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Capturing a Wookiee
July 28, 2004

How do you go about capturing a Wookiee, let alone hundreds upon hundreds of the shaggy giants?
The Wookiees in Revenge of the Sith will be realized through a combination of practical costumes and digital extras. Eight massive furry costumes, crafted by the Creatures Department under the leadership of Creative Supervisor Dave Elsey, formed the central core of live-action Wookiee performance. Most of these Wooks were shot in Sydney earlier this year.

Kashyyyk, however, has more than just a small crowd of the furry titans. The lagoon-side tree cities of the arboreal world are teaming with Wookiees, warriors and civilians both, and for some of the most crowded battle scenes, the animators at ILM will have to fill in the frame with digital Wookiee extras.

There are two principal methods of infusing life and performance into a digital character. One is key-frame animation, where an animator sets the main poses of the character, and the computer fills in the gaps of motion in between these stances. The other is by applying motion capture data performed by a live actor to a digital model.

The motion capture stage became a workout room for Michael Kingma, the 6'11" Australian basketball player recruited for the role of Tarfful. In that role, Kingma's height is increased to over 7', and he disappears under the heavy fur and muscle suit.

Today, though, Kingma isn't playing Tarfful. "He's playing every digital Wookiee," says Doug Griffin of ILM's Motion Capture Department. Griffin directs Kingma, often acting out the required actions himself first before letting him take over.

Pulling up animatics footage of the lagoon battle on Doug's computer screen shows hundreds of Wookiees running out from out of cover, striking out against Corporate Alliance and Trade Federation droids. The treaded tanks, cut from Episode II, have undergone somewhat of a conceptual redesign, judging by the animatics. Whereas before they were droids themselves, these models appear to have droid pilots or at least battle droid gunners aboard.

"Will I be paid for each one?" asks Kingma with a smile, examining the actions of the furred swarm that his performance will drive.

The small stage is surrounded by an array of 16 cameras in perfectly calibrated positions. I get the standard warning as I enter on stage -- try not to touch the camera stands, but if I do, be sure to let the crew know.

Each camera has a ring of LEDs projecting forward along its view. Kingma wears a tight spandex suit covered with little reflective balls. Just snapping a few pictures with my still camera illustrates just how well they throw back light - my camera flash is reflected back with full intensity in that split-second.

The sixteen digital cameras each capture a grayscale feed at 120 frames per second. That grayscale image data is further crunched down into black and white, with a very high contrast. Anything that is not a reflective ball becomes a featureless sea of black, leaving just a cloud of reflective spheres floating in the air.

The mental exercise of connecting-the-dots helps me visualize the humanoid form driving the motion of these floating dots. From just two of these 16 camera feeds, the computer can determine where in 3-D space those dots exist and move. Thus the computer can connect-the-dots, creating a crude 3-D wireframe humanoid, and determine what exactly Kingma is doing with his body.

Shots go really quickly. There's no set-up time and all 16 cameras gather what is needed. Lighting doesn't matter. Framing doesn't matter. With the data pulled from the reflective balls, these Wookiees can be put into any camera angle. At 120 frames per second, there's enough performance to be extracted from a single second to slow down or speed up for different effect.

Reference and inspiration material lies nearby. A laptop plays footage from A New Hope. How fast does a Wookiee run? Consulting Chewbacca loping through the Death Star reveals a pretty relaxed trot - it's the massive leg-spans that move a Wookiee at a brisk pace. Doug often mentions Saving Private Ryan and Braveheart as reference, to help Michael further visualize what's required of him.

It's not all epic battles. In some cases, Kingma's nameless Wookiee extras are guiding in helicopter traffic, loading supplies on landing platforms, or barking orders to clones and Wookiees. In other cases, it's Wookiees leading troops into the fray, jumping out from behind cover and charging forward, or recoiling from a near miss of heavy ordnance.

A variety of practical Wookiee props lies nearby -- the oversized blasters, bowcasters and rifles crafted by Ty Tieger's Prop Department. These too have reflective markers on them on key points, allowing animators to correctly align these handheld props in their digital incarnations.

Michael really gets into the performance, even roaring loudly to properly portray how such outbursts can affect posture and movement. By the end of a solid morning of work, he can feel it in his voice, and looks quite relieved when the rest of the shoot requires "no more grunts."

It's may be easier than running around with a full Wookiee outfit on, but it's still a tough job.

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The General Awaits
July 02, 2004

As revealed this week in Rob Coleman's Hyperspace chat, the evil General Grievous has yet to make an appearance in a finished Episode III shot. That's not to say the computer-generated character isn't getting a workout. Already, animation of Grievous and Obi-Wan Kenobi engaged in a bare-knuckle brawl (if something with metallic fingers can be said to be bare-knuckled) is being developed and approved.
"The General is still getting clothed," describes Rick McCallum of Grievous' absence from weekly finals. Though the extremely complicated CG model of him is finished and approved, his final painted form has yet to be rendered. The image of him that graces the cover of the latest official UK Star Wars fan magazine and the soon-to-be published official French magazine, which can be found in the current issue of Cinefex isn't a finished form. The long lead times of print publications required that image of Grievous to be completed over a month ago, and Grievous has continued to evolve since then. That image is actually a combination of an unfinished render with 2-D digital paint applied by Concept Artist Alex Jaeger.

"There's still work left to do on him before we can add him to shots," says McCallum. "It's not until we have a voice for him and can record a guide track for him next month that we can really start animating his character."

The new Visual Effects Supervisor Roger Guyett is still overseas, gathering exotic plate photography. He reports that he'll stay an additional weekend, as a rash of thunderstorms have prevented him from getting the necessary Kashyyyk background plates.

On Thursday, June 24th the much-reported-on epic opening shot -- OSB10 -- was shown to George Lucas for approval. Even though I've tracked the progress of this shot from the earliest animatic to the finished ILM form, there's nothing quite like seeing it projected on the big screen.

"I'm getting dizzy," commented George, as the starfighters twist between a pair of massive capital ships. Granted, I haven't been to all the approvals meetings, but I'll wager this is the first one where the audience reacted with applause.

OSB010 now joins dozens of other OSB shots already approved as the opening sequence of the movie shapes up. For fans of variable-geometry robots, there's some good news. The Trade Federation vulture droids will be seen to turn, fold and transform on screen - a functionality incorporated into their design years ago for Episode I, but something we have yet to see on the big screen.

Tado, a young Jedi Padawan, is outnumbered. He twirls his lightsaber against a swarm of opponents. In the animatic of this sequence, the Jedi youth performs a twisting leap, flipping in the air to avoid an incoming attack.

"I was wondering how we were going to do this," says George Lucas, as the scene is turned over to ILM to begin their work. He is closely acquainted with the acrobatic capabilities of the performer - this young Jedi is played by his son, Jett.

Rob Coleman confirms that ILM has already started constructing a digital model of Tado, but George offers an alternative.

