Lucas's New HQ

pin_gween writes "The KS City Star reports George Lucas (of the "It's not about the money" fame) has opened a new headquarters for digital film works. The campus has, among several movie theaters, "data network with more than 300 10-gigabyte ports. Fiber-optics cables are connected to every artist desktop, allowing high-resolution images on each computer. In all, there are 600 miles of cable throughout the campus's four buildings." Not too shabby, or cheap."

Comments

Obligatory EP3 Quote...

[Anonymous Coward]

"In terms of being a corporate executive, I'm pretty much tired," he said. "I'm going to focus on making movies."

Noooooooooooo......!

This has been open for a while...

[ip_freely_2000]

The Presidio facility has been open for a bit. Yes, it's sweet and one thing that can't be said about George is that he does thing half-assed.

Of course, the expectation is that you work INSANE hours. I only wish I could get this set up at home so I can balance my life a little better.

Re:This has been open for a while...

[dknj]

The Presidio facility has been open for a bit.

Seriously, this was in last months issue of Playboy. I'm sure 80% of slashdot already knows about this

So not only did he rape our collective childhood..

[Anonymous Coward]

But on top of it he is trying to ridicule all us geeks with ungodly huge data pipes!

Developing a final "Indiana Jones" film

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, Indy finds out that Dr. Belloq is really his father in a shocking scene.

Federation

[cmcsonar]

Once he's tired of the location, the Federation can buy it, because it is located on the grounds of the future Star Fleet Headquaters.

I wish I had fibre optic on my desktop

[DrSkwid]

then I could have high resolution images on each of my computers.

I'm fed up being stuck on 100Mbps' 640x480x8 !

lol, good grip on the technology there JUSTIN M. NORTON, any other great stories you have written ?

Re:I wish I had fibre optic on my desktop

[rsmith-mac]

Sure it will - you're looking up gigabytes of textures at any moment.

Re:I wish I had fibre optic on my desktop

[InvalidError]

That would not be terribly efficient.

Most rendering farms probably load all scene textures/geometry to allocated renderers then the workstation simply queue frame requests to each renderer, reducing the bandwidth requirement to little more than finished frames' (1920x1080x3*10/8 = 7.8MB/frame) transfer, assuming the scenes are fairly lenghty or the software is written to cache across scenes/jobs and the scenes use a substantial common texture/geometry base.

So the gigabytes of textures/geometry probably only apply while the rendering farm is doing a cold-start with clean caches. The rendering job's setup becomes even more bandwidth-trivial if the whole thing can be setup using multicast - setting up one or a hundred nodes at once takes practically no additionnal time in that case.

Re:Great

[nozzo]

SLAP!

Fine and Good

[Tibor the Hun]

This is all fine and good, but it would sure be nice to spend some of that money on writing classes, or directing semminars.

Yes, all that technology is nice, but ultimately worthless, if the movies coming out of it have no substance.

Re:Fine and Good

[Adrilla]

Yes, all that technology is nice, but ultimately worthless, if the movies coming out of it have no substance.

It's not worthless if it's going to be making him money, let's say oh about 50 million on opening day. Indy Jones is coming, and the money that movie is bound to make will pay for this technology many times over. Plus the Star Wars TV show(s), video games, etc. Sure the quality of the movie may not be what you want. But, it's obvious someone is watching them, in fact it's highly likely this is a genius move, because it allows the people there to work diligently with the most minimal of technological setbacks. Some might say this is overdue at the Lucas camp (not that they were exactly working in the stone age at the old campus). Bottom line, the work may not be top quality film making, but it will pay for the technology, and the technology will pay for itself by being the tool that creates blockbusters.

Re:Fine and Good

[spoonsman]

That's probably because many people (especially younger kids) just see the "pretty" CG factor stacked on top of some slick actions scenes, and it keeps their attention.

As an adult, have you ever looked back and watched movies or shows you loved as a kid and realized how completely god awful they are with their completely inane storylines, acting, and plot? That's exactly what the prequals are.

I loved the original trilogy as a kid and still love the original trilogy as an adult, not just because I have fond childhood memories of them but because they are good movies. They are what the prequals should have been- loved by children yet also loved by adults.

Re:Fine and Good

[oogoliegoogolie]

Just because you and I have outgrown it doesn't mean he has.

