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New Lucasfilm Campus Breaks Ground at Presidio
GuyMannDude writes "Lucasfilm has broken ground on the new $300 million special effects campus that he hopes will help San Francisco rival Hollywood as a producer of movie magic. Some see the project as a way for the Presidio (a national park) to become economically self-sufficient while critics claim that level of commercialization is unnecessary."
Hopefully the Lucas compound will be able to use the close connections to create better products all around. Lucasarts has produced some great games over the years but the teams have always had a hard time dealing with NDA agreements with the other Lucas companies and tailoring a specific game to an upcoming movie release.
With everything in one boat maybe future titles will improve upon titles such as Bounty Hunter which surely could have been much better if the process was streamlined better internally.
I'd rather see Lucas break ground on a writer's workshop.
Romana: "How did you know?" Doctor Who: "Ah, well, knowing is easy. Everyone does THAT ad nauseum. I just sort of hope"
Perhaps it's just my jaded and cynical view of recent movies, but it seems that this new San Francisco-based studio wouldn't really have to do a great deal to rival Hollywood as a great movie producing town. Sure, Hollywood has the name, and has a long and glorious history, but the really good, honestly-worth-seeing films of the last few years have come out of other countries, not Hollywood. LOTR is just one example one that immediately pops to mind. Star Wars of course was done in England (and Marin, CA, of course). Lest anyone forget, The Matrix was an Aussie production. A personaly favorite of mine, The Boondock Saints was East-Coast, USA made. My list here is short for the point of brevity, not due to a lack of examples.
The last really good Hollywood production I saw was The Score. Hollywood may have a name synnonymous with movie making, but ? at least recently ? not so synnonymous with good movie making.
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I'm sick and tired of being responsible for the preservation of the universe and its outlying suburbs.
One country you forgot to mention is Canada, which is attracting more and more filmmakers. The reason is that Canada provides a number of tax credits and incentives for production companies who film there and use Canadian labor. It's easy to spot movies filmed in Canada under the auspices of this program, as one of the requirements is that the Canadian government and the tax credit be mentioned in the movie credits. This mention is often the first thing that pops up when the movie ends, even before the cast (or "The Players," as many Canadian-filmed movies call them, that may also be a requirement).
I'm seeing this with ever-increasing frequency. It's just plain cheaper to film a movie in Canada than it is to do it in Hollywood; it's often cheaper than filming elsewhere in the U.S. as well, even for fairly low budget stuff. You can't beat the tax breaks. British Columbia (among other locations) is becoming sort of a mini-Hollywood in its own right.
But then again, with LOTR the effects were needed to make the visualisation of the story possible in the first place. Just enough to make it happen (which is still a lot, but that's due to the story!)
With SW there is way to much effects in that it get's in the way of the story. Not just what's needed, but it gets a life of its own.
IMHO this clearly a case of "less is more".
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
rival Hollywood as a producer of movie magic.
Surely raising the bar involves rivalling Weta Digital (NZ)?
There used to be a language school at the POSF... Alas I studied and later taught Korean Language at the Presidio of Monterey instead... I really wish I could have been stationed there, as SF is such a great place. Well, Monterey isn't all that bad at all...
Anyways, perhaps Lucas could reopen some of the schoolhouses, teaching Jedi Knights the language of the Sand People, which could be useful for recovering stolen droids, or, maybe the Stormtroopers could learn the language of the Jawas, also good for recovering stolen droids, or better yet, teach us mere mortals the Hut Language, so we too could someday acquire our own Princess Leia (dressed in the golden bikini w/chain and collar, of course!)
All that aside, I'll bet it was a real bitch to have to run up and down all those hills for physical training... it is bad enough on the Presidio of Monterey!
Star Wars ('77) was amazing, and they managed fien back then with buckets of sawdust in the parking lot and all that. TPM and AotC have been so so and had multi-million dolar effects budgets. George lost it somewhere along the way and now sees FX as the makings of a good movie.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Hopefully once everyone is used to the massive amounts of digital effects in every movie, movies will succeed or fail based on quality and enhanced by, not just composed of, flashy stunts and digital effects.
Speaking of which, Shaolin Soccer (Kung Fu Soccer in the US) combines bullet time type effects with (obviously cheap, but workable) digital effects and a HILARIOUS premise. It's a light hearted riot for anyone who can find it to rent it. It's a good example of effects used to extend the over the top comedy of any given situation.
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When I grow up, I want to be a kid again.
...there is no immediate 6 degrees between George Walton Lucas Jr. & Jonathan K. Letterman outside of the ground for the new center. My guess is that the decision to carry the Letterman name forward was symbolic only. No doubt there was pressure from local historical groups to keep it.
I'm curious to know if G.L. is doing virtual battlefield simulations in exchange for the roof over his new venture.
Maybe your law is true today, though. I'm not sure I can think of any movies made today that are filmed entirely on a back lot. I think those days are pretty much over.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
This deal sets a very bad precident. The National Park Service was set up to preserve the outdoors, not spur the film industry and there is no other National Park with an 850,000 square foot office complex built on top of it. Though it's true that the Presidio does have a mandate to break even by 2013, a close analysis by a neighborhood newspaper (I've reprinted it here with permission) has shown that this development is un-necessary. Many neigborhood associations and the Sierra Club are against this deal.
I have just read the sfgate article as well as most of the comments on this site about the new Lucas Presidio headquarters.
It's interesting to me to see that much of the conversation here has turned toward the movies themselves rather than the impacts, both positive and negative of the new facility on the park and the city.
The article mentions that a group of residents have expressed concerns about the development. In my skimming of the comments, I did not notice any from that group.
I would like to see what you folks think of the development itself (not the films or the characters) and it's relation to the park.
Will it affect public access in any way? I know that Lucas has been very security conscous at it's Marin headquarters. Will this paranoia on Lucas's part adversely impace public access to the park?
Will this add any more jobs to the Bay Area? Or just move jobs from one part to another?
Being on federal land, will this project contribute anything to San Francisco's tax coffers?
Mark
Cleara
Can somebody explain to me why a national park needs to be economically self-sufficient? It can't possibly cost taxpayers more than a few pennies a year to run the thing. I always thought people willingly paid for the upkeep of national parks.
QAExpress: Solid bug tracking for you. Graphs and reports for your PHB.
1. Lucas doesn't operate in reality. They make billions off of mickle investment. Where and how is unimportant.
2. Film isn't a significant industry*. One studio won't change the fortunes of more than a few hundred citizens. And George gets most of the profit from his companies. Banking on this to revive a city's economy is irrational. It's political hype.
* - the sum of the box-office grosses for every movie released in 2002 was on the order of Intel's 4th Quarter. Adding home video doubles it, but by then you're looking elsewhere on the financial page.