The New Force at Lucasfilm

conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interview with the heads of George Lucas' gaming and movie divisions, and discusses with them how they are getting closer and closer to integration. From the article: 'Pre-visualization, which is a big thing that George has been pushing lately. It's a tool that directors would use to quickly mock up the ideas of a story and see what's going to work. It's really like building up a preview of a movie in a video game world. Instead of using static story boards, you can really just get in and create 3D content and camera moves directly. It's the best example of the kind of collaboration we've got going on.'"

Comments

I could never work at Lucasfilm

[Anonymous Coward]

Everytime they asked me to do something I didn't want to, I'd be unable to resist saying "But I wanted to go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters."

Visualisation is the only thing he's good at now.

[khasim]

I hated Episodes I & II and still haven't seen Episode III.

But, look at each still shot. They look good. The characterization sucks. The plot sucks. The dialog sucks. The timing sucks. The motivation sucks. None of it has any logical flow behind it.

But the still pictures are very nice.

Re:Sounds like a toy for mediocre directors.

[Chabil Ha']

Sounds like a toy for mediocre directors.

If you think that Peter Jackson is a mediocre director, sure. The Lord of the Rings included *numerious* pre-visualization shots. If you watched any of the bonus content on the DVD's, you would see some of the pre-vis stuff on the Mines of Moria scenes where the Fellowship is being chased by the Orcs. I think the movie was fabulous, and if pre-vis made the movie any better (which IMHO it did) then let the mediocre directors continue their work.

Visualization has at least two benefits that I think of right off the top of my head.

1. You as the director may be able to visualize what needs to happen, but communicating that to other people can be difficult if you don't have ESP. This allows the artist to communicate an idea to other people via a medium that is easy to conceptualize. Yes, that's what story boards are for (like the article says), but

2. It allows you to build a set without going through the costly motions of actually having to do it. This goes for virtual sets as well. While this method seems a lot more expensive than hiring a graphic artist to draw it in 2D story board cells, 3D permits you to make changes without having to redraw a whole frame, this in turn allows the crew to explore changes and make iterations very quickly. It also makes a good point of reference for those who are responsible for creating CG add-ins to the movie.

A few things....

[two.oh]

I'm worried about a few things that the article discusses. Yes, it sounds exciting that LucasArts and ILM are doing collaborating in the future. What I'm afraid of however, is that in the CG industry, there seems to be a technological 'progression' that trivializes the purpose of the traditional (ie. concept artists, storyboard artists, etc.)

Sullivan discusses that pre-viz is a good and modern solution, but he doesn't mention that pre-viz can also be slower and less fine tuned than the work of a storyboard artist. Illustrators can offer style, better/faster continuity, and the ability to develop an entire shot rather than developing rough 3D-geometry. If it were up to me, I'd keep both around.

So sure, the technology and tools get better, but it doesn't necessarily make a better film.

Disney made that mistake with their cel animation department, and they all got laid off (thank god for Lassater).

Square did it with Final Fantasy and threw away the storyline.

ILM seems to be a very traditional studio in the sense that they follow a typical pipeline for production. I just hope they clearly understand the benefits of keeping these illustrators around.

Re:OMG

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"FIRST POST"

In the original version, I posted first!!