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What is the status of Episode II?
This report comes from the Official Site!
Although the Star Wars movies have always fostered innovation and breakthroughs in the way movies are made, seen and heard, some traditions still abound. For instance, the editorial department currently piecing together Episode II's digital footage on computer work stations is still cutting according to "reels," the length of footage contained in individual canisters of film on which the movie will eventually be distributed.
"George Lucas and Ben Burtt are editing like mad," says Producer Rick McCallum. "We'll probably have edited the first rough cut up to reel three by Christmas. Four and five we expect to be done by January and six and seven around Easter. So it's moving right on schedule."
As part of the editorial process, the Animatics Department is tasked with producing preliminary yet polished effects to fill in the vast seas of blue and green screen used while shooting the principal partists have just come in, Erik Tiemens and Ryan Church have just started this week. So thhotography. "We have a lot of matte paintings," says McCallum. "Two new wonderful ey're pumping out dozens and dozens of paintings. We've got about 53 paintings that we need done just for the first two or three reels."
McCallum estimates the Animatics Department is producing about 35 animatics per day. "By Easter, we should be in a situation where we really know what the movie is, and then we can act accordingly," says McCallum.
Though things are progressing on schedule, the filmmakers of Episode II are faced with a challenge that has long troubled editors: what to cut. "Films are always too long," says McCallum.
"Right now, we're only going to come in about two hours and 30 minutes for our first rough cut, which is not bad. That's roughly half of what we had before. The hard part is getting 20 minutes out. That can take months and months and months."
In the meantime, Industrial Light & Magic has begun work on three scenes and they are currently busy building digital characters, vehicles and certain props that are needed for the movie. "We won't start the model shop until early January," says McCallum. "Then, by the end of January, we'll start shooting miniatures and we'll be shooting all the way through the year."
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