I haven't outgrown Star Wars-I still watch the original movies and watch scenes from the new ones every once in a while. No, the new movies were just bad movies; even the animated Clone war shorts were much better.

comments like yours demonstrate your inability to understand who and what the movies are for

Movies dont have to be divided into "for children" and "for adult" categories. Countless movies have been made that have appealed to both. Pixar and Disney can do it, but Lucas can't, at least not anymore when he directs. In an interview from the 80's Lucas said "a boring movie with great special FX is still a boring movie. He seems to have forgotten these words.

You know, the "it's cool to bash Lucas and the prequels"

On slashdot, everything gets bashed.

Re:Fine and Good

[Tibor the Hun]

Yes, you're right, the new trilogy is exactly like the crappy cartoons of old (GI Joe, Smurfs or Transformers.) (All of which were my favorites beyond belief.)

Remember the relationship between Solo and Leia. How it was all uncertain untill she said "I love you" just before they froze him? And then he says "I know". That was awesome.

The best he can come up with now is "I love you" "no, I love you" "hihihihi"
No amount of bandwidth and hi resolution images is gonna make that enjoyable.

Re:Fine and Good

[fm6]

Lucas graduated from film school at USC. Before he became a Visionary Mogul, he actually made one or two decent films, including American Graffiti. I think he has a small problem, and a big one. The small problem is that he hasn't actually done that much writing or directing since he became a VM, so he's out of practice. The big problem is that he is a VM, so nobody is in a position to tell him that his shit smells. Especially when that shit consistently makes a profit.

Some of that's going on with the big new campus in San Francisco. The dude's in love with digital media, and he's lost interest in the model-making that is still at the heart of most space opera SFX. You won't find a model shop at the new campus: that group remained behind in the industrial park in San Rafael. Now digital media is certainly cool -- but anybody who's seen Sky Captain will tell you that virtual sets are not quite ready for prime time!

Hope it's better than ILM of the past.

[sgant]

I've talked to several people who have worked at ILM and currently are there. Sweatshop is a word that keeps poping up in the course of conversations. Hopefully this will change or has already changed.

Re:Hope it's better than ILM of the past.

[sgant]

What most do is get the ILM badge under their belt then move on to better places to work, like Pixar or Weta. Which is why ILM can't keep ahold of the good animators anymore cause they treat them like shit. But as I said, this may have changed.

But I hate this mentality of "well, you can work somewhere else". It's like the idiocy of "be thankful you have a job" nonsense. Why can't it be a nice place to work AND make a profit? Why does it have to be a sweatshop?

byte or bit?

[grub]

data network with more than 300 10-gigabyte ports.

I think that means gigabits. Unless they started rating cards in bytes overnight.

Fiber Optics? 300 Outlets? 600 Miles?

[ImaLamer]

now that's Industrial .... Light .... and .... Magic ....

... on Google Maps?

[Jugalator]

Is that what this huge dirt place is all about?

Maybe the pictures were actually captured a while back.

Re:... on Google Maps?

[eraserewind]

Here's a small hack (neat or not, I'll let you judge Mr AC). Go to Google maps and enter your desired phrase "biggest fool in the world" or somesuch. Of course it doesn't find anything interesting, but it still shows you a map. So manually go to your desired location (I recommend using the map rather than satelite view for this), . Then switch to satelite view and your desired zoom level, and click "link to this page", and you get a nice link to Google Maps - biggest fool in the world to send to your unsuspecting victim.

i'm thinking about moving...

[ghee22]

should i post this on slashdot as well?

Re:American POP

[MushMouth]

A) San Francisco doesn't own the Presidio, the Federal government does. B) He leases the land, and it ain't free. C) The presidio has tons of empty office space and buildings they have been trying to lease for years. D) SF currently has historically high amounts of vacant office space, in many ways the Presidio Trust got very lucky that they struck the deal with Lucas when they did, at the height of the Dot Com Bubble.

I don't think I like the tone of this post....

[cryptocom]

The paragraph submitted above for this article makes it seem like Lucas is hoarding all his money and somehow going against a cardinal rule of not making money. For one thing, non profit artists may seem romantic and all, but in truth we all want to get paid...and if what we do is make movies that cost millions of dollars, you better believe we want to get paid millions of dollars or more. Secondly, it's not like he's spending all his money on Bugatti's and trips to Bali...he's invested a large chunk into a creative complex where artists and movie-goers can benefit from his fortune. I'd say that's pretty damn cool.

