01x06 - Process

[bunniefuu]

What's the cargo?

Only passengers.

Myself, the boy, two droids

And no questions asked.

What is it? Some kind of local trouble?

I remember

seeing Star Wars over and over,

and the formula was one

that I didn't know yet.

I didn't have a frame of reference

of the source.

So that was my entry

into all of the things

that helped create Star Wars.

So through that,

I learned about the western.

Through that,

I learned about samurai films.

What I pitched when I went in, I said,

"I don't want to be influenced

so much by Star Wars.

"Want to be consistent with Star Wars,

"but I want to be influenced

by what influenced George,

"so let's look at the samurai movies.

"Let's really look at Kurosawa films."

And that kind of led

to the whole Lone Wolf and Cub thing

that also felt like

it applied in certain ways.

We kind of had a primer of westerns.

He would come up with movies.

"Have you seen this?"

And I'd be like, "No, but we should go

over this trilogy again and watch this."

And just kind of dissecting

what makes them tick.

The beautiful simplicity,

yet really underlying complex

characterizations that you get in them.

Definitely, there's a Star Wars vibe

to any of them if you look at them.

I mean, look at Han Solo.

He's just dressed like a gunslinger.

I don't know who you are

or where you came from,

but from now on,

you do as I tell you, okay?

Look, Your Worshipfulness,

let's get one thing straight.

I take orders from just one person. Me.

It's a wonder you're still alive.

We'd get together,

throw out a bunch of ideas,

work on the logic,

and then he would suss it out

and come up with a script.

Once the script was written,

the first step was to storyboard.

The directors and the producers

would oversee the storyboarding process.

We had a story department

headed up by Dave Lowery.

And we would get our first look at it

in animatic form with pencil drawings,

and we would iterate the story

and watch it as one solid piece

using temporary dialogue and effects.

Let's get out of here!

Stand your ground!

Once we arrived upon something

that worked well in pencil,

we would then go to pre-vis.

When I came here and

saw the way that they were using pre-vis,

I was like, "This is so exciting!"

The way that I've seen

pre-vis used in the past, as an actor,

is that when there's a scene

where there's a lot of visual effects

And typically it's,

like, an action sequence

where, when you're sh**ting it,

you need to be very precise.

Filmmakers will create something called

pre-vis, which is pre-visualization,

and it's basically like a mock-up

of what the sequence would be.

And it's incredibly helpful.

It was the first week

we were on The Volume.

And you and I were sat next to each other,

and I think I asked you the question,

"What's been the most eye-opening part?"

What you mentioned

is that you can go into editorial

- and see the story better and clearer.

- Yes. Yes.

And I think you were maybe referencing

And that makes storytelling much tighter.

And the closer we get

to that animation process,

where you can iterate on story longer,

there's a permanence to live-action

that requires that

when you're on that set,

doesn't mean you can't go back

and reshoot certain things,

but for the most part,

what you're doing is permanent.

- Yeah.

- And then you have to move on.

And anything about the process

that allows you to iterate

longer on story is

That's gonna make for better movies.

It forces the filmmakers to commit early

and understand and fail early

when it's cheap and easy.

It's what you learn from animation,

going back to Snow White,

there's still a scene that they talk about

being on the cutting room floor.

The idea that anything

That there's any waste in animation

is just antithetical to the culture.

That's why we plan everything.

And that's why I involved

visual effects from the beginning

like as though

you're my production designer

- They need to be there from the beginning.

- Yes.

So that it's not just thought

of as a post exercise.

It is fascinating to listen to

live-action people talk about this process

as someone from animation,

'cause then I go back to

where all the other animators are,

and we get together, and we're like,

"They're really talking

about the process we do."

They said 50.

Races age differently.

Perhaps it could live many centuries.

We'll never know.

We bring it in alive.

The commission was quite specific.

The asset was to be terminated.

Something that happened on this

show that's very, very, very unique

is that Jon created a workflow

where we could actually have pre-vis,

but for the whole episode,

for every episode.

Now, that's something that is not done,

and the reason why

it was done in this case

is because of The Volume

and because of all the visual effects

and all the things that need to be

rendered way in advance of sh**ting.

We needed to have a pre-vis,

basically, for

Even though it's not necessarily

an action shot

or what you would consider

a visual effect shot.

Because it exists in The Volume,

it's a visual effect shot.

All of the technology

that we're using

is dependent upon

planning everything with pre-vis,

and we combine that

with what I had learned

on Jungle Book and Lion King,

which was plan everything

ahead of time with mo-cap,

figure out a cut, and then figure out

what live-action shots you need.

