StarWars: Hello and welcome to the sixth of our Star Wars chats,
StarWars: brought to you by Lucasfilm and Talk City.
StarWars: .
StarWars: Star Wars has become the most popular film series in history. This series of
StarWars: chats is designed to gain insight into the production of the newest of the
StarWars: Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.
StarWars: .
StarWars: Our special guests today are Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace
StarWars: Pre-Visualization/Effects Supervisor David Dozoretz and Animatics Artist,
StarWars: Jeff Wozniak.
StarWars: .
StarWars: And now, please welcome David and Jeff!
StarWars: .
StarWars: .
StarWars: Thank you for being with us today David... Jeff
David: My pleasure!
Jeff: Pleasure being here!
ASKLucasfilm: Jedi-youngone says: Dave and Jeff, can you please tell us how you started at ILM, and what does it take to become a member of the ILM team?
Jeff: Well, we don't work at ILM, but a separate department called Jak Film Inc., a division of Lucasfilm. It was created to service the three prequels, and it is home to the animatics team. I did work at THX for 4 years, and also was doing my own graphics on my own. I assembled a demo reel, and at the time I was ready to show it, there was an opening at Star Wars, that was just over a year ago.
David: In 1992, I received an internship with ILM after film school, and worked in that art department I was the first person there to do animatics, specifically for the "Special Editions" of Star Wars and "Mission: Impossible." In 1995, Rick McCallum brought me on board for "The Phantom Menace." I was brought on to work on the pod race, but it was expanded as George saw that, and said, "Do everything that way!"
ASKLucasfilm: Darth-Boba says: what was a typical day like when working on the film?
David: Sheer panic!
For me, it was for about three years getting in around 8am, and working with the team of Jeff, Kevin and Ryan primarily, interfacing with George, and Martin, the editor, and Doug, the art director, to come up with animatic shots for the film. We might work up until 11pm at night. I went to dailies at ILM every day this past year, to see the final work they were doing.
Jeff: I concur: it was a frenetic environment. But we're close-knit, and every day we would be thrown a new series of problems that needed solving as soon as possible, and it was a great challenge.
David: We usually skipped lunch, or ate it at our desk.
Jeff: We're all a bit pale.
David: Speak for yourself, I'm in Arizona now! ::grin::
ASKLucasfilm: R2-ToadBurger says: How have Computers effected the role of artists in movies in the past few years?
Jeff: I would say they've changed things significantly. As recently as 1992, when I was having to declare a major in college, focusing on computers would lead you down a technical career path. But there wasn't a clear connection between computers and filmmaking. It's changed dramatically, and many who may not have pursued a career in the film industry have done so. One cringes thinking how effects show used to be done, and edited with film itself - its all different, to put it mildly.
David: I would just add that at least on "The Phantom Menace," the technology was part of getting George's vision.
We are just at the tip of the iceberg right now, and the next five years are going to be terrific to watch. We won't judge films not by what IS digital, but what is NOT digital in a film. It's like how CD's replaced LP's.
I think it will streamline the process of filmmaking, and realize the vision more clearly.
Jeff: In this film, I think you can see it already. Only about 200 shots in this movie were NOT done digitally. It's just another tool, and the distinction between the two types of shots is rapidly becoming not relevant.
David: Even the non-effect shots are digital.
Jeff: Right. It's the first time a film has done live action digitally.
ASKLucasfilm: Darth-socko says: Did George have to approve all the storyboards or did you have freedom of your own?
Jeff: Yes, George had ultimate approval over ever last frame of film. Within that, we are given a lot of creative freedom to try out different things. We would show George a few things, he would like maybe one thing from one shot, another thing from another shot, and would come up with a way to combine them, and come up with
something we hadn't thought of. He comes up with some unique ideas.
David: That's an absolutely perfect answer, Jeff.
ASKLucasfilm: Jedi-Bigbird says: HOW DO THE SPECIAL EFFECTS TEAM ADD IN THE GLOW TO THE LIGHTSABERS?
