Star Wars Prequels' Art Director Doug Chiang Talks

inherent writes: "Recently, representatives of three fansites covering Westwood's upcoming release, Earth and Beyond Online had the opportunity to interview Doug Chiang, Art Director for the Star Wars prequels, and the designer of the spacecraft models in Earth and Beyond Online. Chiang speaks on topics like the differences between film and digital animation, advice for upcoming digital artists, and the now infamous Jar Jar Binks. The interview transcript is available at Earth and Beyond Portal"

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Doug Chiang Interview

Recently, representatives of three Earth and Beyond fansites had the opportunity to interview Doug Chiang, Art Director for the Star Wars prequels, and the designer of the spacecraft models in Earth and Beyond Online. This is a transcript of the interview. LC is Lance_Cutter of www.terrantradecorp.com. LoD is Lord_of_Dreams of eb.stratics.com. D is Devon of www.ebportal.com. DC, is, of course, Doug Chiang.

LC: When did you discover your gift or abilities?

DC: I think it was even before, actually in high school, I took my first filmmaking class in 7th grade. At that time I had always drawn, and I was always frustrated because I wanted to do something more than just drawing. I took this film course that showed me animation and how to turn drawings into motion. Once I grasped that, I really jumped into it and spent the whole summer and weekends making little claymation films. The moment that kind of defined it for, I think, a whole lot of people was the year after that. Star Wars came out. That showed me that there were people out there who actually do this for a living, who could actually design and create film in this specific genre. That got me started thinking, and I did a little more research into the whole process. I grew up in Michigan and the film community there is very quiet, so it was a matter of just finding out where and who these people were that were doing all this great work. Once I realized that people were doing that, I really started taking up the focus of what I really wanted to do.

At first when I started, I wanted to be a stop motion animator. I wanted to be another Reddy [Ed's note: The tape is scratchy here, and I can't find the guy he's referring to. If someone has a clue, let me know. Reddy is a phonetic spelling of the first name.]. He was one of my biggest influences because I discovered his films way before Star Wars, even though I didn't know who he was, I just knew there was something really neat about his films. It's the whole fact that you can take a camera and pieces of clay and make your own film in the basement was spectacular.

LC: The claymation thing is just amazing to me. I don't have the patience for it.

DC: Oh yeah. And the scary thing now is with the 3D rendering tools for the Mac you can do amazing stuff. It will be interesting to see what happens in 5 or 10 years when these kids start coming out of their basements. They're going to be spectacular filmmakers. All you need is a Mac or a little PC at home and you can make your own films with sound and everything. That's going to be frightening .

LoD: What made you come to Westwood to work on Earth and Beyond?

DC: Well, I was finishing off my work with Star Wars when EA contacted me to see if I would be interested in, at first, just consulting, or looking at their project. I said "Sure." At that point, I was just starting to get interested in computer games because I was trying to get one of my own properties developed into a computer game. So that opened the door where I just came in and started talking with them. The more I saw the material, the more more of my initial project with the Westwood team, I just really liked everybody and the project. Basically after that we just started talking and I said, "Sure, whatever you guys need, I'll try to find the time and contribute." Prior to that, I had been approached by other game companies to do other game designs. It just never worked out, whether it was time, or the projects just weren't that appealing to me. I loved everything about this. I loved the subject and I loved the team, so I set time aside.

D: What are some of the challenges you face in the video game realm that you don't face in film?

DC:You have to design things that really have to work. In film design, you can design things that work for a specific shot, so for instance, you don't have to show how the landing gear really works, or how a door opens. A lot of times you'll see a ship land, and they'll cut away to another action. Whereas in this you play real time, and you will see and experience the ship coming down and you see the function of what it's supposed to do. So that factor made the design process a little bit more intensive because you have to figure out that component and make sure it actually works and actually animates.

But the biggest factor that was really hard was the modularity of this game. It was "Come up with a design that was really strong as a base design, but then taking that design and adding various components and improving that design at those stages so that each upgrade will make the designs look better rather than degrading." It's a hard way of thinking because normally when I design something, I like to create the best combinations of shape for that design and say, "That's done. That's it." When I did that, and the Westwood team approved it, and then said "Ok, now make it even better," it was like, "Wait a minute, if I could have made it better, I would have given you that." It was a real hard way of thinking, but it made it challenging because I just came up with elements that were slightly different. But it wasn't really better in a sense that it was superior to the base design, just different. Each one can be perceived as being better, and an upgrade.

