Earlier this week, Sam Hargrave told Collider that he recently joined The Mandalorian season 2 as a second unit director. Hargrave is a veteran stuntman in Hollywood and recently made his feature directorial debut on Extraction, so his action expertise is nothing to take lightly. Now, Collider has published even more of their interview with Hargrave. And as their discussion continued, he reminisced about his time on set from a technical perspective.
As many viewers already know, The Mandalorian uses proprietary technology known as the Volume. Essentially, this is a wall of curved LED screens that display photorealistic backgrounds. Hargrave insisted that this structure didn’t put a cap on the amount of action that could fill a particular scene. However, he revealed that there were other challenges that came up during filming.
“Truthfully, it didn’t really impact us on the action side,” said Hargrave. “It did limit what you could do in the space because The Volume is closed in and it’s got a ceiling cap, so sometimes if you have, for example, in the first season [the Mandalorian] has a jetpack and they move him with a wire and he’s not just running around, it’s harder to execute that because there are restrictions on the height you can get your equipment to. So, from a design standpoint, it’s a little constrictive.”
RELATED: Extraction Director Reveals His Involvement With The Mandalorian Season 2
Surprisingly, Hargrave likened working around this innovative technology to moviemaking days of old.
“It’s interesting in that it’s almost returning to an older school of filmmaking where you have background prints up,” Hargrave said. “Because you’re seeing and photographing it in real time — a lot of these locations are real or they’re built ahead of time — you have to know your shots. So much prep goes into it. They’re not making it up, going, ‘Oh, well, we could put this in the background.’ They know exactly what they’re going to do.”
“They have a really crazy way of doing virtual scouting where you can ‘scout’ the location before you shoot and see where you want to put the camera,” Hargrave continued. “It’s a really wild process. It’s extremely futuristic and kind of going back to an old school way of filmmaking where you have to do a lot more prep. You can’t just throw up a blue screen and wing it on the day.”
The Mandalorian will premiere its second season this October on Disney+.
Are you excited to check out Hargrave’s contributions to the series? Let us know in the comment section below!
Recommended Reading: Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Code
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. This affiliate advertising program also provides a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