"Jett knows how to do this with wire-work," says George, "in case we'll be doing any wire-work during re-shoots."

Since Tado is relatively small in frame for the one shot with the Force-assisted leap, the shot is a perfect candidate for a digital double. Stunts such as these aren't the only time CG versions of characters are employed -- in one shot turned over today of Anakin leading a phalanx of clone troopers, the Chosen One will be likely be CG.

Why? For one thing, he's less than ten percent of the screen's height. In the past, the gathering of one shot like this would likely never require the actual actor. An extra dressed in Jedi robes shot from 200 yards away would fill the role. Or he'd be filmed and shrunk down into frame to look appropriately small. Now, the distant digital double saves the set-up time required for such a small piece.

Dignitaries on Stage
June 11, 2004

At this point in production, the ILM stage has a curtain drawn down the middle, separating the miniature photography from a vast area of greenscreen where individual stage elements are shot. These elements in the past have included the full-size Jedi starfighter for R2-D2 close-ups, and costumed extras who will be reduced to a few pixels in height to inhabit digital worlds still in development.
On July 23, 2003, a Set Diary from Sydney described a crowd of Senators congregating on a set called "Senate Building Main Hall." As this was a continuation of crowd scenes begun the day before, I made previous mention of how the numerous Senators and their various off-stage handlers made for a very busy and bustling shoot.

Those scenes are now even more populated, thanks to the postproduction addition of nine dignitaries last week. In the original footage, Chancellor Palpatine fittingly leads the way with the more recognizable Senators and Representatives following closely -- Bail Organa, Jar Jar Binks, Orn Free Taa, Mon Mothma, Tundra Dowmeia and his aide. New characters Fang Zar, Giddean Danu, Malé-Dee, Nee Alavar, Chi Eekway, Terr Taneel, and Fema Baab are also there, along with the as-yet-unnamed Mon Calamari Senator.

The nine additional dignitaries lurk in the back of the frame. In some cases, they will be digitally composited over the shoulders of the bigger players - added to the background behind the principals. In other shots, when the camera is following from the rear of the reception, they'll be more in the foreground, composited on top of the background plate and characters shot last summer in Sydney. To facilitate this, these nine newcomers were shot against a backdrop of greenscreen last week on ILM's stage.

The currently nameless lot is made up of various ILM employees - a mix of men and women playing humans, and two men wearing alien masks. Their costumes are pulled from archived material crafted by Costume Designer Trisha Biggar and her team. For those fans who like their bit-players to have a little more identity, I can imagine that the Quarren will end up being Zil Topur or Nor Wedd -- obscure background names from Attack of the Clones. While the Aqualish very much resembles Po Nudo, this walrus man is a loyalist, and thus a different character. Of course, final name decisions haven't been made, and will fall to the folks in Lucas Licensing, if this scene is ever detailed to that level in a spin-off product.

The ILM stage crew carefully aligns the lighting and camera placement by examining an animatic frame, in this case, one crafted by Animatics Artist Hiroshi Mori. Mori has taken the background plates shot in Sydney, and extended the set digitally. Using this framing, the stage crewmembers tape off markers on the floor to denote enormous marble columns. In the raw background plate, there are two main ones. In a future matte painting, there will be dozens more.

Director George Lucas doesn't supervise this shoot -- he is elsewhere in the facility, reviewing work-in-progress with Animation Supervisor Rob Coleman. Direction in this case involves telling people how fast to walk, and what marks to avoid. Not to belittle the performance of these ILM extras, but there's not much acting involved in being a moving background-filling body.

That's not to say it's the easiest job - particularly for the guys in the alien masks. The heavy cloaks and capes of Senatorial wear don't make for a refreshing day. Presumably, Coruscant has much better air conditioning than a stage lit by powerful 20K lights.

In addition to the tape markers, the camera crew has drawn grease pencil marks on the playback monitor that properly delineate the placement of the columns on screen. The pull of a lever on a switching device causes the screen to dissolve from animatic to final frame, ensuring a perfect alignment.

Halfway into the morning's shoot, John Knoll arrives at a brisk pace because changes have just been handed down. Here comes the challenge of producing visual effects for a film with an evolving edit.

"During reviews of animation, when Rob was talking about animating Jar Jar's ears for this shot, George mentioned that the sequence had been recut," explains John. "Mace has been added to the shot, and there are now three new shots in this scene."

Chancellor Palpatine and his retinue will be met by Master Windu as he enters the Senate building - an exchange mostly lifted from a scene earlier in the film. Animatics reference consists of footage cobbled from elsewhere, which as a result can't be counted upon for accurate lighting and framing reference for the scene inside the main hall.

An "R" marks the frame, signifying that Ian McDiarmid and Sam Jackson will shoot these elements during the additional photography phase. The stage crew now has to work backwards, adding their extras into a non-existing background plate, but with the other surrounding scenes more or less locked in animatic form, they're able to extrapolate the proper placement of the nine dignitaries.

Later in the afternoon, more of the same continues, only the nine Senators have been replaced by three landing-pad crew workers - again played by ILMers - and the animatic background is of a landing platform hosting a wing-shaped Naboo skiff.

The Animatics of OSB010
June 09, 2004

Having seen ILM's work on OSB010, the sprawling opening shot to Episode III, I spoke to Animatics Artist Euisung Lee to learn more about the evolution of this epic introduction. He was the artist responsible for the composition and dynamic animation that Industrial Light & Magic is currently working to replicate in photo-realistic resolution. From George Lucas' first loose description of the scene, Euisung Lee ran with the opening shot baton, developing it as an animatic of breathtaking scale before handing it to ILM.
"I guess it was March [2003] when I first heard about the opening shot," recalls Lee. "The first description I got was 'the two Jedi starfighters enter into frame.' Basically, we pan down to see the Jedi cruiser -- the triangle ship -- and two Jedi fighters fly into camera-view, and we follow."

Euisung pulls up a QuickTime file on his computer, depicting his first stab at this shot. "It was just based on the description in the script, but it's interpreted wrong," he points out. In this version, we see the Jedi cruiser from a different angle -- more from the front, rather than the upper view that would eventually develop.

"That was 18 seconds," he notes. "For an opening shot it was a standard length, I'd say." But Director George Lucas definitely had something longer in mind. He clarified to the Animatics Department: "then we'll see the battle for a minute." A nonchalant, no-frills description whose sheer quantity provoked a quiet double-take from Lee.

"I thought, One minute? Are you sure?" laughs Lee. "It was kind of a daunting task to figure out what we could show in one minute of space, but that's what I did."

Lee pulls up another QuickTime window. "This is the second version. It's pretty close to the final version, but it has a little more to it. Maybe I got a little bit carried away, and made it too complicated," he admits.

A veritable fountain of Separatist vessels soars straight up, perpendicular to the horizon line, and the starfighters weave through the swarm. "We dive down, and we keep going down. I thought of the Separatists escaping from Coruscant, so they're going through the herd of the cruisers, fighting and firing at them."