Build the minimum set,

and in the case of Jungle Book,

you had green screen,

and so you'd build

a whole digital environment.

You'd sh**t on a cookie-cutter set,

line it up with the motion capture camera,

and combine the green screen

with the environment that was digital,

and Mowgli and the little piece of set

would lay in

against the digital characters

and background.

We took it a step further here.

Go!

On The Mandalorian, we departed

from the normal pre-vis pipeline

by using virtual cinema,

which was a technique that we developed

and refined on The Lion King.

It uses game engine

to allow the actual crew

to operate camera equipment

within the virtual world

in order to record performances

by either actors or stand-ins,

and then we do camera capture

on top of it,

using equipment that's normally used

to do photography,

but instead, we've encoded it

so that we could record cinematic moves

within the virtual environment.

The directors had the opportunity

to get involved

much earlier than you normally would

on a television show.

We combined them

with their crew and their editors,

and together, they would come up with

a first cut of the show

using virtual cinema.

Sometimes they would direct people

in, uh, motion-capture suits

to get a first take

at what their vision might be.

Sometimes they would work

with the stunt team,

capturing some stunt performances

using motion capture,

and they would have the opportunity

to put cameras on it

and cut it together and get a first look

so we could tech-vis the episode

and figure out what we needed

to build and prepare

for the actual filming.

The real advantage was that

it allowed us all to come together

and look at a first cut of the episode

done using this process,

and although it looked like

a video game at first

and there were no real people in it,

it gave us a sense of how the story flowed

to see if we needed to do

any rewrites or adjustments

before we actually hit the stage

and started filming.

The whole goal

was to treat this whole sh**t

like we would have

on a superhero film reshoot,

where you knew everything

and what the story needed,

because I've never been on

a more efficient set

than, like, the Iron Man reshoots.

Because you filmed it.

You did all the planning. You shot it.

Got some visual effects going.

You cut it together.

You can't get it to be perfect.

You're like, "If we only had

another week or two, we could"

Yeah. On the Thor reshoots,

I think we did something insane, like

In, like, five days, like,

360 shots or something.

'Cause, like, you're just like,

"This is all glue now.

This is just the bits I need."

- They're really in.

- You're efficient, 'cause

Yep. 'Cause you know what it is.

In principal, you're like,

"Let's keep it running.

"It's a shot of this glass going

on the table, but who knows what else

"We'll be open

to whatever can happen."

And on the reshoots, you're like,

"Got it. Don't need another one.

It's just a shot of the glass.

"That's all we wanted,

and it fixed everything."

And so, by having us film in VR

or with pre-vis,

depending on which sequences they were

That's what was so good

about having you, too,

is coming from animation,

everything is pre-vis.

- Everything.

- So you could jump in there,

and for stuff like the mudhorn sequence

or air-to-air,

stuff where there's not actors there,

you can help translate the vision

at the director's end.

- Just an animated movie.

- And then also, when we're doing

and we refined it even more for this.

Now we have the MVN suits,

which we started on your episode.

- With the fight.

- How did that go?

This experience

was completely different for me

'cause I come from independent film

and smaller films,

and there was no boards.

You just sort of go in, you're writing,

and you're with your team of bandits,

you go make your movie.

And so the whole process of pre-vis

and building the story out beforehand,

uh, was new to me.

So it was like, "Oh, I wish

"That's what happens when you get money.

"You can actually make the movie first."

Actually plan.

It's such a better way to do stunt-vis

'cause it's like they're not trying

to do some video

and make all those camera angles

that I don't want.

It's like, I can put the cameras in

and just get the action.

Drive.

Drive!

It's a very different experience

from all other television I've done.

Having the prep time.

Normally, you're getting,

eight, nine days, then you're sh**ting.

This, I was on it for two months

before I started,

and we pre-vis'd the entire episode.

So even if, when we hit the set

and we hit the ground,

we're pressed for time

and running and gunning

at least we've had the time

to really develop the material

and really, sort of,

creatively put it together

so that we are really dialed in,

not trying to figure it out on the day.

We're trying to execute it.

So that's been pretty amazing.

Please. No. No, no.

I did episode three, and it felt

very much like a cross

between a western and a samurai movie.

That was my first thought,

a gunslinger with a samurai code.

They all hate you, Mando.

Because you're a legend!

A lot of my prep work

in developing it, getting ready for it

was going back and watching

a ton of Kurosawa, who I love.

the strongest reference for it

in terms of the stand-off on the street

and a lot of the way we shot it.

Welcome back, Mando!

The stand-off was a lot of action.

It was intense.

