Archived News
September 2003
Week 2
| Saturday September
13, 2003 What does one need to study... |
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In theory, one can study many different areas of art and design, before deciding to specialize in Production Design. However, depending on what country you live in, these days you will often find many levels of courses specializing in Production Design, so if you feel strongly enough you can decide to specialize straight away. Other people may decide to do a general art and design course first, maybe looking at Graphics, Architecture, Product or other areas, and then decide to specialize in Production Design at a later stage. Again, depending on what country you are based, you can find graduate courses that specialize in Production Design for people who have already done preliminary courses in other areas of design. In general, there are quite a few ways to proceed if you want to become a Production Designer, but initally, doing an art and design course of some sort, is a good way to start.
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Posted: by Jedi Power |
| Thursday September
11, 2003 Craig Burt's Blockade Runner |
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Posted: by Jedi Power |
| Thursday September
11, 2003 Jedi Academy Demo |
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Posted: by Wookiee Jedi |
| Wednesday September
10, 2003 Dan Gregoire Chat Highlights |
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Posted: by Jedi Power |
| Tuesday September 9,
2003 Nowadays, is there any real reason... |
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The main reason we still use blue and green is that those colors have the greatest contrast with skin tones and most of the wardrobe we need to shoot in front of those screens (think of the Jedi robes, for example). The way blue and greenscreens work is that the computer looks for differences in color between the foreground and background. Since skin tones have a lot of red in them, if we shot redscreen, it would be much harder for the computer to tell what was skin and what was the screen. That said, we also have to work with objects that are blue or green, so we alternate between blue and green depending on what's in the foreground. For example, we shoot R2-D2 in front of a greenscreen because of his blue panels. Sometimes George puts blue and green stuff in a shot, and we have to decide which is most important to choose the screen color. Objects that are the same color as the screen can't be extracted automatically, and have to be hand-rotoscoped.
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Posted: by Jedi Power |
| Monday September 8,
2003 Homing Beacon #93 |
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"There's a link of characters between Episodes III and IV," says Trisha Biggar, Costume Designer. "In terms of quality, there will always be a difference between how things look in Episode III and Episode IV, just because we have a great deal more time to achieve things than the people in Episode IV did. But there's always a mind to keep the flow from III into IV, and that's been achieved in color and feel and referring back to Episode IV for the characters who have continuity, rather than trying to copy exactly any particular costumes from Episode IV." For Obi-Wan Kenobi, his role as a Jedi pretty much defines his overall look, but there is room for subtle progression from The Phantom Menace to A New Hope. "We started in Episode I with a younger version of the costume from Episode IV. We kept that for Episode II. For Episode III, a couple of years have passed, and we changed his costume to blend into Episode IV. We changed the color of his undershirt and the color of his trousers, so he's very slightly becoming a little more like the old Obi-Wan." Anakin Skywalker clearly has the most profound transition from the prequel to the original trilogy, but the evolution of his Jedi robes from Attack of the Clones to his garb in the new installment is more understated than his future look of dark armor. "We changed his cloak shape, and gave him a new slightly more Jedi-like cloak this time," says Biggar. "We changed his colors, and we darkened them all down, hinting at what he's going to become. Although he was quite dark brown before, there were some lighter aspects. This time, we've really taken shades of dark brown to give him a dark outline even though he's still a Jedi." Though Senators Padmé Amidala and Bail Organa are absent from the original films, they continue to evolve Episode III, building upon their looks from the previous chapter. "In Episode I, Padmé was very formal and very ceremonial, and that became slightly relaxed for Episode II. In Episode III, we see her in a couple of business-like -- but not heavily ceremonial -- costumes, so generally her look is softer, and we get a chance to see her in a more relaxed state. I think even more relaxed now than she was in Episode II -- softer, more feminine," explains Biggar. "Though we saw Bail Organa in Episode II as a Senator, George wanted him to look slightly more high tech in a way," she says. "We ended up using more metal pieces in his costumes. He has a high-tech metal comlink, and his ceremonial Senate costume has a beautiful metal collar piece." |
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Posted: by Jedi Power |
| Monday September 8,
2003 When Luke is dropped on the ground... |
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That is an old body fall effect used in many movies since the 1940s. You can hear it in some Bogart films like Passage To Marseille and many westerns.
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Posted: by Jedi Power |