Another section of the dive has a brilliant missile effect whose complexity proved its undoing. I admit, it wasn't clear to me. On first glance, I assumed it was a burst of missiles firing from a Separatist ship, but as Lee plays it a second time, he explains what the projectiles are, stopping on a frame that shows one of them more closely.

"These were actually tri-droids," he says. "It's not until the end that we find that they're actually droids with booster engines on them. While the booster engines are on them, they're more like missiles, and when they detach the boosters, they become a fighter mode."

But having to slow the action down to clarify what's going on is not desired, and cramming too much ingenuity into one shot results in overload. "George said if people don't follow it the first time, and don't get it immediately, it'll confuse them. I mean, it's not that common to see missiles in Star Wars, so that blurs things even more. He liked the image of the red blossoming explosion, so he suggested to change it into some kind of explosion -- or anything -- just to maintain the image of it."

Another visual effect that seemed unclear in these early passes was a peculiar shockwave that sheds off the Jedi fighters as they begin their precipitous dive. "What I really liked in Pearl Harbor was that, whenever they fire tracers, you see a trail of smoke behind the shot. And whenever you're flying with the plane and they fire, the smoke they leave behind gives you tremendous speed reference. So, I thought, what if we could have something like that in this environment?" he says.

"Obviously, this is outer space, so you can't have it be atmospheric. But what if Coruscant had an extra atmospheric layer that they put artificially to protect the planet from gamma rays or whatever? So maybe this layer chemically reacts with the fighter's engines once they pass a triple-supersonic sound barrier, making a ripple," he postulates. Whatever the rationalization, the visual effect was intriguing, but it was ultimately left out. "I don't think George objected to the idea. If they had fired in this shot, I would have added tracers -- lasers with tracers -- but he said, no, they don't fire."

Such direction proves that the energy and complexity of the shot have to be balanced with the intent and flow of the sequence. "You can't get married to everything, because in the end it's about the story and not pride and attachment," says Lee, whose words seem to almost echo the Jedi Code.

So what were the "big picture goals" of OSB010?

"What George wanted to establish is the kind of situation Obi-Wan and Anakin are in -- how intense the battle is," he explains. "In an earlier version, I wanted them to be more actively engaged in the battle, firing down at the bridge of the enemy ship, but George saw it more that they're actually part of a rescue mission, and not part of a dogfight."

More than just an effects tour-de-force, the shot actually builds character through the flight characteristics displayed by the Jedi. "One big theme about this shot is how skillful they are as pilots -- and as a team," he says. "George wanted their moves synchronized. They're so good as a team; they work together so well. In an earlier version of the shot, they're weren't perfectly synchronized, because I didn't think to take that literally. In animation, that becomes a little unnatural, so you want to offset the timing a little. But when George saw this, he said, no, they're literally perfectly synchronized."

Animators at ILM needed this unnatural coordination further clarified. "Scott Benza asked George again, 'do they fly exactly synchronized?' and George confirmed that. Scott was trying to make sense of how they do that. Do they somehow link through R2 units and computerize their movements? No. They're just so good," says Euisung.

As is often the case in Star Wars, little details observed at an almost subconscious level serve to paint in a much bigger picture. "I think the stronger the bond between them in the beginning, the more impact there is when they go the other way and fight at the end," says Lee.

As Lee continued to refine the animatics of the shot, ILM had already begun building the digital assets they would require. As such, the Animatics Department at Skywalker Ranch and the team at ILM could share resources, working together to more clearly define the final action. In comparing the evolution of OSB010, there's a definite difference in the detail of the starships from the first iteration, to the most recent version.

"In the case of the Jedi ships and the Federation flagship, they're actually ILM models. We stripped them down a little bit, but it's still very hi-res for an animatic," says Lee. "It's more accurate. The AMD-based computers we use are fast enough for this job that we can sometimes use ILM models without stripping them down too much."

Such polish has allowed George Lucas unparalleled freedom in defining his mind's-eye visions into finished frames. As happens often these days, Lucas works closely with the Animatics team to nail down all the unknowns in some very effects-intensive scenes, eliminating the guesswork and delivering sophisticated shots of clear, focused action to ILM.

"During the design of this shot, there was a little part that I wasn't sure how to bridge, how to get from A to B," explains Lee. "George actually sat here with me and was able to show how the shot would work in space. He's been doing that a lot recently -- he directs us. Once he started doing it he just fell in love with it. So for certain sequences George wants to develop or change, you prepare the 3-D scene with the right characters, props, vehicles, the environment, and the camera with correct HD film back and lens. He sits with you and tells you to move things to compose a shot, and it's like he's the director on the set and you become the entire production crew for him. It's very interactive and an educational experience about filmmaking for us, and I like the fact that he call this process 'shooting', rather than 'animating', 'rendering', or other usual 3D animation term."

And throughout the long render times and many iterations, there is always the instant and inspiring feedback from the rest of the department. "Once you have many creative people around you like that, even flying in an outer space battlefield for over one minute doesn't really leave you in daunting vacuum," says Lee.

A Tour of OSB010
May 26, 2004

Last year, as the Animatics Department was busily turning over shots of the opening space battle to ILM for visual effects completion, David Weitzberg, a visual effects artist I had befriended during principal photography in Sydney, told me he was hoping to get the opening shot of the film. I don't mean the title crawl, but rather the expansive introduction to the sprawling space conflict that kickstarts the movie.
On January 21, 2004, he was assigned as a technical director on the shot, code-named OSB010. Five months later, work still progresses on the whopping 1855 frame-long sequence -- a veering, twisting camera move that spans over a minute of screen time.

At his workstation, he pulls up movie files to show me the shot in progress. Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll will handle the title crawl - something that has become a sort of tradition with Knoll in the prequel trilogy. Weitzberg provided him with the star-field for the crawl, since both shots share the same starry background. But as soon as the camera settles from its initial move, we're into OSB010.

David shows me the rough layout of the shot where simple low-rez polygonal versions of cruisers and fighters approximate their moves for director's approval. Once such gross movements and timing are okayed, the ships are handed over to animator Scott Benza. A stickler for cinematic flight characteristics, George Lucas lets character animators determine the paths and curves of a hero starfighter, rather than let automated procedures determine the flow.

Once these low-rez flight paths are plotted, the heavier more detailed elements are layered in one at a time. David first shows me the matte painting of Coruscant that serves as the backdrop, lit by a blazing sun that throws sundogs and anamorphic lens flare into frame. "The sun flare was added by [compositor] Jeff Sutherland," David explains. "My elements here are the planets, stars and atmosphere." The next big element is the first big ship of the scene, a triangular Jedi cruiser that has since been dubbed a Venator-class Star Destroyer by the folks in Licensing.

"This is the biggest we'll ever see it," says David. "As we develop the shot, we notice that we'll get closer to certain parts, so we'll need to add more detail to the ship to keep it looking real."

