Excellent points - video well made. Thank you!

Anakin was right sand does get everywhere

W, something that also makes it shrink is that all the characters know each other and meet each other like there isn't 100 quintillion people in the galaxy

I’ve noticed that the concept art in the credits scenes is damn beautiful I can’t help but think “damn, the episode I just watched looks lifeless compared to this”

Andor had the same budget as Obi Wan Kenobi, did not use the volume at all, and looked phenomenal, and is really proof that these shows CAN look interesting

You'd be surprised how many models, miniatures, and physical props were used in the prequals. More miniatures were created for each one of the prequels than for the entire original trilogy combined.

I have been watching a lot of Better Call Saul lately and despite them having filmed so much of the New Mexico desert for over a decade (including Breaking Bad) every single location looks absolutely beautiful and unique every single time. Even the episode of Saul and Mike being stranded in the desert is shot entirely on location. There is zero excuse for how much featureless sand there is in Star Wars even using green screen.

The Batman is a great example of The Volume being used well. I remember due to covid a good portion of The Batman ended up being shot using The Volume.

This is definitely something you notice sub conciously whilst watching the disney+ shows, everything is framed the same way and you can tell from the cuts that they can only walk like 10 meters and then the shot cuts (it's painfully obvious in the obi wan show in the chase scenes) it makes everything feel cramped and enclosed

The planet Felucia appears for only a couple minutes at the end of ROTS to serve as a background for a minor character to die during Order 66 and it still feels more unique, beautiful and above all alien than any world shown in any Disney era Star Wars work

Another reason why I believe Andor is a modern masterpiece and arguably the best Star Wars project Disney has produced. Certainly the best thing on Disney+....

Hopefully Andor will look much better since it’s shot on practical sets. What I’ve seen so far has looked really good

I think Andor is an exception. It has really varied environments. Yet another reason why I think it's the best Star Wars show ever, and possibly the best visual media in the entire line up.

Unfortunately a lot of these clips of desert stuff you use as an example weren't even shot on the Volume, particularly a lot of the early Boba Fett with the Tuskan Raiders scenes. It still looks bland because it was shot on a small desert set outside surrounded by blue/green screens instead of a real desert, but they still had to shoot it in real sunlight because the Volume can't actually get that bright...

I hope "the volume" will be a technology that becomes more available for smaller studios, and indie projects. I feel like this is the kind of technology that could really bridge the gap between high and low budget film making, allowing for indie film makers to be more ambitious, and to finally get something that isn't mass produced Perhaps we'll see a pivot in the film industry, like we're seeing a pivot in the games industry? Where the availability of technology has allowed indie developers to, in many ways, surpass AAA studios in both quality and innovation, despite having lower production value.

I've been thinking about this as I've watched Mandalorian and Book of Boba. Not to mention the new Trilogy which had more than it's fair share of sandy deserts. It's really annoying actually. I know Tattooine is significant as the planet that Anakin and Luke grew up on, and of course Return of the Jedi revisited the location, but why does it always come back to Tattooine even in the new TV shows? One of the Hutts in Book of Boba even said "Tattooine is a worthless rock" and I was like...finally someone said it! Why are so many of the characters coincidentally spending so much time there? It looks dreadful, and it seems like the only reason anyone goes there is necessity, or to get away with crime. There should be tons of other remote planets that are more pleasant (not to mention less dangerous) than friggin' Tattooine. But like you said, the characters keep ending up on sand planets. I could also nitpick about Star Wars planets being super homogenous- obviously our own planet has all these diverse locations that help to inspire people's imaginations to come up with locations for sci-fi and fantasy, but it does strike me as a little funny that Star Wars likes to portray every planet as 100% desert (Tattooine), 100% city (Coruscant), 100% forest or swamp (Dagobah, Endor) when realistically any planet that supports life would probably be similar to our own. Maybe it's just done for simplicity. But it is a little strange.

