Tag Archive for 'lucasfilm'

Vol Libre

Jul 29, '09  ·  Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

It’s an exciting time to be a Pixar/Lucasfilm nerd, to be sure. Michael Rubin let me know — and posted about—that Loren Carpenter, co-founder of Pixar, put a copy Vol Libre, his 1980 CG fractal mountain short, online for our viewing pleasure. And it’s quite something.

Vol Libre from Loren Carpenter on Vimeo

The audience erupted. The entire hall was off their feet and hollering. They wanted to see it again. “They had never seen anything like it,” recalled Ed Catmull. Loren was beaming.
“There was a strategy in this,” said Loren, “because I new Ed and Alvy were going to be in the front row of the room when I was giving the talk.” Everyone at Siggraph knew about Ed and Alvy and the aggregation at Lucasfilm. They were already rock stars Ed and Alvy walked up to Loren Carpenter after the film and asked if he could start in October.
- Page 77, Droidmaker.

Though it’s only related to Loren Carpenter and not so much Vol Libre, Chapter 2 of Out of Control by Kevin Kelly has a very interesting mass-experiment by Loren Carpenter which is worth reading as well. And incidentally, this coincides with the release of the, as usual, wonderful trailer for Toy Story 1 and 2 in 3D.

Download Droidmaker for Free!

Jun 30, '09  ·  Closed Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Woke up to this scoop:

Hi Michael,
Thought you might want the first notice – because of your posting, i’ve received a fair amount of email, and i’ve decided to post my book for FREE on my blog…

Its more important to me that the story of Lucasfilm be shared and circulated than for me to profit directly. So if you wanted to add that to your blog – you’d be the first!

Thanks for your kind words and support.

Michael (Rubin)

I don’t know what you’re still doing here, when you should be over there, downloading the hell out of that thing! It’s gorgeous; the full 518-page book, complete with photosRare photos I might add, plugged in many cases straight out of the Lucasfilm vault or even personal collections from the people who were there., index and whatever else you’ll find in the printed version, covering everything from Lucas’ earliest years up through the creation of ILM and its struggle to put Star Wars up on the silver screen, down through Coppola’s experiements with mobile film making, the creation of Pixar, non-linear editing, digital sound editing, the creation of the Games Group and much much more. It is in actual fact, a book about the creation of modern filmmaking (and to some extent games even) as we know it. Don’t let the technical foundation scare you off though; it’s not only accessible, but centered on the people, not the tech. It was easily one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in years.

As he does, I obviously suggest you just go ahead and buy the real thing, should you like what you see.

PS: In case you missed it yesterday, Michael Rubin appeared on Pirillo back when he was promoting the book. There’s also an interview up over at Unidentified Sound Object.

Update: Downloads have passed 10.000, and Michael has posted a breakdown of where the traffic has come from so far. There’s also a FAQ.

The Human Story of Pixar

Jun 29, '09  ·  Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Michael Rubin, author of Droidmaker (a fantastic look at what is essentially the genesis of modern Hollywood) reposted the ’71 Lucas interview from last week, which reminded me of The Human Story of Pixar, a celebratory panel from 2005, in which Rubin interviews Brad Bird, Andrew Stanton, Alvy Ray Smith, Ed Catmull, some of the great minds behind Pixar and just about ever single technology that make 3D graphics as we know it, possible.

Continue reading ‘The Human Story of Pixar’

A Copyright Infringement Claim, Flickr and Me

Dec 15, '08  ·  22 Comments Tags: , , , .

C-3PO, avert your eyes

The holidays bring the amazing wonder of a fixed feed (no more raw textile markup), non-invisible pages, working search, a lifestream and some polish on the theme here and there. Hell, the about page even has my e-mail address on it, so people can go ahead and contact me directly, instead of having to go through flickr.

Now, speaking of flickr, it has now been two weeks since my sizable Star Wars collection was removed from flickr.

Continue reading ‘A Copyright Infringement Claim, Flickr and Me’