Jason and I recently finished watching the second season of The Mandalorian, which I imagine many of you have watched as well (don't worry if you haven't - no spoilers here!). Around the time we finished, a friend of ours recommended we watch the documentaries about the behind the scenes stuff.
As a theatre major, I always enjoy watching things about how the sets or costumes were made, how effects were created, etc. - and Jason enjoys that, too. Plus, rather than one long making-of documentary, it is conveniently broken up into little 30-minute mini documentaries. (Jason and I often have difficulties finding a long stretch of time to watch longer things together.)
So far, we've only watched one of the four behind the scenes specials; we watched The Volume. The episode was not, as I would have guessed by the title, about the sound mixing or music, but rather about a revolutionary new space that they used for the filming. The space itself is called The Volume. It's a studio, a soundstage - in a way you've never seen one before. If you've ever been to the cyclorama in Atlanta, you may have an inkling of what this space is like.
The Volume is surrounded by screens - screens on the ceiling, and 360 degrees around. Rather than using green screen - actors standing in front of obnoxiously-colored empty space, pointing at an approaching monster that has yet to be built - the film crew uses a video game engine* to project the fully-designed, fully-realized scenery all around the actors. The actors are immersed in the world as fully as though they were on location - with the obvious advantage that, even though this technology is new and was expensive to build, you only have to set it up once, rather than flying actors, crew, and equipment to various distant locales.
*Ask someone who knows abut video games what a "video game engine" is, if you want more info on that - I only have a vague notion of how it works.
Hearing the actors speak in awe of this new way of filming, how it completely changes everything and makes their immersion more complete and their performances better, it made me wonder what this might do for the cinema audience. Watching the documentary, I was immediately struck at how the Volume reminded me of rides as Disney and Universal; a fully-immersive world that the rider travels through. I thought of how you might create a ride, an experience with this technology - and have millions of tourists flock to experience it and charge large sums of money for the privilege. Then I recalled an article I had recently read about a TV show Disney+ was looking to reboot.
In the article, the writer came right out and said that cinema was dead, that the film industry will not recover from the pandemic (citing shorter length streaming content as the new entertainment medium of choice). But seeing this documentary, I don't think that's true.
Oh, yes, it will take a while to come back from this. But what if we change the cinematic experience? What if we take the Volume, what if we take the movie theatres that are closing - and remake them. What if we start making film in the round? What if we take the big blockbuster-type movies - the sort of stuff you're already used to paying a little more to go see in 3D or Imax - and make it a fully immersive experience? The superhero soars over your head as the explosion goes off behind you. This is better than Imax, better than surround sound. You're there. You're in the film.
Can we make it happen? Is this a revolution for cinema?