I’m smacked up, backed up and my crew’s all smashed up… at work, and whatever spare time I have flows into things that don’t rhyme with ‘fighting or this grog’ so you’ll have to do with this Adidas commercial.
Tag Archive for 'star wars'
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We visited the Ranch during our three-week US roadtrip a few months ago, and I’ve been longing to go back ever since. Nestled in the hills a 40-minute drive north of San Francisco, hidden from view of the road and comprising all the land around it, as far as you can see, and about ten times more, Skywalker Ranch is without a doubt the geek haven.
The ever exhaustive Michael Kaminski has written an in-depth and highly informative article on the efforts taken to restore the original negative of Star Wars.
No, this isn’t turning into a Star Wars blog, but there’s some sort of odd nexus going on right now, where unseen footage keeps popping up all over the place at such a rate that it’s hard to keep up.
StarWars.com has previously written about the all-white proto-fett, but today went ahead and posted parts of the 20-minute never-before-seen footage of Ben Burtt, Norman Reynolds and Duwayne Dunham showing off a prototype, all-white, Boba Fett costume. It’s awesome.
PS: Duwayne Dunham isn’t as well-known as Ben Burtt or Norman Reynolds, but it just so happens that I’ve been re-reading Droidmaker, as a sort of research for our roadtrip, and just yesterday, I came across Duwayne on page 82.
And the hits just keep on coming. David Berry, credited as an ‘optical print operator’ on IMDB has posted an extraordinary ten-minute home video of ILM in the years 1976 to 1978, with everything from actual behind-the-scenes of effects, models and what not, to the oscars and even some leisure time.
Man I love the internets.
PS: Rubin covered the beginnings (and ehm… everything else about ILM) from page 63 and forward in Droidmaker).
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.
Though it doesn’t quite beat a certain 125-page story conference transcript, I’ve managed to get my hands on what I think can rightfully be called a Lucas-rarity. It’s been referenced in a couple of books on Lucas1, but isn’t to my knowledge generally available, though it should hold the interest of anyone interested in THX 1138, American Zoetrope, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and filmmaking in general in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
Allow me to first give it some context (or skip to goods):
Continue reading ‘George Lucas: Maker of Films (1971)’
- Page 47 of The Cinema of George Lucas and several places in Droidmaker [↩]
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’
A story that Blade Runner 2 was being worked on by two screenwriters from DJ Caruso’s Eagle Eye floated recently. It was unclear just how official this project was, and how serious it should be taken. Was it the hopes of this screenwriter, or was it actually in pre-production already?
I love books. And I amass books. So much so, that between the two of us — Rikke and I — there is no doubt who is in charge of the appropriation and storage of dead trees, which might not have been so paradoxical, had Rikke not been a librarian…
The week before last, when Rikke and I were doing what we do best — namely nothing — I read, in-amongst several other books, the 1983 George Lucas biography by Dale Pollock, Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas.
Now, I wouldn’t say that I’m obsessive compulsive about Star Wars, or George Lucas for that matter — others would; I don’t flatter myself that way — but I’m certainly a fan above the ordinary, having read several biographies, not to mention a whole heap of other books related either directly to Star Wars or the industries that sprung up in its wake. So, I’ve been around the block on this… Once or twice.
I accidentally slipped into a Star Wars hole about a month or two back, which turned out to be not so much a hole, but more of an entirely undiscovered cave system (which caused me to also purchase a few items for my Star Wars ‘library’).
Really, I blame those pesky bastards over at originaltrilogy.com, for always working on stuff that isn’t simply interesting in that nerdy ‘I’m I’m 30-years-old and I’m a Star Wars nerd’ kind of way, but also on a larger more serious film historic scale.
To see the making of these effects ‘in action’ is truly remarkable. Particularly remarkable is how the 3D ‘modeller’ is controlled, by dials. Pulling together various sources, most prominently from Droidmaker, here’s what I could find on Larry Cuba’s CGI effects for Star Wars.
I needed these last 10 days of vacation like Superman needs the sun. You know, that part of life that isn’t work? The part that is relegated to the few hours of your day between waking and leaving for work and coming home and going to sleep?
