1. LUCAS FILMS
By: Noah lambrix

2. Research Question
How the Star wars Prequels where made ? Looking more at how they take real life shots and turn them into digital environments and animate them.

3. George Lucas & Lucas Films
George Lucas founded the company in 1971
Graduated USC in 1967
Had some films that failed and succeeded before star wars.
American Graffiti (1973) was successful so 20th century fox helped make star wars happen.
1977, new hope became highest-grossing film of all time (not anymore)
1977,1980,1983
1999, 2002,2005
Company based in San Francisco California
2012 The Walt Disney Company bought Lucas Films

4. Background Lucas changed film industry Star wars new hope
visual effects
high-def digital cameras, turned digital instead of using film
Star wars new hope
first big-budget blockbuster to count on realistic action scenes and explosions and make them look good.
Made many detailed miniature models of everything to shoot scenes.
All characters where made(no digital) either puppets of human

5. Continued….
(1975) Industrial Light & Magic, owned by Lucas, changed todays digital effects.
made digital environments
Made digital (CGI) Characters.
Insert the digital environments or characters into the scenes that where shot.
The Star wars prequels changed the way that movies went about making environments and characters digitally.

7. Steps to making a scene come to life

10. Start Filming Scenes
Filming the scene live with the characters in front of a blue or green screen.
The screen has motion trackers, (X,Y,Z) white dots or objects to help track the camera so that the background/ digital environments move with the camera.
Then make the measurements of the trackers ( how far apart they are from each other) from the original footage and make a digital environment out of it so it keeps the correct perspectives.
Shoot scenes that have animated characters with actual humans first so the animators have a reference point. Also same scene with out any character for another reference.

11. Comments
Green screens where already being used before George Lucas, and so where animated characters.
Ex: Jurassic park first ever realistic animated animals in film
Not the first one to do this, just helped improve

12. Animation/Modeling In charge of all the characters.
Make believe characters
Also real life characters for scenes that are impossible for them to create in person on a set.
Important for the digital character to match the motions of real life characters so it fits with the scene. And have weight to them so they don’t look like they are floating.
Digital modelers build and texture every single model/ scene that is computer generated in the movie. Every single scene has at least one effect that is cgi.
One complex model took them about 3-5 weeks

14. Continued… 2nd star wars prequel (2002):
animators for about 5 months, then slowly decline
Because almost every character is animated digitally somehow
12 months of constantly animating, not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
Before building the character, many sketches, and sculptures of different scales and materials are made. Concept sketches are made then chosen by director.
Then digitally scan the hand made sculpture into a program that digitally maps out the character.(also with real characters and doubles)
When the model is built, they block the animation on the actual film and constantly change it until the director is happy with it.

15. Continued…
The animators are strictly in charge of the characters movements. (Walking, facial expressions, hand movement)
Then they pass the finished animated model to the cloth people that handle the textures and hair that really makes the character come to life and look real.
References are huge for animators.
Animator recorded himself saying the lines, looking at his eye movement and facial expressions so he could reference that and put it on the character.
Look at themselves in mirrors
Animators need to take into account real life movements but sometimes makes it boring.
So they need to balance real life movements and artistic movements that make the character more exciting visually.

16. How long scenes take to make
Revenge of the sith (2005)
Last light saber duel: just under a minute long
26 camera shots
1185 frames
910 artists working on the scene
Total of 70,441 man hours

17. Comments
ILM has certain animators that specialize on certain things: like clothes moving, facial expressions, etc..
Do short 5-10 sec tests that they have to show progress to director.
Process is effective because they have different people working on it and giving insights to make it better
Animators don’t always use motion capture.(Animate it by hand)
References are essential in making the movements look real. (Lead animator said she could tell who animated what because of certain movements)

18. References
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19. Summary
Animating a movie is like an assembly line. Once one thing is done, it gets passed to the next person. There are hundreds of artists that work on specific parts of animation. Modelers make the model, animators create the movements, then there are people who texture, light the scene, and then put all those together to make the final. The green screens and motion trackers are essential in making the digital environments fit with the footage.Star wars had to rely on CGI for their movie because its all fantasy based on fictional events and characters. Visual effects take precision and long hours to turn out correctly and make the realistic effects fans love.

20. Questions?