The long-gestating Dungeons & Dragons film continues to creep along, but another series has demonstrated that the game may not need a big budget movie at all: The Mandalorian.
What makes The Mandalorian so groundbreaking isn't just that it's a streaming show on Disney+ launching after a massive nine-part movie series, but that it has managed to seamlessly fit into the films' story lines while maintaining movie-level special effects. Jon Favreau, who worked on Marvel's Iron Man and Disney's live action Lion King, took what he learned from those experiences to make a streamlined series that feels like a movie.
And that's a good thing, because the massive diversity of alien fauna and sentient beings in Star Wars has a lot of parallels in the monster-rich world of Dungeons & Dragons. Previous D&D movies have all struggled with portraying monsters true to their D&D roots, both from a script and a special effects perspective (most notably a beholder distracted by a rock).
The first is The Volume, a massive 360 degree projection sound stage where the actors are filmed in real time. Green screen isn't necessary as there's less work done in post-production; the actors in costume stand in front of real-time rendered virtual sets, which means the light glinting off twin suns in the background is automatically reflected in the Mandalorian's shiny beskar armor. Or to put it another way, the special effects are integrated into the background as the actors are filmed.
The second innovation is game-rendering technology. Epic Games, maker of the Unreal Engine, and other partners created StageCraft, a virtually reality platform that enables directors to render the action before a single scene is filmed. The game engine does all the work, allowing directors to determine where cameras and actors should be placed before filming begins.
Taken together, these two technologies are revolutionizing film making for series that require fantastic locations and creatures. Which makes it perfect for D&D.
Thanks to the pandemic and Favreau's innovative new filming techniques, the line between a movie and a television series have blurred. All this legal wrangling seems moot now, but it illustrates how with the right budget and the right technology, a "good" D&D series today is more possible than ever. Maybe we don't need a D&D movie after all.
Your Turn: What multimedia will work best to bring Dungeons & Dragons to a wider audience?
The Manda-who?
For the uninitiated, The Mandalorian follows a Mandalorian bounty hunter and his ward, a Yoda-like Force-using creature named Grogu in the Star Wars universe. The Mandalorian draws on rich lore from existing Star Wars canon and elements of the Expanded Universe (now known as Legends) that was created in books, comics, and video games.What makes The Mandalorian so groundbreaking isn't just that it's a streaming show on Disney+ launching after a massive nine-part movie series, but that it has managed to seamlessly fit into the films' story lines while maintaining movie-level special effects. Jon Favreau, who worked on Marvel's Iron Man and Disney's live action Lion King, took what he learned from those experiences to make a streamlined series that feels like a movie.
And that's a good thing, because the massive diversity of alien fauna and sentient beings in Star Wars has a lot of parallels in the monster-rich world of Dungeons & Dragons. Previous D&D movies have all struggled with portraying monsters true to their D&D roots, both from a script and a special effects perspective (most notably a beholder distracted by a rock).
Favreau's Innovations
Favreau set out to create a television show with movie-level special effects on a limited budget (for Disney, $15 million per episode). To keep the series within budget and on time, he leveraged two technologies and integrated them into the planning and shooting process.The first is The Volume, a massive 360 degree projection sound stage where the actors are filmed in real time. Green screen isn't necessary as there's less work done in post-production; the actors in costume stand in front of real-time rendered virtual sets, which means the light glinting off twin suns in the background is automatically reflected in the Mandalorian's shiny beskar armor. Or to put it another way, the special effects are integrated into the background as the actors are filmed.
The second innovation is game-rendering technology. Epic Games, maker of the Unreal Engine, and other partners created StageCraft, a virtually reality platform that enables directors to render the action before a single scene is filmed. The game engine does all the work, allowing directors to determine where cameras and actors should be placed before filming begins.
Taken together, these two technologies are revolutionizing film making for series that require fantastic locations and creatures. Which makes it perfect for D&D.
The D&D Series that Never Was
Ironically, the Dungeons & Dragons media franchise was always a supposed to be television series. This all came to light in lawsuits over the movie rights, which pivoted on the TV rights. The rights were originally owned by Sweetpea Entertainment and continuation of those rights were contingent upon creating further movies; Sweetpea made two movies that were released on the Syfy channel, "Wrath of the Dragon God" and "The Book of Vile Darkness." According to the suit, their status as TV movies did not qualify as a "theatrical motion picture" and therefore did not "reset the Sequel Rights' five-year revision clock." As evidence that Sweetpea Entertainment knew it was creating a television show and not an actual sequel to the movie:Using the payment as evidence, the lawsuit alleged that the movie rights actually reverted to Hasbro five years after the movie's debut on December 8, 2005. Sweetpea's counter lawsuit claimed the company had invested over 60,000 hours and $2 million in a television series.
Thanks to the pandemic and Favreau's innovative new filming techniques, the line between a movie and a television series have blurred. All this legal wrangling seems moot now, but it illustrates how with the right budget and the right technology, a "good" D&D series today is more possible than ever. Maybe we don't need a D&D movie after all.
Your Turn: What multimedia will work best to bring Dungeons & Dragons to a wider audience?