David: We used "The Force" ::grin::
Here's a general answer (so we don't give away the magic); we have an image of a lightsaber flickering. We have a compositing program to sandwich it over the stick the actor has on the set. We then have to make sure that the animation file moves in the exact same way as the stick. So we track it onto the stick, and make sure that it moves behind those things it should be behind, in front of those it should be in front of, and then the sound guys give it their added touch.
ASKLucasfilm: Queen-Anakin says: What was the most difficult scene that you had to do and how long did it take?
Jeff: For me, the end lightsaber battle was the toughest. It was 4-5 weeks work on that sequence, and in that scene, we had to work a lot of things. It starts out in the hangar, goes through the hallway and the forcefields, with the timing of those having to be worked out. Then it proceeds into the final room, and in all those cases, it's a completely synthetic environment for the actors, and we had to establish the look of the final shots desired into the backgrounds.
David: The whole film was pretty intensive, but the pod race was tough, although the ground battle was hardest, I think, because thousands of droids and gungans had to be put in, and we couldn't hand animate these, so we used motion-capture, which is the ability to apply magnetic or optical sensors to a human being, and record their motion.
Coordinating all of this was a bit of a challenge. And at the time, the ground battle in animatic battle was twice as long as it ended up in the film, so it was many more shots. It would be hard to narrow down one shot as the hardest, because every week, we would face something new that was harder than last week.
George really pushed us that way.
ASKLucasfilm: Jedi-MasterJoe says: what is involved in creating a animated storyboard?
David: The steps to creating an animated storyboard are the same as to doing the final visual effects shot, except it is faster, but rougher. This includes 3-D modeling, applying textures to those models, animating, and compositing with live action. No two shots are alike The technique changes depending on what is necessary in the shot.
Jeff: I've often heard it said about final shots that it is more about problem solving than anything else, I am sure that applies to storyboards, too. Every day, you take a different set of steps to get to your final goal.
ASKLucasfilm: R2-DEETOO says: Mr. Dozoretz and Mr. Wozniak: in the making of Episode I did you mainly implement techniques from previous projects or did you invent new ones specifically for the film?
Jeff: I guess I would say that goes along with the last question. I didn't really have previous projects to refer to, but I felt we were making it up as we went along.
David: Pre-visualization is a relatively new thing in computer graphics. We took it to new heights. We added motion-capture, we blended live action and animation together, we used cutting-edge technology, and thought up new pipelines, new systems to deliver pre-visualization to the editor, so a lot of new techniques were invented here.
But you still base everything on work you have done before. It's good to have a solid base in film language.
ASKLucasfilm: R2-ghexiter says: Have you started any work on episode two?
David: Maybe. ::grin::
ASKLucasfilm: Viceroy-Johnny says: How do you feel about your role in the creative process? In your visualization of the storyboards do you find creative expression? How much of your own creativity is infused with the script and the 2d artwork to influence the final production?
David: Ultimately, this is George's movie, but I've felt I have had a great amount of creativity. As Jeff stated earlier, we have to tell a story, and we have to adhere to the script, but there's a million different ways to tell that story. In the process of doing a shot, we might find a new angle on a ship, or a new creature idea, and that may get implemented. In a few places in the film, there are shots that an animatics artist thought of, and George liked, and implemented.
ASKLucasfilm: Senator-fassa says: hi I'm from Israel I wanted to know where did you learn the effects?
Jeff: More or less self-taught in my case. I just experimented a lot, and had friends in the industry who were able to give me pointers and basic techniques. I sort of refined it on my own over time. I think David alluded that animatics is as much about graphics as it is about telling the story, and designing how the film looks and feels, getting the timing down, all the elements that make a shot. So having a background in film in college was a help.
David: The digital tools will always be changing, so if you want to work in this field, my primary suggestion is to suggest the history and language of cinema first, then go out and buy a computer and start doing storytelling.
ASKLucasfilm: Jedi-JustinCredible says: How did the trilogy figure into the story boards for the prequels, in terms of trying to keep some of the same quality?
