Page 13 - Star Wars Insider #176

LAUNCHPAD
Timeline
Important dates
in Star Wars
history.

1933
February 13: Caroline Blakiston
(Mon Mothma) is born.
1944
May 25: Frank Oz (Yoda) is born.
1954
August 22: Rick McCallum is born.

1971
March 16: Alan Tudyk (K-2SO)
is born.

1977
September 12: Lucasfilm
Talking Tarkin changes its name to Lucasfilm Ltd.

1978
October 28: Gwendoline Christie
ILM pulls back the curtain on Rogue One ’s effects (Phasma) is born.

1985
he SIGGRAPH 2017 Noting that Rogue One features just September 7: The Star Wars:
T Conference recently took under 1,700 visual-effects shots, he Ewoks animated show premieres.
shared, “In the last month we fi naled
place in Los Angeles, and
1997
Industrial Light & Magic 1,000 shots. That was crazy.” Gesturing
February 21: The Empire Strikes
was on hand to detail some of the toward his colleagues on the stage, he
Back special edition is released
company’s visual effects work for added, “These guys made that relatively
in cinemas.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. painless. This was far less stressful than
In a Production Session titled “ILM a lot of projects I’ve worked on.” 1999
Presents: Behind the Magic, the Visual In a separate Vision Series session, May 4: The soundtrack album
Effects of Rogue One,” ILM Chief presented by software company for Star Wars: Episode 1 The

Creative Officer and senior visual- Autodesk and titled “Rogue One’s Phantom Menace is released.
effects supervisor John Knoll was Virtual Sets: The Future of Production
joined on stage by lighting technical with ILM,” Knoll spoke about how 2006
February 12: Video game Star
director supervisor Vick Schutz, CG he and his collaborators combined
Wars Empire at War is released.
supervisor Stephen Ellis, digital model Autodesk’s Maya program with ILM’s
supervisor Russell Paul, and layout virtual-production technologies to
2011
supervisor John Levin. The team build-out limited physical sets with July 19: Novel Star Wars: Choices
offered insights into the development digital extensions. of One by Timothy Zahn is
and realization of K-2SO, the “urban He also discussed the “Virtual Cam” published by Del Rey.
planning” of Jedha City, and recreating technologies that enabled director
Grand Moff Tarkin with a CG model Gareth Edwards to take his live-action
of the late Peter Cushing mapped onto shot-design methods into the purely
actor Guy Henry’s performance. digital realm. Knoll noted, “Gareth has
an unconventional shooting style. He’ll
go in with the camera and start fi shing
around for angles that look good. He
has a talent for finding those angles,

and there’s a wonderful energy that
comes along with that. I immediately
started thinking, ‘Well, how do I get
that into the scenes that aren’t going to
start from a photographed plate?’”

You can find out more about the
Virtual Cam system in Insider #173!

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