because they couldn't it in a normal circumstance.

Conveniently the biggest thing I missed that actually made it into theaters is only in the right eye of the 3D version. And no one is really going to see the 3D version. We fixed it for the archive of that version in case they do a rerelease after the pandemic or something.

[listopencil]

Something I wondered about when it happened but blew off at the time because the dramatic impact of it was awesome, the Dark Troopers sensing Luke when he showed up:

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by listopencil

Something I wondered about when it happened but blew off at the time because the dramatic impact of it was awesome, the Dark Troopers sensing Luke when he showed up:

I didn’t watch the video, but you know, proximity sensors exist. Alarms went off in the ship. They’re obviously linked into the ship because they activated them from the bridge.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I didn’t watch the video, but you know, proximity sensors exist. Alarms went off in the ship. They’re obviously linked into the ship because they activated them from the bridge.

It is that simple.

This guy has quite the imagination.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I didn’t watch the video, but you know, proximity sensors exist. Alarms went off in the ship. They’re obviously linked into the ship because they activated them from the bridge.

The Empire can build amazingly scary and nearly indestructible battle droids but apparently, they haven't come up with LED technology or color cameras because Baby Yoda was watching Luke on an old 10" Black & White CRT.



Of course, that was "symbolism" for those of us in the 70's that watched Obi Wan & Vader on B&W TV's on ABC broadcasts but I still found it funny.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

The Empire can build amazingly scary and nearly indestructible battle droids but apparently, they haven't come up with LED technology or color cameras because Baby Yoda was watching Luke on an old 10" Black & White CRT.



Of course, that was "symbolism" for those of us in the 70's that watched Obi Wan & Vader on B&W TV's on ABC broadcasts but I still found it funny.

They still use the basic lcd graphic displays in their ships while targeting in dogfights, too.

Love it.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by notorious

They still use the basic lcd graphic displays in their ships while targeting in dogfights, too.

Love it.

Yeah, it's definitely part of the charm.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

The Empire can build amazingly scary and nearly indestructible battle droids but apparently, they haven't come up with LED technology or color cameras because Baby Yoda was watching Luke on an old 10" Black & White CRT.

You know what I ****ing loved about the VFX in this scene?

They made the lightsabers look almost exactly like they looked in the OT.

When viewed from certain angles there was always a lot of weird distortion on how the lightsaber looked due to the rotoscoping or the flash tape or something.

They incorporated that beautifully into the finale - when there is a tendency to try to make everything look perfect instead most of the time. Like the ST.

It was particularly noticeable on the TV screens on the bridge.

[InChiefsHeaven]

Well, all I know as a fan of the OT and a person who has suffered through every damn Star Wars movie made since, I love the hell out of the Mandalorian. I know there is some deeper shit, like with the Jedi chick with the 2 swords, Mof Gidien and all that but I can tell you as a "casual" Star Wars fan, it has everything I want and more.

I'm SHOCKED at how good this thing is. Given how screwed up and incoherent all the other movies are, I was a late comer to this series. I heard about "baby Yoda" and just about puked. Then I watched it...with my WIFE...and we both love it.

Crazy good. Can't wait for the next season.

[Hammock Parties]

Baby Yoda works because Baby Yoda is a vehicle for the audience to enjoy the story.

We are Baby Yoda, searching for our Star Wars hero, yearning for Luke Skywalker.

JJ more or less tried the same approach with his fun new cast but it only worked for one movie.

You can't make Baby Yoda the STAR of the show. Then it gets stupid and annoying.

Imagine how awful Mando is if Baby Yoda, with no training, is saving the day constantly.