That’s what we’ve been doing, and it’s been heavenly. Lounging, reading, watching, browsing, shopping, roleplaying, coding, loving and Thinking.
Like putting the brain into sleep mode (with, in the back of your head, the knowledge that it will inevitably be awakened brutally tomorrow morning when Rikke’s cell, with some glee I think, brings us back into worker-ant-mode).
I came across this cover (here), for Science Fiction Monthly, volume 1, issue 2, released in February 1974. The art is by one of my favorites, Chris Foss, a science fiction artist mostly known for his outlandish and colorful spaceships. He was one of the artists Ridley Scott brought over from the scuttled Dune project, to Alien. And you might recognize his style from the game Homeworld, to which he was a major inspiration (as thanked in the credits).
Does it remind you of anything? Such as…
I didn’t figure Black Hawk Down as a particularly influential or important movie when it came out. Competent, dashingly handsome and slightly odd in places; but influential? Yet watching the trailer for Call of Duty 4, which I’m sure will be a genuine hoot to play, I see how wrong I was.
Except… judging from the trailer, they made the classic computer game misstep of underestimating the importance of voice acting. Fair enough, I’ve never been in combat, especially with the US Airborne Cavalry (which I’m guessing is what the trailer is portraying), but I nonetheless call a fumbled ball on that gruff macho ‘Do this! Do that! I-eat-gravel-soup hut hut hut!’ order-barking voice of the squad leader (not to mention the ‘look at us, we can shine a red light in the face of a man sucking on a cigar; isn’t it wuuuunderbarrr?”).
The net effect is turning what could have been reasonable human-facsimile’s into cliché-ridden charicatures (at least judging from the trailer…)
I love Lorne Peterson, and you should too. He is after all one of the original Star Wars modelers. And there’s an interview with him, worth spending a few minutes on. Unfortunately I was now made aware of the fact that my copy is inferior in length to the limited edition. Dammit!
Not that I thought I had a chance, what with all the real fanatics out there (ahem), but I submitted a childhood photo of me posing behind my precious Star Wars figures to the Wired ‘Fandom Fever’ group on Flickr, as part of their Star Wars anniversary line-up (which is mostly older stuff unfortunately).
Anyway, thanks to some slim pickings, there I am, on Wired.com.
The 30th anniversary of Star Wars is tomorrow, Friday the 25th of May. I’m bogged down in work, family responsibilities and K2ness, so I’m afraid I haven’t been able to deliver quite the ode to Star Wars I would have liked to, nor even sit down with some popcorn and A New Hope. Sorry for that; more for myself than for you.
But, what I can do though, is point you to some pretty cool things that are going on just now, in relation to Star Wars, and then hope against hope that I will have the time to write my appreciation piece as soon as possible. Most notably, you should check out the Lucas Online Celebration IV Blog as well as the accompanying Flickr stream which has some damn nice artful Vader helmets right now (some more shots of those, as done by The Vader Project).
Wired, which is quite Star Wars-centric when it comes down to it, has posted (and will be posting I think) several pieces. A look at Steve Sansweet’s comprehensive Star Wars collection, a look at the psychology of Anakin Skywalker, a word about 5 – 25-77, a documentary about ‘the first time’ and finally words from a guy who watches Star Wars for the first time ever (and has a few harsh words to throw its way, even if he does get Lucas’ best film wrong; if it isn’t Star Wars, it’s THX 1138, no competition :)).
And as a small bonus, I thought these papercraft AT-AT’s were pretty nice as well, even though I’m sick and tired of the papercraft this-and-that wave
PS: Yes, there is a European Celebration being held in London in mid-July! When is that Metallica concert I’m going to? Oh, that’s right, in mid-July… DOH!
PPS: If you come across some nice pieces, or if you write one yourself, let me know.
Update: I’m going to add stuff here as I come across it.
It’s Star Wars week. I’m damn busy, but I’ll do my best to work up to the 30th anniversary of Star Wars on May 25th. For now, here’s Lucas in Love, for those of you who have still to catch it.
PS: Wired has a flickr group where you can add Star Wars-centric photos, which will be used on friday at Wired’s celebration of the anniversary.