The Volume is great for avoiding some of the most annoying difficulties with compositing backgrounds, like lighting. When using green screen, the light on set has an unavoidable, well, green hue. Using color correction tools, this can be negated, but never 100% perfectly. There's also the issue of light wrap, how the light from the background should bend around the subjects in the foreground. Again, there are tools, developed over decades, to correct for this, but they are not 100% perfect either. The Volume makes all of this irrelevant, because the background already has the color and light that it's supposed to have, so you get that matching and light-wrapping in camera. What the Volume demands to be used effectively is that all of the things you mention, the detail, the creativity in building out the world, in lighting, in camera movement and framing, all of it needs to be planned and executed in preproduction rather than post. The Volume needs to be set up to support whatever camera moves and whatever lighting the team has planned. Unfortunately, planning and executing things like this in preproduction puts the cost upfront, which studios don't like. They'd rather hold off on all expenses until the last minute to see what they can get away with not spending. Thus the fix-it-in-post mentality. So they go with the approach that you're complaining about. Bland, flat cinematography that, while much more adaptable, is also far more generic as a result. As in most things, it's not the technology (ie the Volume) that is to blame. It's the lack of artistic ambition, which is a far bigger problem in the modern corporate world of film/TV production. And now they even want to move toward AI creating their content, making even less room for unique creative vision.

The Planets,the Vehicles, Lightsaber duals,Creatures,Various Aliens,Cool Characters and mostly the story... Almost everything in Modern Star Wars is shrinking..

Contrary to popular belief, the PT used way more practical models than the OT. It's just that Lucas used the PT to market his innovations in digital filmmaking, giving them this association that they're less practical. Nevertheless both the OT and PT hold up pretty well visually to this day, in great part because both used practical models. But the PT could push the boundaries further with the green screen and cgi innovations.

I swear, it looks like everything takes place on Tatooine in Disney canon. Your explanation really hammers in how Disney has abandoned worldbuilding for profit.

I also noticide this in The Mandalorian S3E6: the episode where Mando and Bo-Katan are on the planet Plaizir-15, looking for the Mandalorian mercenaries. When they finally meet them, they are all sitting in the grass, while they have a fleeg with huge ships in the background.

If they’re going to use the sand environments, they could do what Dune did and match the colour of the “green screen” with the colour of the setting, eg sand coloured screen. That movie looked amazing

fun fact in andor all of mon mothmas house scenes where made with the volume proving that if only a bit of effort is put in you can have a great backround

The first few episodes of Mandalorian I saw with the volume really impressed me. But it didn't take more than five, six episodes before it started to feel like a gimmick. After a while, your brain starts to automatically deconstruct the shot, looking for the seams. It became a distraction really quickly. For every shot my brain immediately looked for, and usually found, the edge of the floor and the start of the projection. The quality of the shot itself is of course a lot better, but I truly feel like the Star Wars streaming shows have the same vibe as those (often quite well done, considering) fan Star Trek shows, where they put amateur actors in cosplay uniforms, one physical captain's chair and clearly shot on a greenscreen set the size of someone's kitchen. It doesn't help of course that the stories (Andor being the obvious exception, and they only used the volume when it made sense) are so weirdly unfocussed and boring. The replay value of Mandalorian, Boba or Obi Wan is lower than, for example, a low budget British 1970s sci fi show like Blake's 7, that had embarrassingly cheaply created sets, absolutely pathetic special effects, but you just don't even see that after ten minutes because the stories and the acting are so engaging.

This perfectly explains why I’ve been so bored watching the shows despite interesting things happening on screen, I remember showing my friends the mandalorian and the main takeaway being “man walks around desert on boring sky for many hours”

The good thing is that visuals aren't everything and as long as the story is good the show can still be enjoyable. That being said, in my opinion the Book of Boba Fett and Kenobi did not really deliver on that either :( Hopefully Andor can change that. And there is also The Bad Batch which as an animated show can have much more freedom in terms of art direction.

"overdependency" is the key word. Otherwise, it's an amazing technology.

Episode 3 CG honestly looks better than a lot of modern movies, especially from Marvel. The clones look damn good.

You should make a video about Andor, it looks real good and actually effort put into that project and it seems they don't use volume like in TBoBF and Kenobi or Mandalorian. They actually go into real places, film in real enviroments and put actual high effort into these sets and it just looks fantastic. Also it elevates the storytelling, in these other shows when something looks off the story itself breaks with it too.

Andor uses the Volume in new ways. Like cars being flown through Coruscant and having all the reflections of the buildings on the hoof and bouncing inside the interior. There's the vistas from these massive penthouses, and there's often rain on the windows, not to obscure anything but to get more infinitely complex light reflections on camera.

I think it is a bit strange to blame the volume for what is clearly an issue of bad art direction, lack of creative vision, and horrible writing. For instance, Obi Wan's biggest downfall was that it was paced horribly and the action didn't sell most of the time. I also think that it is simply the nature of TV to be a faster pace production with less time to get small details right compared to movies. It has always been this way and that is another huge reason why these shows turn out kind of bland. I am also a VFX artist and I do find it kind of strange for someone to be think we should move towards more heavy bluescreen use instead of forward into something new.

