I need to thank Jay Springett for calling my attention to the fact that while it’s all well and good to be impressed with “the Volume” used for The Mandalorian, a couple years ago filmmaker Michael Plescia documented his journey developing the same approach as a means to walk away from the “no” everyone gave him because of the costs of green screen and compositing and go get his movie made on his own.
The footage from ILM if “the Volume” is unquestionably impressive, but I fully admit that I was more affected by watching Plescia’s world come to life. I’ve no idea if his movie is any good, but it’s important to be reminded that these sorts of advances and experiments don’t just come from billion-dollar movie and television studios.