Taking a page out recent Star Wars properties, the new Disney Plus series Percy Jackson and the Olympians will use the same Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) volume technology to shoot the show.
The technology involves a 95 foot LED screen, called a StageCraft LED stage, according to The Hollywood Reporter, onto which key parts of the background in the movie are projected, to help actors get a more immersive performance. The technology, also known as StageCraft Volume, is a big part of various shows and movies, including The Mandalorian and Thor: Love and Thunder, and is often characterized as being the successor to green screen technology.
Rick Riordan, who wrote the best-selling YA novels, also serves as an executive producer of the show, which tells the story of 12-year-old demigod.
“The story of Percy Jackson has such an epic scope. I am over the moon that we have forged such a great relationship [with ILM] to give this show such a cutting-edge look and feel.”
This is the fifth volume stage built by ILM. There are two in Manhattan Beach in California, one at The Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, and one at Pinewood Studios in England. Chris Bannister, an executive producer at ILM StageCraft, said it allowed for a new kind of filmmaking.
“With ILM’s StageCraft technology we allow filmmakers to design, light, and shoot the digital world as they would in the practical world all integrated in front of the cast and crew on stage,” he said.
Nissa Diederich, of show producing company 20th Television, said the studio will be used for more projects in the coming years.
“The stage we have built will be home to Percy and potentially dozens more of our most ambitious series.”
Fans of the popular series have been clamoring for a do over on the series ever since the 2010s movie Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and its sequel Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters were maligned by critics and fans alike.
In a series of now-deleted tweets, Riordan said he had never seen the movies and that they both were a mess.
The show doesn’t have a release date just yet, but shooting is underway.