So that was the hardest part. Thinking of designs in that way, as interchangeable parts so that it's kind of modular and not too specific, but it can still work.

LC: How do you approach a new a project and yet keep everything fresh for the new project versus what you've already done?

DC: You know what, that's kind of what my job description is. I don't like to be typecast as only a Star Wars designer, or only a "whatever" designer. I like to think that my background in design skills allow me to be flexible to adapt to each of the projects.

In the case of E&B, there was a huge creative brief that was already designed. That basically set all the ground rules and told me exactly what I could break or push. From there, my process is to digest all that information and go and start researching elements, getting inspirations from my library of books and shapes and things that I know. Then I try and combine that and merge it so it fits.

Ultimately what I'm doing is bringing my aesthetics to the Westwood aesthetics, rather than bringing my aesthetics and changing Westwood to something else. There's a lot of what I do is very different from things you're familiar with like Star Wars or Westwood. What I like to do is take those skills and adapt them to other projects.

Of course, there are certain shapes I like. That always permeates through the designs. But, there are shapes that work because there is some kind of integrity to them. SO those are the common elements I try to keep. I try to be as flexible as possible, and address the questions of each project.

That's part of the fun of what I do. The films I work on are so varied.

LoD: With your previous Star Wars experience, did you ever consider working on the Star Wars multiplayer game, Star Wars: Galaxies.

DC: You know what, no. I guess they never asked . I never really thought about it, but it probably wouldn't be as appealing because a lot of that has already been done before. For me, it would just be addressing the same thing. It would just be taking the same designs and reworking it to make it work for a new medium. That in itself is not as appealing to me. I would rather take a new property and design from scratch.

D: On your films, what's the process like when you work with a team of other artists? How do you make everyone's ideas work together?

On a film project, like Star Wars, I will come in and assemble a team, and each of the team members will have a very specific skill. Some will be great at costume design, some at feature design. I try to tap into all those different talents and guide them. Of course, the team that's being developed is still be driven by the film director, whether it's George or somebody else.

The same process happened here on Earth and Beyond where it was essentially the directors, Jerry and Gary and those guys, and my goal was to be that team as a single person. So much of that work had already been done. There was only one very specific task left, and that was the space ships.

LC: What's been your best piece of work, in your opinion?

DC: Oh no. That's a hard question.

I would have to say the ones that come to mind are the Naboo Starfighters and the battle droids. They were very specific problems and I felt it was the best solution. Those are ones I'm also really happy with in terms of addressing all the needs of what those designs had to be in terms of addressing the historic points of addressing why the ships and robots looked the way they looked.

I'm judging from a very specific angle, which is the design component. As a design, I liked them. Whether they're successful as an element that appeals to the public, doesn't matter. For me, they were the essence of good design for me. I'm proud of the way they turned out.

LoD: Was there any particular inspiration for the Earth and Beyond specific models you created?

DC: That's a hard question, because there wasn't a specific inspiration. The creative brief spelled out the general guidelines. But beyond that, they told me to wipe the slate clean, and create something fresh that still fit within the guidelines of the worlds they were creating. I basically started putting down on paper shapes I like to see. Whether they're shapes for film or whatever, I didn't really worry about how they were executed.

There weren't really specific inspirations. Like the Naboo Starfighter was inspired by art nouveau jewelry. In this case, it was really a matter of sitting down and doing a bunch of sketches until I got a shape that I liked.

D: So, what's up with Jar Jar . More specifically, as you were working on Jar Jar, was that the reaction you expected? For example, the thirteen year-old girls can be huge Jar Jar fans, but it makes me cringe.

DC: That's hard to say. In the instance of Jar Jar, when we're designing things like that, whether its for film or for games or whatever, I try not think about what the general perception is because we are so narrowly focused on trying to come up with a really good design. Jar Jar was actually the best possible combination of shapes and personalities and elements that George wanted. We were actually very thrilled with it. We didn't know how he would fit in the story. Our main goal was to design the character.

But, we realized at the end that Jar Jar wasn't made for us. It was made for the 13 year old kid. It's not fair for us to judge, because I can't judge those things. When you're working on a film, you're so immersed in the film that you can't look at things objectively.