As the camera zooms across its surface, its ponderous turbolaser turrets swing out of the way to let the Jedi snubfighters zoom past. I notice spots of interactive lighting along the massive ship's hull, something that in the old days would have been handled with hand-drawn animation. But now, the lighting passes realistically define how much light a Jedi fighter's twin ion engines would spill on the hull of a nearby ship.

One on of the frames -- a close-up of Anakin's starfighter -- David pulls up a frame showing me the lighting pass. The illumination of virtual objects continues to grow in complexity, and now the bright yellow highlights of Anakin's ship are not only lit by the nearby sun, but also by light bounced from the ship itself. A dark black frame with only the yellow highlights traces out the hazy illumination and hard surfaces, and I can see how the yellow light subtly traces a shape on Artoo-Detoo's reflective dome.

The Layout Department has tracked the path of Obi-Wan and Anakin's starfighter in two diagrams, printed out on 11 x17 paper -- one is top view, the other side view. The biggest landmarks on the map are the Trade Federation battleships -- seven of these three-kilometer wide titans form a horizon-line of sorts for the camera move, and can serve as orientation in subsequent shots.

"As the space battle develops in later shots, we try to make sure it's all in there in this first shot," says David. In theory, if you examine this OSB10 shot carefully, you'll see all the obstacles that lie ahead, though it's hard to look past the more immediate perils

The minute-long shot has three segments, dubbed Waterfall, Trench and Explosion B. These aren't literal appellations -- don't expect a waterfall in space -- but serve as shorthand for the artists by describing some of the characteristics of flight and combat.

"The laser fire between these ships hasn't been added yet," point out David, as the ships dive between sparring capital ships in the "Trench" portion. "This is a sim explosion here," he says, identifying a fiery blast, "but it's real pyro at the end, so it's a mixture."

Gossamer wisps and contrails streak by, providing a sense of speed, and dark black smoke belches from a burning starship - something we haven't seen before in a space battle. "John Knoll says that space starts at 60 miles up," explains Weitzberg. "We're at 59 miles up."

This atmosphere introduces a new type of chaos into these shots, including blossoming black burst otherwise invisible unless they appear in front of starships or the planet. "Those are flak hits," says David. "You see them all the time in World War II aerial footage. George seems to really like them."

In this latest version of OSB010, David explains that none of the "depth compositing" has been done for the cluster of debris, flak-hits, and other orbital detritus. It all rests atop the background plate, often in front of extremely close starships. Depth compositing will place these elements in their proper place in space, behind closer starships, but in front of farther ones, properly diffused and obscured as atmospheric conditions dictate. It's just one aspect of the compositing needs this shot requires.

There are also a few Easter eggs tucked away into this chaotic shot, but I won't reveal them just yet. After all, they may not make the final cut, and I wouldn't want people staring at pixels trying to find a gag when they should be soaking in the action.

"Fans keep asking if this battle is bigger than Return of the Jedi," I say to David, explaining that I never know how to answer that since what exactly does 'bigger' mean? David types in a command line to pull up a list of digital assets involved in this one shot.

"Oh yeah, it's bigger." He says without hesitation. "There's about 5,000 ships."

And that's just the capital ships. The take I saw didn't even have the all the starfighters -- a whole swarm of battles between the tri-fighters (which are back, by the way) and other midground fighters -- at least another few hundred ships.

Rolling With It
April 16, 2004

It's hard to grasp the scale of a space battle looking at words on a script page or sketches within storyboard frames. The jaw-dropping attack on the Death Star in Return of the Jedi seems hard to top, and since reports of the battle that opens Episode III have consistently stated that it will be bigger, many fans are asking how that can be possible.
It's not so much the number of participants that raises the bar, as it is complexity. The effects technology in the 80s meant that true interaction between starships in Jedi was always limited. Extended shots of starfighters soaring through capital ship flotillas were impossible. The destruction of vessels were also a stylistic cheat. ILM had largely abandoned blowing up models with miniature pyrotechnics, since the scale of the explosion and size of the models worked against each other. Such destruction was typically accomplished by matting scaled explosions onto model photography, thus leaving out the true interaction of lighting and debris. An explosion would often just cover up a ship, allowing for the removal of that model element, without the true chaos of fiery debris.

This new battle definitely captures that chaos. No wonder such emphasis was put on differentiating the shape of the Republic and Confederacy cruisers. When all the ships are aligned in the very upper atmosphere of a planet slowly turning towards dawn, and the wreckage, laserfire, missiles, missile contrails, starfighters and more are layered in, the skies suddenly become very crowded.

It's a messy battle, with capital ships exchanging broadside fire and bodies tumbling into space, bulkheads rupturing and depressurized atmosphere rushing to fill the void, complete with fire and smoke.

Think Pearl Harbor in space, and you're on the right track.

Of course, creatively mining WWII for space inspirations is nothing new. George Lucas drew from the great documentaries and film accounts of that conflict for much of the original Star Wars. You can see it in the hurried shots of Death Star gunners manning their laser turrets, but back in those days, there was never a real connection to what the gunners were doing and the outside battle. It was all implied through editing -- piecing together the strafing runs of the X-wing fighters and the corridor explosions of the Death Star.

To the critical eyes of today's moviegoers, such approaches would result in a sense of isolation -- the differences between studio shooting and motion control effects shots would keep attacker and defender separated in time and space. But now, digital effects merge those worlds seamlessly, and the results are dramatic. The gunnery crews on these capital ships -- droids and clones alike -- are in real danger. They're in the space battle, and not in some isolated studio, and the starfighter attack runs and capital ship broadsides really do involve everyone and really do make an impact.

It'll be a new kind of space battle in Star Wars. One that appears to have the customary beauty and elegance when seen from a comfortable distance, but reveals itself to be a much more dangerous place when you get in close.

At least, that's the intent. We'll see how this develops over the coming months.

"Rolling with the changes." That's the operating mode right now at ILM. At this point, the film is at its most volatile, shrinking and growing in size by the day. The last Post Note article congratulated the team on the completion of over 100 shots. By the next week, that number dropped to under a hundred as the evolving edit carved over two dozen of those finished shots out of the final picture.
The shooting script from last summer seems like an artifact, as the order of the scenes shift around for dramatic effect. The scene numbers are largely meaningless now. For example, scene 137 -- one that takes place in the Senate -- and scene 130 now happen concurrently, with dramatic cuts between each one as they play out.

Having witnessed each scene independently, it's impressive how much energy such inter-cutting adds. That what's occurring in both are symbolic echoes of each other is just an added benefit. It illustrates how these movies are truly made in the editing room.