Sand is coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere in modern Disney Star Wars.

Animation never has this problem 💪

I mean Obi-Wan had that shaddy city planet. And even showed us alderan

This is an excellent explanation of the blandness and lack of energy we are all noticing in these shows. The point about the sky was like a light bulb moment. That's why it feels fake, even when we can't explain exactly why.

Andor just proved that filming in that dome takes away so much from the final product.

This was made before Andor; which didn’t use the volume, and looked amazing

Excellent video bro, I would pick practical sets over the volume any day.

The Volume is new technology that every film maker wants to play with. They're still working out the kinks, and finding out how to best use it, and when to avoid using it. Of course TV shows may not actually have the luxury of being able to avoid using it.

The next time they film Tatooine, they should go to an actual desert.

Sorry I'm a bit late to the video but you made some fantastic points. I can't unsee it now!!! Now I understand why all the shots look the same. You can see a stark difference in Andor though!

Ah yes, my favorite Star Wars planets: Tatooine, Tatooine again, a planet that looks exactly like Tatooine but isn't Tatooine, Tatooine again again...

Prequels have backgrounds that you can still find small details in it years and years later, while Disney Star Wars after you see it the first time you've seen all it has to show which is a shame. Star Wars had a massive universe that could tell so many stories from the main one to environmental stories all in the background, nowadays it's clear they have no clue what they are doing when the backgrounds are just dead to focus more on the people infront of it. Great video, pretty much why i have no interest in Disney Star Wars.

the funny thing is that i did not really watch the newest star wars content but still understand your point perfectly well just from the videos about the sw content

In Star Wars the same small group of people are involved in every major event that happens in their Universe.

I hate when a planet is reduced to a single city like Navarro… the only planet I think that truly feels like a whole planet is Naboo… Coruscant MAYBE

The green screen criticism of the prequels is misplaced. Kamino was not a 3D render. The water was rendered but the structures were miniatures built by the team that eventually went on to star in Mythbusters among others. They also made the Geonosis coliseum in miniature, and I believe parts of Coruscant were miniatures as well.

Personally, the ONLY thing that bothered me a lot was the scale of Mando and Boba's Book- we are shown huge cities in single shots yet action feels like entire damn planets have literally single towns and villages, all the time. We are shown that about 100-200 pirates are invading a whole planet which, somehow appears to have literally a single trade town. Number of Mandalorians left could be reasoned with, so whatever. But I just cant get over the fact that from what we are told, second largest city on Tattooine can be taken by another 100-200 Pyke guys and they have literally 3 droids too. Feels cheap all the time ngl it really feels that way. Its not just about scale but come on, thats dirty

I had been looking for a breakdown of “why” the volume has lead to so much of recent Disney productions looking the same and this was so well done!

Even the Desert can look way more interesting than what they've depicted.

I had no idea about any of this! It’s fascinating! Your video is great and easy to understand without being overly simplified.

The shallow depth of field is a direct consequence of shooting on XR stages. As someone that's shot on them before, if you go *too* crisp the pixels can sometimes become noticeable. I would argue the benefits certainly outweigh the costs in this instance.

Who would have thought a giant 365° LED screen doesn’t look as good as real life… I’m so shocked….

I appreciate this perspective, great work!

So, basically we've come right back around to classic Dr Who gravel pit planets of yesteryear? Wonderful, truly pushing the medium forward 😂

YES! that's what it is! something has always been bothering me about these shots but I couldn't put my finger on it. thanks for explaining

They don't want people who have creative ways of telling stories, they want people with creative ways of making money. That's why the executives get top dollar and the writers are striking (and the companies removing content) over residuals.

I’ve been wondering why Mando s3 looks soulless (in a “WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE” meaning). That explains a lot.

this is so clear in mando s3, why did the mandalorians have to have a hideout in such a boring desert location? it just felt so lifeless and uninspired

“I hate sand.”