And action!

It took a lot of planning

because I think we had over 25

bounty hunters running around,

and then the Mandalorians land.

It was three days.

Then we ended up doing

additional photography on it as well.

It was a lot to keep track of,

that's where you start to feel

if this was a big feature

and we were doing a huge movie,

we'd probably have two weeks for it,

we had three days,

you have to really work

within the constraints

to make it work under that guise,

but you're still trying to deliver

the quality of a big feature.

It's Star Wars and action.

You really can't deliver anything

that's not up to par.

That was the challenge with that,

but it was pretty fun.

There was a moment,

I think, in day two or three.

We had shot so many zirc hits,

done many explosions

and started to run out.

It was getting to the point where we were

trying to preserve them

because we couldn't get any more

at that point

'cause of the licenses

on ammunition and whatnot.

We shot off, I think over 7,000 rounds

of zirc hits alone in those days.

It's crazy.

- This is the Way.

- This is the Way.

What was fascinating from my perspective

was this dojo that we had,

that we had a new style

that we were coming up with together

and everybody was bringing

their own special talents to it,

and every one of you brought

a whole different set of skills.

And what you may have seen as,

"Oh, this is the way Jon wants to do it,"

was really

all of us having separate conversations,

and that informing the next conversation

I had. So it was a very organic process.

And all of it was spent

facing the challenge of,

how do you get something ready

with a lot of prep time

and not a lot of post time

relative to a film?

How do you borrow

from the culture of animation

that I was already exploring

through Jungle Book and Lion King?

And having Dave now

Something

I was trying to reverse engineer,

"How would Pixar do this?"

Then I had somebody who said,

"Oh, this is how you interact

with a pre-vis department."

And all of that informed a cut,

and that cut became the Rosetta Stone

for us to move forward with.

And by the end of it was much different.

In the beginning, a lot of it was you

giving direction to a pre-vis department,

the THIRD FLOOR guys.

By the end, it was you with stunt people

in MVN suits

- which are gaming mo-cap suits

- Exactly.

in a set that we taped off to fit

exactly what the VR version of it was,

- and you did all the fight sequences.

- Yeah.

Can you talk about that for a sec?

I wasn't on set for a lot

- Talk about it.

- "Talk about it"?

- Stop holding back.

- I'm holding this stuff back.

Yes, I know.

Um, no, and that was, again,

when it started to get

Not that it wasn't fun to begin with,

but it was a different level

of how you could use this

because now we were

Now I could go immediately

from what was in my head

to talking to stunt coordinator

and his players,

and having that captured in real time

and putting that right into the pre-vis.

And so now it's not

You would set cameras

on top of that.

We're setting cameras

I was watching the cuts

as if you had shot it already.

Exactly. And now it's not,

you're having a conversation

with THIRD FLOOR and Chris.

You're now creating that on the fly,

and so it was

and I remember when you were like,

"We're gonna play with this on this."

I was excited because it was

- You were the first.

- Yeah, we had talked about

some of the fight stuff that I like,

and we both have a certain affinity

for samurai and kung fu films,

and so, you know, this was like,

"Okay, we can actually do this

with our guys in the moment,

- "as we would for an"

- What sequence was that

This was a sequence

when Mando is going to break out

going to break out Xi'an,

and so he's going through the prison,

and there are tons of prison guard droids

that come out of nowhere

and start attacking them.

And Bill Burr being his self, goes,

"Oh, you know Mando.

"He's supposed to be

this ultimate warrior.

"What you gonna do?"

And the next thing you know,

Mando jumps into action,

and he starts taking down

every single droid

with his Mando bag of tricks, and so

That's when we had to change the droids.

Remember?

I was selling them, "We'll have droids,

"but they're gonna be floating droids."

- Then it was

- They were big buckets,

- I'd say trash buckets.

- You said,

"I could coordinate some stuff

or do some choreography.

"We could use arms and legs."

- Doug Chiang, could you draw some, um

- Yeah.

And now, by the way,

so you had human performers,

and now when you see the sequence,

it's

What's crazy

is it was what we shot that day,

you know, so it's still

that session that we had.

I think it was stage 17 taped off,

and it's still that sequence.

So you filmed it there with taped off.

You could pop into VR.

Saw all the action.

Set cameras, did a cut,

did it, filmed it for real.

- Exactly.

- And, uh

We didn't have any of that on Jungle Book.

So now it's like, how can you use

these tools to inform this process?

It was really good. Now we're doing that

for every scene, season two.

Yeah, now that's exciting,

'cause I'm gonna jump back in

and do some stuff, once I get the script.