Number of Shots: 2,000
JAK Finals: 117
Final Omits: 27
Shots Turned Over to ILM: 1,263

Shots Needed Per Week: 35
Weeks to Go: 50
Shots Left: 1,883

VFX Deadline: April 1, 2005

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Into the Triple Digits
March 12, 2004

On the morning of March 11, in the sun-drenched lot between buildings at Industrial Light & Magic, there are tables of snacks, breakfast pastries, fresh fruit and juice. And though VFX Producer Denise Ream's birthday is occasion enough to warrant the treats, today marks another event.
With this week's lot of approved visual effects finals, ILM's completed Episode III total has reached the triple-digits: 105 shots.

Only two shots sit in the "omit" bin, both fairly inconsequential coverage of character reactions. CJC510, of Mace Windu sitting in the Jedi Council, has been cut from the film. At 89 frames in length, it's not the stuff that DVD cut scenes are made of, but everyone is preparing for that dynamic to change.

This morning, one of the shots for review shown at ILM's theater is a first pass of a composite of brilliant Coruscant cityscapes seen out of enormous windows in Bail Organa's office. "Oh, that's a DVD shot now," Director George Lucas says simply. Work is still to continue on this sequence, but its inclusion in the final theatrical release is iffy.

It's cutting season, something very familiar to Lucas given his editorial roots. Working with editor Roger Barton, he's working hard to cut out any extraneous material that lessens the important flow and impacts of Episode III.

He describes it dramatically "It's Hell and brimstone time," Lucas says. "We have to take a real hard look at what it takes to tell the story, and what else we still need." The plan is take a look at a more polished assembly of the film next week, and from there, trim it down to the first real cut of the film, reel-by-reel.

On the Main Board in the ILM offices are seven sheets of paper, each representing a reel of Episode III's current form. From the OSB to the ECC (Opening Space Battle to the End Credits Crawl), each reel lists many three-letter codes to describe scenes containing visual effects.

For Reel One, there's 17 sets of acronyms; 20 for Reel Two. Reel Three seems the lightest, with 10 -- but it should be noted that each three-letter code can represent a multitude of shots. Reel Four weighs in with 27, while Reel Five tops the list at 28. Reel Six has only 14, while the final reel of the final Star Wars movie has 22.

But as has become a very common mantra at this extremely flexible stage of postproduction, anything and everything can change.

Number of Shots: 2,000
JAK Finals: 105
Final Omits: 2
Shots Turned Over to ILM: 1,401

Finals Needed Per Week: 32
Weeks Left to Go: 55
Shots Left to Go: 1,895

VFX Deadline: April 1, 2005

Mocking Heads
February 27, 2004

Like a macabre display of hunting trophies, a set of six disembodied heads sits motionless on the screen at ILM's theater. The heads rotate a quarter turn as Director George Lucas inspects them. Count Dooku, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Mace and several others are among the main characters with stunt work demanding enough to require digital doubling, and Lucas is examining their realism.
Of the ones on the screen, the Christopher Lee and Samuel L. Jackson doppelgangers appear the most lifelike -- they can easily pass for photographs of the actors. But to be fair to the other heads, these are all much bigger than we'd ever see in the finished film.

"That's as close as you can get. It's more than 50 times bigger than the biggest you'd ever see it on screen," says Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll, describing a full screen shot of Mace's noggin. Pores and the tiny imperfections needed for realism are all replicated with exacting accuracy, but George still hones in with a laser pointer at an eye crease here, or a stubble mark there. It seems he'll demand even bigger close-ups of these digital doubles than the ones employed in Episode II.

Of the ones presented, the Anakin one is the least lifelike, but it's not the finished model. "Ignore the top one for now," says John. "It doesn't have the subsurface scattering turned on." This new methodology in fleshing out digital characters recreates the real life characteristics of skin translucency. When light hits your flesh, it penetrates the outer surface and bounces around subdermally before reflecting back. Capturing this phenomenon is the crucial difference between realistic CG skin, and something that ends up looking rubbery and lifeless.

As a result, the mis-rendered Anakin shows plainly the power of the subsurface scattering technique. Without it, his skin looks like painted polystyrene.

In an earlier meeting, Lucas approved a digital head of Temuera Morrison, shown side-by-side with a still of the Maori actor as Commander Cody. When Morrison played that particular clone, the Makeup Department in Sydney affixed a large, nasty-looking scar above his right eye. Though it's in the reference photo, it's not on the CG model, since this head is meant to be a generic clone.

As it stands right now, Episode III has several named clone commanders, all played by Temuera. He is slated to play some of these during additional photography to play some of these - in hair and makeup explorations last summer, Morrison had a number of looks developed. Some had subtle scars while others had more pronounced differences, like a milky damaged eye or white streaked hair. It's not yet known which of these clone commanders will be filmed.

As described in previous Post Notes, ILM's helmetless clone model can dial in different percentages between Temuera Morrison's features and Bodie Taylor's face. What's new is a rather cute way of describing the transition: "from Cody to Bodie."

Even shots labeled non-VFX can be considered VFX shots when it comes to Episode III. With the all-digital picture, ILM is acting as a color lab as well as an effects house, adjusting the hue, warmth and values of shots to provide consistency from cut to cut, and to convey mood. For the scenes of Anakin and Palpatine in the Chancellor's office, George asks to bring down the warmer values that were on stage, making everything a bit cooler, a bit more blue. It is during midday, after all, and he wants to provide a greater contrast to the warmer scenes that occur when Padmé and a group of concerned Senators meet with the Chancellor at dusk.

While in Palpatine's office, there's a perfect example of eyes playing tricks. Behind Anakin, there was a section of doorframe, a right angle that caught the light and gave the image a hard edge.

"Did you guys add something there?" asked George, noting that the edge looks more like an effects artifact rather something that's supposed to be there. Finding it too distracting, he asks for it to be painted out. The reality of the Chancellor's office set is such that there is a hard edge in that corner, but it's been digitally smoothed for that one shot. It's a touch amusing -- a non-VFX shot with what appeared to be an effect artifact in it was smoothed out using visual effects.

The Jedi Council scenes are coming together. The panoramic windows now have matte paintings of a Coruscant skyline, complete with heavy, storm-laden clouds. In the animatics of this scene, there was once lightning illuminating the clouds from within, but George has changed his mind for the finals. There's no need to go overboard on the imagery lurking behind Anakin Skywalker's shoulder in this shot.

Pablo-Jill is now indeed a member of the Jedi Council, as his newly animated form occupies one of the chairs in a finalled shot. Kit Fisto may occupy one of the currently vacant chairs. Even Piell will be resurrected from stock footage, digitally treated to appear as a hologram.

Ki-Adi-Mundi, who was on set, now has the holographic treatment as well. "Using the rationale of Star Wars technology, we figure he's transmitting from far away, so we put in some more fritzing in the image," explains John. The holographic Jedi Master flickers with periodic bursts of static as he holoconferences with the rest of the Council.

