George Lucas (Director and creator of the Star Wars franchise) commented on his experience of approaching the Virtual Production set and interaction with the animatronic puppet ‘Grogu’ - one of the main characters in The Mandalorian (2019) - as the type of creative freedom he envisioned when he started working on his first Star Wars film.
In this way, contemporary Virtual Production, with real-time 3D engine powered photorealistic film sets, can be seen to enhance the experience of the creative production team.
This research explores the tensions between practitioners’ experiences of realism and formalism in animatronic-led virtual production and in-camera effects.
The project also looks into what parts of this experience influence changes in the modern film and TV production workflow and how practitioners perceive and experience the changes in the available tools – as well as what do practitioners want to achieve by pursuing technical innovation (including AI) and is there a place for puppets and animatronics in the new rapidly changing virtual production workflow?