I think it is a conscious choice to have a lot of open spaces in The Mandalorian because of its 'western' aesthetic. But it's true that the backgrounds could be more 3 dimensional, and we could have had more swamps or mountains or gas. The prequels were very much focused on the centre of the galaxy, and a raging war, hence the more elaborate and chaotic backgrounds and cities. BoBF and Kenobi look so cheap, though. And along with the sequels have made desert planets so bland. And in fairness, some of these projects were made during covid, so they relied on the Volume because it was easier than shooting on location, and lot of the budget must have gone on all the procedures and equipment for working on set with covid restrictions.

the sand is getting everywhere. I hate sand

FINALLY!! I couldn't find this criticism anywhere. There is so much of the essential Star Wars aesthetic missing throughout all the Disney productions...

This video makes a good point. I think it’s improved a lot in the last year. Recent shows have started to expand the palette of environments in Star Wars. The variety of environments are partly to do with investment into the shows and the production demands of a TV series. When budgets are lower and there’s less appetite for risk, It’s compelling to go and film a large scene in a practical dessert, with local support available and enabling infrastructure like power and roads. As the shows have grown in budgets and confidence they have been able to expand out and do more interesting things. The investment into virtual studio, render engine broadcasting and active backdrop technology is also paying off. It helps narrow the gap between a practical location and a studio shoot. I hope they continue to go from strength to strength.

I've just watched Mando 3, they expanded on Coruscant well, remember these are TV series not films budgets are pretty high now but they're still not films with larger budgets and shorter run times.

1899 is an awesome show which used a bigger volume with extensive sets in the foreground. Kind of like the hangar scene you were showing. Really does wonders if you just use the Volume merely as an extension of the set

Wow, why isn't anyone else talking about this. Great points and sharp thinking to consider.

EVERY planet has sand. Man, Anakin would hate the newer films

I've had issues with the look of Star Wars shows for a while but could never put them into words. Well done mate

remember the phrase "quality over quantity?" we need that here.

This is why I like that Andor doesn't use the Volume

No matter what you can't deny Nevarros wordbuilding tho.

I think the much bigger problem is Disney's corporate structure. I feel many of these problems are much older than the volume. There may be an overreliance on it right now but you said it yourself: the volume CAN give very good results. I think the big issue with Disney and many other big studios is that everything is in a pipeline where all compartments are being kept seperate. If the directors on set are only there to get some shots in which are then just handed to the VFX people to figure out the VFX. Without someone who has the understanding what in the shots is needed for the VFX team to get good effects you're not getting good special effects, no matter the technology you use and artist's Disney slaves out. Similarly the flat lighting has been a big issue in the MCU since 2012 or something, this is also a choice so more things can be adjusted later on.

I think a hybrid solution would be really cool because the major advantage is virtual sets is light control and reflections. No one is seeing the green behind the actor, so they could easily add the green behind the actor and have the lights on the opposite side to create the reflections and tie the character to the scene. This shifts a lot of work to post again, but it's probably better that way because using virtual sets requires a lot of planning and less ability to adjust the scenes.

The solution is to frame the volume with green screen elements to create a mid-ground and ceiling. Attach a few practical elements to the green screen shapes and then you have full visual range.

On a long enough timeline every Star Wars planet becomes Tatooine

Great points. Thanks for the video!

Anakin warned us about sand.

The Batman also used the Volume and looked pretty incredible.

I actually never noticed that until you mention it here. Because when Mandalorian came out I was actually put draw in by the narrative and performance (even more so, when the main character never took of his helmet off, yet you can tell basicaly all his emotions). And true - I'm not really looking for/on CGI from any kind of professional point of view. But I'm affraid not I will start to notice it in every episode :-D (I might start to hate you for it). I think what is (at least so far) so captivating on this shows is that Jon Favreau is creating these shows with great passion and love for the Star Wars world. My concern is when the executives will step in and start milking it and rushing more and more shows in less time.

Hey, I actually worked on the 7th episode of Mandalorian season 7. I did about a third of all of the pew pew pew (actual name we used internally for the blasters) in that episode. What I found interesting with the volume shots is that most of them weren't actually left as-is. The actors and fg set were entirely rotoscoped so that the volume background could be replaced with the exact same thing that was on those LED screens. The reason for that is that it isn't as seamless as it should be, at least in dark scenes indoor scenes. the colors are slightly off and it has this washed out look, much like those old rear projection shots in classic movies. It seems like a lot of useless work, but it can yield some beautiful results. There is no weird spill or nasty edges like you get on bluescreen shots. Everything just looks good. Anyways, the point I'm trying to say is that the issues you raised about hiding the seams where the set ends and volume starts become quite irrelevant when you consider that the bg will be replaced anyways to address those very issues, so the bland and dull environments we got were purely for artistic reasons. They totally could make everything as interesting as the hangar shots in Mandalorian Season 1, but they chose not to.