Number of Shots: 2,000
JAK Finals: (final shots approved by George Lucas) 80
Final Omits: 1
Shots Turned Over to ILM: 1,176

Finals Needed Per Week: 32
Weeks Left To Go: 57
Shots Left To Go: 1,920

VFX Deadline: April 1, 2005

R Marks The Spot
February 13, 2004

As the animatic footage plays during the turnover meetings with George Lucas at ILM, occasionally a large "R" will be superimposed on the frame. This signifies a shot scheduled for the additional photography phase of production.
Sometimes it's on a piece of existing footage that was lifted from somewhere else. Other times, it's atop an animatic approximation of the actors involved. The R stands for "reshoots," though the preferred term is additional photography, since more often than not, it's a brand new angle rather than a correction of something already captured.

The plans for the first of several stints of additional photography are still being finalized, but this much is certain: they won't be in March. Rick McCallum is zeroing in on dates in April for the UK shoot.

A perfect example of a shot slated for additional photography is the second of three shots that establish the upscale entertainment venue wherein Palpatine catches a show. What was a nearly empty blue set on July 18, 2003 in Sydney has become a posh Coruscant theater, filled to capacity with the high society of the capital planet. On set, it was just Palpatine and his small retinue sitting in chairs. Now, he commands a powerful view in the loftiest tiers of box seats.

It's only in animatic form right now, but the matte painting that defines Palpatine's balcony reveals it to be one of several. Earlier iterations had an entire row of boxes, but those were pruned down to a smaller number to preserve the sense of exclusivity. Once we're actually in the theater, we see in the shadows darker and darker rows of more affordable stadium seating. But what draws the eye in certain camera angle is a bizarre zero gravity performance art of alien design.

George indicates that "source music" will cover this scene. It's rare and special when John Williams gets to craft a piece of music that's supposed to exist in the Star Wars galaxy. The prequels haven't had much source music showcased -- there's strange woodwinds and chanting in the streets of Mos Espa, and Dex's Diner has a galactic version of honky tonk -- but whatever the maestro crafts for this show, it will demand attention. At least for a time. There's important dialogue to be heard.

Before moving into the interior of the theater, though, we see the outside of the building. It's in the upper strata of the "entertainment district," the glassy neon-filled expanse that Obi-Wan and Anakin tore through in Episode II. The exterior of the building, again in rough animatic form, has an immense spot lit globe that presumably contains the auditorium. With a laser pointer, George points out possible places for limo traffic and droid valets to congregate, though the scale is such that they're just a few pixels high.

The next shot moves closer to the immense entranceway-- possibly carpeted, it's hard to say for certain with the animatic -- with dapper Coruscanti elite milling about. They're computer-generated stand-ins right now. Again with the laser pointer, George counts them. "That's about two dozen costumes we'll need," he notes. He clarifies that only five or so need to be of camera-close detail. These can be mixed, matched, and cobbled together from Senatorial garb and anything else that seems upscale.

Inside Palpatine's box, there's Mas Amedda, Sly Moore, and a pair of Royal Guards, plus another face. A computer-generated alien sits to the left behind the Supreme Chancellor. The animatic stand-in is an Ongree, the fish-faced species used for Jedi Pablo-Jill in Episode II. "You can look through to see what other CG aliens we have for this guy," he says to Rob Coleman. Clearly, the alien guest isn't terribly important -- it's just there for visual diversity.

As a joke, George suggests the occupants of the neighboring box. "Maybe we can put a bunch of E.T.s there, throwing popcorn."

Last week, Yoda the Jedi Master finally made an appearance in Episode III. The first completed Yoda shots -- one of him sitting in the Council, the other of him walking alongside Bail and Obi-Wan -- were approved. The CG model is mostly the same, but sharp-eyed viewers may spot an improvement in his clothes. The proper texture of the woolen Jedi robes has been reproduced in digital form, with the tiny clumpy balls that sometimes form on sweaters and the like convincingly reproduced.

Total number of shots: 2,000
Client Finals: (final shots as approved by George Lucas) 46
Final Omits: 1
Shots turned over to ILM: 1,031

Finals needed per week: 32
Weeks to go: 59
Shots left to go: 1,954

VFX Deadline: April 1, 2005.

The Opening Battle
January 14, 2004

The weekly ILM meetings have moved out of the cramped confines of a viewing station and into a fully functional movie theater that can seat over a hundred. HD footage is projected digitally, at a scale closer to its eventual theatrical exhibition proportions. For a sequence like the opening space battle of Episode III, it makes a huge difference.
Plotting starfighter trajectories and making visual decisions based on a comparatively tiny AVID monitor just won't do. On even the biggest playback monitors, one can stand back and, with some detachment, gauge the action of a sequence. But to fully understand what the movie theater audience is going to experience when they're immersed in the action, you need to project it in a theater.

So that's why Director George Lucas has come to the theater at ILM to turn over the opening space battle to the visual effects team. At this scale, the importance of being able to follow the swarm of ships and aerobatic maneuvers is vital. With little preamble, the battle plays through in its entirety (or at least, to the start of the next major action sequence), and then Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll shuttles the footage back, using a laser pointer as he asks specific questions, and as George gives answers and direction.

For just a few tantalizing seconds, it seems as if this theater has become a time machine to 2005. The familiar rolling snare drums of the Fox Fanfare leads to the sparkling Lucasfilm logo, and next comes the "A long time ago..." title card. There's the blare of horns that mark the classic John Williams Main Title as the yellow Star Wars text scrolls to infinity. There's the opening crawl that explains the state of the galaxy, complete with the movie title that may or may not be the final one. The camera next moves towards the warships, and its clear we're joining a battle already in progress.

It's also clear that we're seeing a work in progress. ILM has yet to add anything to this sequence. It has temporary music, temporary sound, and temporary digital effects provided by the Animatics Department at Skywalker Ranch. The effects themselves have a remarkable sophistication -- many could easily be cut scenes of a videogame -- but they're not designed to be the finished product. As an example, the engine wash streaming from the new Republic cruisers are not hazy cones of volumetric light, but instead are sharp conical spires sticking out of thrusters like luminescent icicles.

Geometry plays a vital role in determining allegiances in this space battle. As the camera dives between capital ships, it's easy to become disoriented. Many times, as George gives direction, he refers to the "triangles and the circles." The Republic craft are the rectilinear wedge ships of the original trilogy. The Separatist vessels are more ovoid in shape, with smoother lines and reclined angles. The most familiar vessels amid the Separatist flotilla are the Trade Federation battleships, or the "donut ships" as they are affectionately called.

Though ILM has yet to tackle any of the shots in the space battle, they have crafted the digital starship models. Returning spacecraft, like the donut ships and vulture fighters, are getting a paintjob makeover, with colors and insignia further differentiating them from the Republic craft. John seeks to clarify some of the color-coding. He pulls up a ViewPaint example of the battleship with engines that glow an intense blue. In earlier meetings, George had set down the color palette of the laser fire, and John wanted to make sure these rules don't extend to engine glow. In the animatic space battle, there were several shots of the donut ship with glowing red engines.

