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Barry Jenkins on Virtual Filmmaking for Mufasa
Barry Jenkins, the acclaimed director of the short film Chlorophyl (oh, and Moonlight), had a quote circulating around X last week about his thoughts on all digital filmmaking: "Not my thing"
The quote came from a long-form piece from Vulture about his upcoming, all-digital Mufasa film.
But if you dig into the actual article and beyond the hot take tweets, there's actually a trove of really interesting tidbits on how Barry and his team adapted virtual filmmaking to fit their style, make it their own, and how they'd use the technology learned for future projects.
Behind the Scenes
Jenkins and longtime DP James Laxton used Unreal Vcam and VR headsets to navigate around Unreal Engine scenes built by production designer Mark Friedberg. Jenkins and Laxton would scout around the virtual environments and find shots in areas that Friedberg had no intention of ever being on camera, bringing the same vibe of scouting and finding the frame in real life.
The production used 'quadcapping' (quadruped capture) to work with actors in sensor-dotted suits, where they'd instantly be transformed into four legged animals in their virtual cameras. But these were essentially physical performance actors - the voice actors recorded their lines early in production. The team created a radio edit version of the film and would play the dialogue back on the virtual stage while recording the performances.
The team developed a "stacked" production approach where scenes could simultaneously be in pre-production, production, post-production, or finishing stages. This non-linear workflow enabled greater flexibility and iteration throughout the creative process.
Jenkins maintained the feel of working in a real, physical location by intentionally keeping certain "mistakes," like camera shakes and lens flares, to create authentic moments that feel naturally captured rather than digitally manufactured (which required pushing back against Disney's default reaction to make everything perfect).
Virtual Muppets?
The article ends with the quoted line about Jenkins wanting to work 'the other way again' with physical sets.
But then he rifts on using the new virtual tools for some other potential ideas.
But at the same time, Jenkins doesnât rule out the possibility of using Mufasa methods to figure out new ways to make Barry Jenkins movies. Somehow, we land on the subject of the Muppets and suddenly heâs imagining how he could direct puppet performers and transpose them onto virtual sets. âYou know, a Muppet movie done in this style would be awesome. Awesome. In the same way we generate our PlayStation version of a scene, you could have a set thatâs just the actual physical puppeteers, and Muppets are blocking the scene but just in a black box, you know?â he says. âOr, letâs say, a green box. Youâre capturing their performances and then youâre putting them all into virtual sets. I can see how that could work.â
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