And so when the reaction comes out that the character wasn't as appealing to myself or someone else is really irrelevant, because we're not the audience, and we shouldn't be the critiques of that.

D: What was your reaction when you saw Jar Jar in the context of the film the first time?

DC: Oh, I loved him.

But I'm not a good person to ask, because I loved all those guys. I can't look at any of the projects I worked on objectively, you're asking the wrong person, you should be asking a 13 year old girl .

LC: How do you deal with creative blocks, or do you even have them?

DC: Oh, I definitely have lots of them. It's a tough challenge. I just kind of push and force my way through it. Other artists have different approaches.

What I like to do is just sit down and start drawing, even if their really bad, just draw.

The thinking is that I'll get all the bad ideas out and let the good ones come out. My biggest fear when I sense a block coming is to just stop. Tjhat only compounds the process. Once you stop in any of this, it's really hard to get going again. Especially if you have a creative block and stop at the same time, it will be a long time before you get going again. You can quickly undermine yourself and your self confidence.

LoD: Have you actively played Earth and Beyond yourself, if so, what do you think of it?

DC: No, I haven't. The last time I played it was several months ago when I was up here doing our first game. The game has come a long way since then, but it was really fun. Keep in mind, I'm a really novice game player. I couldn't really do what I was supposed to do. But, I loved it. That's what drew me to the project was the whole world, and the fact that you were exploring new worlds. It had all the elements I really enjoy. Here is a game that really puts together all those pieces.

LC: What advice do you have for people who would love to follow in your shoes? What courses would you recommend?

DC: The best thing would be to get a lot of classical training. One of the things I see in a lot of portfolios is that somewhere along the way people are forgetting that they need to learn the basic foundation skills of good drawing, good perspective, good color, good composition, whatever. People are jumping right into doing 3D modeling and rendering. That's one of the dangers of the programs today. You can make something look really good, but it's all glitz, it's all surface, there's no underlieing structure. So what I tell people, is if you want to get in the business, learn how to draw first the traditional way. Do life drawing. Do regular painting. Once you master those skills, then you can put ontop of that all the other layers of new tools. That's the one thing you can't get from these tools. After all they are tools. No matter how flashy these tools are, if you don't have the ideas and education and foundation to support them, the images will look glitzy on the surface, but have no substance. That's the one factor: substance. The portfolios that stand out are the ones who have gone through that classical training. If they don't have the photoshop skills or the visual painting skills. That's ok. That can be taught in a class. If they don't have those foundation skills, it takes many many more years of training to get them. It's better to learn the basics first.

LC: Do you have a site or anything published where fans can look at more of your work?

DC: Yeah. www.dchiang.com. That site highlights my book project: Robota. You'll find I have some tutorials on there. Some demos of how I sketch and paint. Eventually they'll be more there. I'm working on a trailer right now. A 3 minute trailer, once it's finished in June, we'll post it up to the site, along with a bunch of other animation stuff.

D: How many revisions would you say went into the development of the ships for Earth and Beyond.

DC: Actually quite a bit. Jerry and Gary were very specific about what forms they'd like, and the very specific timers of how it fits within the world. On average, I would say each design would take maybe half a dozen or so and refine that. Then I would take the 2 or 3 that they liked a do another dozen of those, then we would hone those down again. Usually by one or two stages like that, we'll have the finished design and from then I can just refine it. But it varies, on some of the ships it was quick, others it took a bit longer.

D: What were the most difficult ships (and which was easiest)?

DC: The easiest were the Jenquai. That was because they were a little more elequant and fluid. The hard one was the Terrans. They were supposed to be like Earth, but they couldn't look too much like Earth. It was like trying to adapt something that everyone was very familiar with and take it to the next level and make it new.

It was like taking what NASA would build in 2 or 3 hundred years, but still make it recognizable that people from earth would build it.

It's always easier when you can take big, broad steps like creating a design for an alien culture. The rules are more open. Noone really has anything compare it with. You're not really tieing in to a sense of history, but the Terrans had strong ties to things we know.

LoD: Do you have anything in the future you could tell us about?

DC: Not really. I'd still like to keep my day job, designing for films. But on the side, I'm trying to get Robota developed into as many different things as I can. That's the only big question mark. Whether or not this big experience works, we'll see in 3 or 4 years. Other than that, it's hard to say. I'm basically "Designer for Hire." I'd love to more computer games, it was really great, really fun.