"No, that's just a myth," says George. "It only counts for swords or guns."

To further clarify shots, George makes requests to "slow this shot 20 percent," or to make the background ships less prominent. Aside from clarity, his primary directive is for the flight animation to seem natural and graceful. "Plan out any irrational moves to work with the poetry of it all," says George. In other words, trust your feelings. He's such a stickler on maneuvers that he wants to see interim animation from ILM to critique the moves. One thing he keeps pointing out in the animatics is that these ships tend to sag their tails and raise their noses in flight, almost like a speedboat. It's subtle, but George comments on it several times.

Another shot has a nose-heavy dive as a new group of Republic starfighters joins the fray. The camera that follows this squadron trails the leading craft from directly behind, giving an unflattering view of its aft. George asks that this deployment shot instead be configured to keep more of the top of the ship in frame, so it ends up being more a proper introduction to the vessel. "Think of this as a Chevy commercial," he says.

Physics majors will once again have to come to terms with the idea that the Star War galaxy operates from a separate set of rules than ours does. When watching a missile with a specialized payload fly across the screen, George points out a flicker in the wing's ailerons caused by a rendering error. He likes the feel of it, and suggests a possible way of giving of giving this rocket flapping or fluttering wings. "I'm going to get in trouble for this later," he says with a smile as he describes the so-called "goose missile."

It'll be the task of Expanded Universe authors to come up with the technical rationalization of what is ultimately a visual hook, as well as the brand names and characteristics of the missiles. Likewise, another scene has a fantastic explosion with a new look. It was an effect discovered by accident (the explosion was actually rendered for different purposes, but looked so intriguing that George kept it.) So, to justify the cool looking burst, George asks John to have a different, new kind of missile shoot out from one of the Republic cruiser launch bays.

At this stage, it's the visuals that count. The technobabble will come later.

The Art of Flying
December 19, 2003

Most fans familiar with the art of visual effects filmmaking know the difference between animatics and finished effects. In the case of Star Wars, the animatics are handled by a lean, mean team at Skywalker Ranch, while the finished shots are done several miles away at Industrial Light & Magic. The animatics versions of animated characters look crude by comparison, as they are deliberately left incomplete as placeholders and visual guides for the finished shots.
What might not be as commonly known is that starship maneuvers undergo similar refinement. Rob Coleman's team of animators works to make the weight and body language of CG characters realistic and expressive; they also do the same for soaring vehicles and starships.

"We're finishing the air battle today," says George Lucas, describing the tangle of starfighters and capital ships that takes place in the opening reel of Episode III. The Animatics Department has been working hard to deliver the rough blueprint of the scene this week. "We have to go through and put our little shakes on it. The trick on that air battle, though, is that it needs some interpretation. It needs to be very sensitive, so I think as you go through it and you start to get shots, show me some roughs of the moves and rough animation."

Lucas explains this to John Knoll and Rob Coleman at ILM. "The real issue is there's going to be creative and tasteful enhancements to the sequence that will make it even better than it is now. Flying is such a subtle and graceful difficult thing," he explains.

"We've put together a pretty good team that's experienced from Pearl Harbor and other films," says Rob. "We've got some pretty good fliers between John's guys and my guys."

"We've taken the animatics battle quite a ways. We've got some pretty good stuff, but some of the shots can be improved. The animatic is designed to all fit together, in terms of connecting things, but sometimes the key is if the ship were just closer, or could move like this --" George illustrates by moving his hand in a soaring move. " -- it's definitely complex. It's got everything in there."

As of the morning meeting of Thursday, December 18, ILM had delivered 16 final shots. Five more than the week previous, when the total stood at 11. "Eleven finals for Episode III," said John Knoll at the time, doing the mental math. "That gets us ... half of one percent."
"Based off what?" asks George.

"Two thousand effects shots."

"Two-thousand-five," pipes in Producer Rick McCallum.

"What? I don't even know how long the movie is yet!" laughs George.

Sixteen down. Who knows how many more to go?

==========================================

Walking with Grown Ups
December 12, 2003

"Confer on you the level of Jedi Knight, the council does," says a grumpy Yoda, as he hobbles with his wooden cane across the marble floor of Theed Palace. "But agree with your taking this boy as your Padawan learner, I do not."
In a darkened conference room at ILM, Director George Lucas watches the footage of Yoda from Episode I -- the first time the sage Jedi Master had ever been rendered as a computer-generated character for a very brief scene. "That walking in the beginning of this shot," he points out to Animation Supervisor Rob Coleman. "In terms of that scene [in Episode III] where we're having the problem of him keeping up, think about this as a model. He's really shooting there."

"You mean in terms of speed?" asks Coleman,

"Yeah, even in the puppet he's doing it," says Lucas, noting how quickly Frank Oz is moving the puppet laterally across the stage in the following shot.

One of the recurring challenges in animating Yoda is determining what's going on with his legs. On several occasions in Episode II, there were to be scenes where Yoda was walking alongside his full sized Jedi companions. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu cover such distance with their long strides that the little green Master couldn't keep up, and a workaround solution was his hovering chair seen in Attack of the Clones.

In Episode III, there are several scenes wherein Yoda walks in similar statuesque company -- he walks and talks alongside Bail Organa and Obi-Wan Kenobi. On set in Sydney, a little person stand-in walked with actors Jimmy Smits and Ewan McGregor as they blocked the scene. She set the pace for her taller co-stars.

In animating Yoda to match her steps, there at first is resistance to having the Jedi Master walk that fast. Looking at the Episode I footage, however, there is a brief precedent that can be applied to Yoda "walking with grown-ups" as George describes. "This is pretty fast. If he was walking this fast, he could keep up with those guys," he says.

"So, we won't have to give him roller blades?" asks John Knoll, Visual Effects Supervisor.

"Or those shoes with wheels in the back?" asks Rob. "What are they called? Wheelies?"

Such zippy shoes would come in handy in an environment as expansive the Jedi Temple. Episode III ventures into new locales within the towering edifice, and these new locations that weren't realized as sets in Sydney currently exist as relatively crude geometry in low-resolution animatics. John Knoll asks specific questions about the interior decorating of two shots.

"These statues here," he says, referring to two simple gaunt humanoids flanking an enormous staircase. "We've built some statues for a matte painting for the outside of the Senate building. We were wondering if we could reuse those statues for this, or if we should use something new."

"I think we should use something new. Those are pretty recognizable," says George.

"Along similar lines," continues John, pulling up a shot of an new corridor, where again a blocky digital placeholder statue appears to be holding a floating orb. "We did a statue for the hallway outside the younglings room with the big staircase [in Episode II]. About halfway through the pan, there was a big brass statue of a Jedi with a floating ball and a lightsaber in the other hand."

"So, you're asking if can we use that statue for this scene?" anticipates George.

"Yeah. Was it well enough established that it'd be recognizable as the same thing?"