Re:I don't think I like the tone of this post....

[Jugalator]

He didn't necessarily mean IJ 4 is small art, what I find more likely is that he said he wish to do a final IJ movie, then smaller film projects. This is the kind of ambiguous quote anyway:

But Lucas said he'll likely keep away from the center and instead focus on developing a final "Indiana Jones" film and smaller film projects.

He has earlier said he nowadays do movies for himself, something I find easy to believe considering his wealth. He could live a happy rich life at his age if he wished to.

Why the KC Star, the place is in San Francisco

[MushMouth]

And we have a pretty big news rag in SF.

Did you see!

[alewar]

Thanks to all of you who download pirated-copies of movies and games from the net, L&M had to move to another studio...
I knew this was going to happen, they are losing BILLIONS because of YOU.

Re:American POP

[Doc Ruby]

SF doesn't own the land, but of course they control it - like any other city, with zoning, incentives and other political checks. That space is vacant because SF is very selective, reserving it for long-term strategic anchor tenants like Lucas. SF certainly was lucky that Lucas decided to expand his studio across the Golden Gate Bridge into the Presidio, rather than LA, or New Zealand or someplace else even cheaper. But Lucas is also lucky SF let him into that exclusive property. There are several Lucases, and only one Presidio, especially in Lucas' front yard.

New studio...

[ImaLamer]

...IT'S A TRAP!

Ummm...

[artemis67]

one thing that can't be said about George is that he does thing half-assed

Like, dood, where have you been for the last six years?

Re:American POP

[stefanlasiewski]

I remember that Lucas drove a hard bargain, and got a really good deal from San Francisco. The deal was pretty controversial, but most people seem happy with with the deal today.

There was a big competition between several Bay Area cities (and Marin County) to get Lucas to move to their Area. Each City made sweet offers-- cheap rent, pay for some of the upgrades, give Lucas alot of freedom to do what he wanted, etc.

I think SF actually did ask Lucas to help wire parts of the Presidio, but he said no-- and threatened to close the other studio in San Francisco and move to another are altogether.

SF was looking for a large business to redevelop the abandoned land and boost the economy in the area. They actually had trouble getting bids for that particular site for a variety of reasons.

The site where the studio now stands was occupied by Letterman Hospital: a big abandoned, ugly asbestos-filled hospital which wasn't up to earthquake standards, and a large unused parking lot.

I was born in Letterman Hospital, and worked next door to the site for 3 years-- we ran the only T-1 into the Presidio for several years.

Did you mean ...

[ggvaidya]

Noooooooo ... !?

The Good News

[Nom du Keyboard]

The Good News is that he didn't open this in Bangalore, India.

Re:OVERKILL: Great Movie != Great Animation

[Tim Browse]

Of course, the wonderful "Shrek" saga is an exception to my thesis.

Really? I liked Ep III, whereas I found Shrek to be dull, predictable, clichéd and poorly animated*.

I remember last xmas Shrek was on TV and it bugged the hell out of me. Then a couple of hours later I watched the DVD of Monsters, Inc. that my sister got for xmas. Talk about chalk and cheese. Monsters, Inc. made me think "Yes, I wasn't imagining it, Shrek is poor."

Why it's so successful, I'm not entirely sure. Probably that darn donkey.

(* This is a reletive term - I mean poorly animated considering the praise it received)

Not just rendering

[Namarrgon]

3D rendering involves a LOT more than just output, as someone else pointed out. And digitally post-producing movies requires a LOT more than just 3D renders.

There's all the live footage elements to consider - potentially dozens of layers for every final frame - each of which must be stored, converted, colour-graded, maybe stabilised, grain-matched, composited and edited.

What's more, any CG in the movie would be rendered as multiple separate 3D layers, not just a single frame, and all those layers also have to be colour- and grain-matched, unstabilised and composited with the live elements.

I've worked on a scene that required over 40 live and 450 CG layers for each frame of the shot - and each of those layers ranged from 40-80 MB (the shot was around 300 frames). That's around 20 GB per frame of pixels alone, not counting textures, CG geometry etc. And this data was used and re-used repeatedly as the shot evolved over the course of months.

A 10 gbps pipe to each workstation would really have helped, believe me :-)