David: Doug Chang, the art director would answer this better, but in my view, George wanted to do something totally different, so this is an art nouveau versus the original trilogy. In our role of pre-visualization, we wanted to make sure we had shots that were as exciting if not more so than Episodes 4,5 and 6. And different.
Jeff: Some people question how did we justify some of the differences, but I think the story justifies it. It takes place in a more prosperous, and more technological time, and fits into the time arc of the story.
ASKLucasfilm: Jedi-dave says: What are some filmmaking problems or mistakes that animatics help you to avoid?
David: Animatics help you figure out as much stuff ahead of time as possible. It's better to learn if a shot will work in front of one person at a computer than in front of 100 persons on a set. Some concepts we were hypersensitive to were composition, pace, screen direction, and continuity.
Jeff: It really does make a template for the entire film, and you can cut together your entire film using animatics so you are sure you know what you want before you start. Obviously, it's better to decide if a shot doesn't work ahead of time, rather than waste money and time on a set.
ASKLucasfilm: darth-einstein says: Do you guys follow realistic physics when you create vehicle trajectories, or do you just eyeball it all? Do you think that people pick up subconsciously when the physics of an effects shot are off?
David: Yes, I do. The important thing, though, is storytelling, not reflecting real-world physics. But who knows what real-world physics long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away?
ASKLucasfilm: R2-Lucasfilm says: Which parts/scenes did each of you work on?
Jeff: It was really interesting watching the final film, and being reminded how many parts of the film I did work on. The lightsaber battle was big point of concentration for me, and a few shots in the pod race. Some shots in the ground battle were ones I worked on, and the rest were scattered throughout. I worked on the desert lightsaber battle, and it was not just the look of the lightsabers, but the huge dust clouds that came up, and George was concerned about how the dust cloud would look, shot to shot.
David: I was privileged enough to supervise the animatic artists throughout the entire film. Prior to the department growing in size, I was responsible, along with Alex Lindsay, for the pod race. I did my first shots for that race in September, 1995, and we did about 1000 shots for that race. Of the 2000 shots in the film, we think we did 3 to 6 versions of each shot, so over the course of two years, we did over 10,000 animatic shots.
And six lost girlfriends.
ASKLucasfilm: Senator-Captin-Tarpals says: how do you think these new movies will stand the test of time like the originals did?
Jeff: I think so. I have to say that (we're biased, of course) we are so pleased how it came together, and visually, and in every way, the movie is timeless. Costume design, set design, everything about it is in the tradition of the originals. And I think this one will be just as timeless as the first three.
David: George is fantastic at designing a world, and I think the timelessness is based on the fact that he doesn't design the world using any presently popular culture. It's all different. And Doug led a team of artists that are phenomenal in this regard.
Jeff: I think the ability to create new worlds is what makes it so timeless. As I think back to the original trilogy, if a scene is on Tatooine, I think it is THERE, not shot on this planet.
ASKLucasfilm: Darth-BH says: WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING ON THE MOST ANTICIPATED MOVIE OF THE DECADE, AND NOT BEING ABLE TO TALK ABOUT IT?
David: It was scary and fun! It was totally those things. We felt very privileged and very busy. We didn't talk to our friends about it, although they tried to get info out of us, but they knew our lips were sealed, and they stopped asking after a while. If we needed to talk to somebody about how cool things were looking, we could talk to one of our co-workers on the film.
Jeff: I agree it was a lot of fun. It was crazy to see everything being written about it, and knowing I played a small
part in this process. I felt like I was working in the CIA or something, making vague references to my family such as "I sit in a room and work on a computer."
ASKLucasfilm: Queen-dreamer says: Would you mind talking about the interplay of hand drawn illustrations and digital. Is this now being done?
David: Doug's team storyboarded most of the movie before we did animatics. So the boards were a fantastic launching point. We also used storyboards in the animatics quite a bit. Occasionally, the storyboards were manipulated digitally, but we didn't do as much of that as we may do for Episode II.
Jeff: The Jedi battle sequence at the end of the film was like that, and we did use storyboards the artists had created.