"Yeah, that's where this one came from," says George -- the animatics version was inspired by the miniature built for Episode II. "I liked that statue. I think we should keep the Senate ones in the Senate. I think you'll have room for that one elsewhere, because we have a lot of vast spaces where we can stick other statues. Why don't you make another new statue for this scene."

John jots down a note. "Just trying to save some money here," he smiles.

Producer Rick McCallum, always concerned with the bottom line returns the grin. "Very good," he says, laughing.

"Art! This is art!" says George, jokingly waving his arms around before moving on to the next scene

Cloning Around
December 03, 2003

Tem + Bodie = ?
A cluster of helmet-less clone troopers swarms towards the camera, their faces eerily identical and expressionless in a zombie-like fashion. These aren't the finished products, but rather an animatics work-in-progress. These computer-generated troopers resemble the kind of character you might encounter turning a wrong corner in a first-person shooter game -- detailed and articulated enough to suggest a finished form, but clearly not real. By the time ILM gets through with them, though, it'll be a different picture.

"When we need to do stuff like this, on the close-ups, is it Temuera or Bodie?" John Knoll asks George Lucas, pointing at the animatics footage being projected on the conference room screen. The low-resolution clone trooper stand-ins have tan-skinned black-haired heads, but don't have the facial detail to suggest what these soldiers truly look like unmasked.

"We're better set up for Temuera, if we have a choice, because we have better scan data and photos of him," adds Rob Coleman. "I scanned them both when we were in Sydney, and John had photos of Temuera taken when you brought him back towards the end of the shoot [for Episode II.]"

Temuera was, of course, the face of Jango Fett, the source of the clones in Episode II. Young Bodie Taylor played the unmasked adult clones seen in the clone commissary in that same film. Now that some time has passed in the galaxy, both Bodie and Tem will play different clones from different batches. Tem so far appears to have most of the speaking parts, attributed to a variety of clone commanders in the script.

"You can even merge the two," suggests George. "It doesn't have to look exactly as Temuera because he's the older guy, and Bodie's the young guy, and these can be any age in between. If anything, if you do use Temuera, it'd be good to make him a little bit younger."

"When we model it, we can use a patch topology to define a shape that we can transition one to another," suggests John. This means that the digital model of the unmasked clone trooper can have two extremes -- a Bodie face and a Tem face, with the artists being able to dial in different percentages of each one.

In examining the sequence at hand, there is no live action. None of this particular exchange was photographed in Sydney, so its entirely an animatic. The ILM artists, eager to start work on it, ask George to delineate what will be shot in live action. "I assume if you're going to carry through on shooting some of this stuff, we shouldn't proceed on half of this," says John.

George asks Rob to rewind the scene to the top, and counts each closeup. For the clones delivering dialogue, they'll be either Tem or Bodie shot on bluescreen during pickups. "There's five shots," counts George. "Well, one of them is one shot split by a cutaway, so it's really just four shots."

Four shots to the growing list of pickups for additional photography next year.
=======================================================

Jedi Council Musical Chairs
November 25, 2003

Each Thursday, George Lucas and Rick McCallum travel from Skywalker Ranch to Industrial Light & Magic, to review some of the earliest visual effects work being done on Episode III. In 2004, the effects team will number in the hundreds, but currently, it's less than 25. A small group of those people sit in a darkened conference room-turned-screening theater, getting the answers they need from George to move forward.
It's dark in the theater, but the ILMers nonetheless diligently take notes in the shadows. Among them is Visual Effects Producer Denise Ream. "Her job is to coordinate all the supervisors, and make sure they have their working space, their environment, everything else that they need to be able to actually start to work," explains Rick.

That working space is mostly empty. Soon, Episode III will occupy a significant percentage of ILM's efforts. Though actual animation and compositing of digital elements into plate photography has yet to begin, the construction of those said elements has been going on for weeks.

Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll has been overseeing the modelers and viewpainters -- the artists that paint the realistic textures on what would otherwise be flat gray models -- to prepare the various props, vehicles and characters for their screen-time. George examines projected rotating models and still images of seeker droids, combat ground craft, vulture droid starfighters, a new R2-D2, Count Dooku's digital double headshot and more in one morning, giving each his blessing in turn.

Animation Director Rob Coleman pulls up a scene of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in a new chamber of the Jedi Temple. It's a previsualization version of the eventual shot, delivered by the Animatics Department that works in the Main House at Skywalker Ranch. Rob checks with George to see that the direction of the shot, the placement of Yoda, and the detail of the background virtual architecture is correct.

What often happens during previsualization is that shots are composed based on aesthetic choices that may not correspond to the "reality" of the environment. Set designs or character heights may be cheated, for example, to result in a more pleasing composition. If that is the case, the ILM artists need to know, so they can either similarly cheat their models or restage the shot. The preference seems to be to avoid such fudging whenever possible.

A scene of the Jedi Council Chamber is next in the queue. Again, no finished ILM work has been done yet. It's another animatic consisting mostly of the live action plate shot in Sydney with some low-resolution temporary digital work. A static digital Yoda sits in his rounded chair. A few composited chairs fill in the background, prompting some more questions from John Knoll.

When the scene was shot in Sydney, the only supporting Jedi present (aside from the principals) were Plo Koon, Ki-Adi-Mundi, Stass Allie, Saesee Tiin, and Agen Kolar. This left a number of empty chairs behind. Originally it had appeared that the vacant chairs were the product of combat attrition, but now it seems the ring of Jedi Masters may indeed be filled out with digital extras. In the animatics version of the shot, Jedi Master Pablo-Jill (or perhaps another Ongree Jedi Master) occupies what was once an empty chair. George suggests that Rob and John examine previous footage of the Jedi Council to fill in the empty chairs. As hypothesized in this Set Diary about Jedi not slated to appear in Episode III, some of the background Jedi from the previous films may be resurrected as extras. Perhaps Oppo Rancisis ("the Cousin It with the snake tail" as Rob calls him) and Even Piell will get a cameo after all.

The focus next shifts to the first big action sequence of the film, and John asks a question about color. A procedural technique will lay in the countless ribbons of laser fire that will fill the heavens in the opening space battle, but what color will these beams be? Is there a rule of thumb to fall back on when trying to figure out what hue the Banking Clan cruiser's cannonades will be?

"The bad guys have warmer colors," says George. "The reds, oranges and yellows. The good guys have colder colors, like blue and white."

The bad guys are warm. The good guys are cold. An interesting twist of traditional symbols, and characteristic of the moral ambiguity of the Clone Wars and the fall of the Republic.

Please excuse the reverse order of the dates....

thank you.

i posted them in notepad, and i'll read them all when i have the time this weekend. -_-

WOW! AWESOME THANKS MAN!

Jesus, your really throwing this hs stuff out Scramba, thank you 🙂

thanks scramba it took me some time but I read it fo now may force be with you.

Wow Scramba , 😱 😱 😱

Thanks a million !!!!