Nice vid, great to hear a technical explenation for comments on these fancy - at - first - sight - but - soulless - productions. Also thaught this vid would have like 32K likes?? lol

Afaik, it’s not usually a “dome”. It’s just a big box most of the time. The background is often curved, but there usually isn’t a dome ceiling. It’s often just another big flat screen that they don’t use much for actually capturing on camera, but just for casting the appropriate moving lighting to go along with what’s on the curved background screen.

I totally agree .The devil is in the nuances , we should go back to green screen and do it good, this time . Maybe stick to the volume in confined spaces like the hanger or inner big space ships , it seems to look good in this case .

I think part of it is nostalgia. Showing Tatooine is easy member-berry points.

i guess anakin was warning us of the future of star wars

It's like watching a play at a theatre.

No wonder I thought these look a bit weird, I was slowly getting tired of some of the shows look but I could put my tongue on it. Thank you for speaking for me.

I dont even think the Volume is inherently the problem. House of the Dragon also made extensive use of the Volume, and it looked great! it never felt as flat nor as empty and lifeless as basically every star wars Disney show. The problem is that disney is...well, lazy. They're not really interested in doing maximum-effort prestige TV, they just crank everything out as fast and cheap as possible, and it shows -- in set design, in the scripts, in their weirdly truncated episode runtimes. As with most special effects tech, the problem is in how they use it, not in the tech itself.

we begin working around our tools rather than using them appropriately to a proper cinematic end

These are the kind of things that once you know about them, you can never un-see them.

I kinda miss the Star Wars planets being alien. Like Felucia, Coruscant, Mygeeto, Dathomir, even the more subtle ones like Geonosis which is technically a desert but you see these giant hives and stuff that make it look otherworldly and unique. And in the Mandalorian, literally every single planet looks like what someone on Earth would probably see looking out the window. Grassy fields, rocky fields, deserts, ice fields, forests with not a single alien plantlife or creature and it kinda loses its uniqueness to the world (Mandalore was cool though). Same goes for the movies. Crait was the only planet from Disney movies (even including Rogue One) that felt alien, and the Falcon hyperjumping scene from ROS also had some cool ideas, albeit a bit too fast to really immerse the viewer. But the rest were painfully mediocre. I don't even get what's the point of greenscreen and Unreal Engine virtual reality they so proudly promote when they don't even do interesting backdrops.

bro i hadn't noticed this before, now it's looks so boring when i see the pattern on those scenes. thank you so much! now its time to re watch the entire star wars series

Evert time there is a new technology it will be over used. Early stereo songs had stuff on only one ear, early 3D threw stuff all the time at the viewer, early colour films had extreme colour all the time, etc… probably the volume will be used more sparingly and elegantly in the future.

at this point im convinced that disney are gonna get reva sevander and rey to lez out in the next movie

Sorry but I have to disagree with you at 4:23 when you were talking about the limitation to use only soft light coming from the screens you where showing a scene with harsh shadows, there nothing could stop the production to show a forest for example it is even easier since they can use small number of practical objects in foreground and then CGI the background, whatever you do in green screen you can also do using LEDs, these decisions seems to be more creative than technical limitations, also in the Mandalorian there was lot of interior detailed scenes and for some reason you overlooked infact the Mandalorian have an entire episode in forrest planet

same thing with costume design really like some stuff we've seen in the mandalorian and alike straight up look like Cosplay some animated characters just don't work in live action

I’m so glad somebody else thinks this. I am so BORED of sand planets! Such a boring, uninspiring environment when Star Wars offers the chance to create diverse, imaginative, limitless set pieces.

I'm not convinced it'd be that difficult to use the volume to extend forested environments. It's just that you'd have to build fake trees (or cut down real trunks, and dress them up, for that matter - though I guess it's heavy and hard to make safe) and put dirt, rock and dead foliage on ground that isn't flat... it's definitely doable. Soundstages playing forests with matte paintings in the background have been used for ages. Sure, it usually looked very fake in old movies, so I guess it's still challenging but it can be done. but it's more labor intensive than flat sand or dirt, and so these already expensive productions go with the faster option of flat terrain with very few real props.

I think the volume gives a lot of interesting opportunities when it comes to filming, but they should really diversify and use different types of shooting to get more interesting and diverse shots.