John Knoll Talks Star Wars 3-D
JK: It's mostly being the arbiter of good taste. There's a lot of different ways to play stereo. How deep do you go with it? Where do you play convergence? Do you rack convergence? Do you do floating windows? How stylistic do you go on wide shots? Do you leave them realistic? Or do we need to see stereo even on a wide shot with nothing close to camera where you wouldn't really see much. A lot of those kinds of questions need to be answered and I'm trying to provide the answers that result in good-looking stereo that looks to the largest extent possible that it looks like it was shot in stereo; and not with the weird miniaturization or the cardy look or the warped spaces or the edge artifacts that we've seen in other stereo conversions.
JK: George and I talked a little bit about the character of stereo and there's a little bit of a different stylization of what you saw on Avatar and How to Train Your Dragon, for example. One of the things that Jim did throughout Avatar is a relatively fixed rule: for the most part, camera converges on subject. So that makes whoever you're focused on, whoever's speaking, whatever the subject of the shot is converged at the screen plane. And so if that person walks forward in the shot, we actually rack convergence with them so that they stay at the screen. And that worked pretty well for Jim; it's a convention that served him well. That's not the convention that, for example, DreamWorks and Pixar are doing on their stereo projects. What they tend to do is define a good use of volume for a given shot -- a lot of the DreamWorks seems to be about one-third forward, two-thirds back -- and that's fixed for the shot. So even for the character that's walking forward, we don't rack convergence with them. And we're going a little bit more toward that style than Jim's style.
BD: So, what's your plan?
JK: What we're doing that one-third forward, two-thirds back use of depth. We'll be using floating windows to maximize good, usable, depth dynamic range. And then, stylistically, I go fairly realistic with the stereo. I don't like hyper stereo and there are a lot of shots in the Star Wars pictures that are meant to be big vista spectacle. It's a big wide view of a city or a space battle, and there's nothing particularly close to camera. Shooting in stereo, you wouldn't get a lot of depth. So I'm not going to go hyper stereo on that because it has a really ugly artifact, in my view, of that miniaturization. You don't want to see that these ships are really closer than the star field and undermine all the effort that we tried to put in to make those scenes have vast scale. So I'm going to play all the wide shots more realistically and rely on the overall context of the sequence where you're right there with the characters, experiencing this with them. And there are loads and loads of action where we're in tighter and closer, and that's where the stereo shines.
BD: The prequels will certainly offer a different experience with all the CG.
Printer-friendly version
When I left the theater from Menace I was 30 at the time.The movie blew me away.Then I got on the net and started to read people bashing it and I thought,its a different world now.People dont appreciate stuff and their warped.
Shut up man! Stop bashing Lucas! You people piss me off so much because you can't get over The Phantom Menace! It was 11 F**king years ago! GET OVER IT! And I actually liked the Prequels. Episode I & II were okay, but III was fantastic! And If you have no desire to see Star Wars in 3D, don't see it! The world has bigger issues than you complaing how much money Lucas makes. John Knoll probably enjoys working with Lucas. Anyone who grew up with the Orginal Trilogy (Such as myself) would love to work with George. So worry about YOUR own life, and stop complaing about others. Damn Democrat. BTW, "STAR WARS IS FOREVER AND YOU CAN SUCK IT!!!"- Jimmy Mac.
"I'm all angry but I know I'll be there to check it out. Damn."
That comment sums it all up. You sir, are a tool of mega proportions.
I don't agree with the negative comments ITT.
It seems to me that JK gave a good interview and made appropriate comments and evaluations about the styles of two of the most well done stereoscopic pictures released to date.
I'm glad to see that Lucas is spending the time and money to do a good job that's supervised by a person with high visual acumen like JK. If this kind of work is going to be done, at least have it done well.
Good article.
Anyone who thinks John Knoll was insulting Jim Cameron is completely misinterpreting his comments. John supervised the end battle sequence shots in Avatar, and Cameron and John have tremendous respect for each other, going all the way back to John's work in The Abyss.
I know John personally, and he's a great guy. He's incredibly intelligent and talented, and people who insult him are talking smack about a guy who co-developed Photoshop, has worked on the biggest FX films of all time, has won an Oscar, and works at ILM largely out of his passion for visual effects and filmmaking, not because he needs George Lucas's paycheck.
Aww, cut Knoll some slack. It must suck hard for someone of his stature to have to kiss Lucas' ass and work on yet ANOTHER effing Star Wars do-over - AND make it sound interesting and not the obvious money grab that it is.
I can't wait for this tripe to prove unprofitable, and unprofitable it will be, oh it will be.
"I think Avatar did a really good of transporting you to an exotic alien place where the stereo is mostly used to give you this powerful sense of presence."
Yeah. What a condescending *ss hole!
"a lot of the DreamWorks seems to be about one-third forward, two-thirds back -- and that's fixed for the shot. So even for the character that's walking forward, we don't rack convergence with them. And we're going a little bit more toward that style than Jim's style."
OOOOOoooo SLAM! Do you hear that Jim. They like the Pixar way of doing things a little bit more. SUCK IT!
Wait... where did they imply James Cameron isn't as sophisticated in his use of stereo?
I like how this pompous *ss subtly tries to suggest that James Cameron isn't as sophisticated as them. Do I need to say that James C. is probably at least one hundred times better at directing then Lucas. I don't care if he invented Photoshop, John Knoll hasn't done anything great movie-wise as far as I know, yet he still talks like he has. Dude, THE PREQUEL TRILOGIES SSSSSSSSUUUUCKED!!!! BOX OFFICE RECEIPTS don't mean ANYTHING! And you had nothing to do with the ones that are good, in fact, you had everything to do with ruining those ones and this will continue. I guess Davey Jones was a good effect though. too bad those pirates movies BLEW chunks too. This guy is George Lucas' lackey through and through. I feel bad for him because he probably can't tell the guy that his ideas are absolutely terrible. I'm all angry but I know I'll be there to check it out. Damn. When will Star Wars just stop?
Final advice for Lucas: Let it go. You're rich enough.
Post new comment