The most frequent use of them was just to track the characters in place to the background.
ASKLucasfilm: Jedi-Puck says: So if the scenes with lightsabres were the toughest, would that mean it probably took just as long and difficult as in the first 3 StarWars made? Or did the previous use a different technique?
Jeff: I didn't mean they were the toughest, but it was my primary responsibility, and there were a lot of time-constraints to them. Those scenes were not the toughest technically.
David: It might have been the toughest thing Ewan (MacGregor) had to do.....
ASKLucasfilm: Senator-Metropa-Prague says: Are there shots you wish made it into the film, but didn't? If so, what were they?
David: Yes, but George was obviously correct in his belief that they didn't really belong in the film.
Jeff: I have the same feeling. He made the right decisions, but there were a few shots that I labored long and hard on that were hard to see go. But he was right in terms of the story.
ASKLucasfilm: Jedi-Saber says: Do you consider yourselves primarily as artists, as computer people, a little of both, or what?
David: The line is blurring. We are filmmakers. We use a computer instead of a camera.
Jeff: I think that's a great answer. There is an equal balance between those two fields now. You have to understand both film, and the technical graphics.
David: In the end, a computer is a fancy pencil - it's not a picture.
Jeff: There's still a misconception that the computer is doing the work, but it's still the creative people behind it - computers don't do anything themselves.
David: Except crash. LOL!
ASKLucasfilm: R2-R2D2 says: How many times have all of you seen Star Wars
Jeff: I've seen the final film 5 times, and I see new things every time, and I have heard that reaction from others who see it. It's so visual, you need to see it multiple times to take it all in.
David: During the course of production, I probably saw it hundreds of times, but the final release, I've seen 12-15 times.
Jeff: It's interesting that a year ago only that our department watched the film, entirely in animatic form as recently as then.
ASKLucasfilm: Darth-Sebulba says: Did you know what you were getting into when you started this project
Jeff: I had some idea. I think throughout the Lucas companies, there is a level of intensity I haven't seen in other places, but it was a bit crazier than I thought it would be. We put in a lot of late nights and weekends, but the work paid off.
David: I knew going into it in 1995 how hard it would be, how much work there would be. What I didn't realize how wonderful an experience it would be. I worked with some really fantastic people, and a great director and producer,
Most productions become like a family, and this really did after four years. I knew it would be hard work, but the rewards and the camaraderie, that I didn't see coming - but I'm so happy for it.
Jeff: The family feel is enhanced because we work in a house on Skywalker Ranch.
David: We're still in a state of shock that the film is actually DONE.
Jeff: I come in every morning awaiting a frantic call from an editor, and finding no call!
ASKLucasfilm: Queen-WAGAGAGA says: what did you learn most from your experience working for episode I
David: That no one should be named Queen-WAGAGAGA ::grin:: We went to the "George Lucas Graduate Film School." We got to learn from one of the greatest filmmakers in history. So the experience gained in that respect is without comparison.
Jeff: I would agree that it taught me so much about filmmaking, over graphics or whatever. It was fascinating to watch George work.
ASKLucasfilm: StarWars says: Our time is growing short.... David and Jeff, thank you so much for being with us tonight! Is there anything you would like to say before we sign off for the evening?
David: The one thing I would say is we absolutely appreciate the fans. You know, we worked so hard so you guys could go see a fun movie, and we really appreciate your excitement, and we will do our best to bump that up for
Episode II
Jeff: It's been such a privilege to work on the film. I am so happy to have played even such a small role in the process, and I am really happy how it turned out in the end.
StarWars: Thank you all for joining us.
StarWars: .
StarWars: A special Thank You to David Dozoretz and Jeff Wozniak for chatting with us!
StarWars: .
StarWars: .
StarWars: The Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace" novel
StarWars: is available at http://shop.starwars.com
StarWars: .
StarWars: All of us wish you a fantastic evening and we look forward to
StarWars: seeing you soon!
StarWars: .
StarWars: Copyright (c) Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM.
StarWars: All rights reserved.
StarWars: .
StarWars: Good Night!
