Behind The Mandalorian and Grogu, there are visual effects that blend cutting-edge technology with old-school tricks in Hollywood.
Demystifying the film, the film’s VFX supervisor John Knoll said that director Jon Favreau wanted a retro approach.
The expert hinted at using a wider set of technologies and not being limited to stages like CGI or LED stages in film production.
“The best tool for the job—that’s always been the mantra of this show,” he told IndieWire.
Noll further explained, “One twist is that (director) Jon (Favreau) really likes a slightly handmade look.”
The visual effects supervisor, who had been working with Star Wars since The Phantom Menace, said he used a custom LED cube to film the miniature spaceship sequences.
“From the beginning of the series, I wanted an LED volume for shooting miniatures, so for this film we built an 8-foot-by-8-foot LED cube with one face open so we could get accurate reflections and realistic lighting on our characters and set in the camera.”
This, in turn, showed reflections on Mando’s armor and the Razor Crest starship.
He added, “I had this gorgeous 48-inch model of a bare metal ship, so if we’re flying through clouds, we made sure you saw the clouds reflecting off the side of the ship.”
“For the same reason, we’ll be shooting Mando in an LED environment instead of a blue screen, to get all those reflections on his highly polished armor.”
The Mandalorian and Grogu in theaters.
