Going entirely digital in the preproduction stage removed the need for Lucas’ crew to shoot scenes on video to make plates.

Episode II— Attack of the Clones started much the same way. Ben Burtt, the editor on Episode II, would film his co-workers performing in front of greenscreen and then cut them in front of old war footage or generic movies created by the previs team. In combination with what was shot by Burtt, the previs team, now using Alias’ Maya, on Windows PCs was able to advance forward technologically and start to do more complex animation. With Maya’s advanced feature set, which included strong character animation, dynamic simulations and many other complex digital tools, we removed the need to shoot willing extras on camera. Of course, Adobe’s After Effects on the Macintosh was still the foundation of compositing the final previs shots that were often combinations of digital elements, photo images, character stand-ins and reference footage.

For Episode II, we wanted to have as many sequences available on-set as possible. As mentioned before previs is a tremendous tool to communicate. On set previsualization is potentially more important because there are so many people standing around trying to figure out what is going on. That costs a lot of money. In a world like Star Wars it can be difficult to convey what is going on to a group of people on-set. What the world looks like, what the actors should be reacting to and what the end goal is are difficult concepts when you’re standing in front of a greenscreen. Using a previs movie on-set during shooting has the advantage of placing everyone on the same page because they have a distinct visual reference to follow.

Since we started on Episode II before principal photography, there were no actors to base our shots on. Also, the first scene we worked on was the coruscant speeder chase. It was a sequence that would be very difficult to shoot with a video camera and composite together with digital elements. To achieve the look Lucas envisioned, we decided it would be easier to build our own digital version of Obi-Wan and Anakin and fly them digitally though the city. This worked out so well that it marked the last time a video camera would be used in the pre-production of the film. For the next scenes we worked on, the Obi-Wan vs. Jango Fett rain battle and the Asteroid chase, we went 100% digital.

The Obi-Jango rain battle posed a particular challenge in that it was an all-out brawl and fistfight. This would take a lot of complex character animation to pull off. We simply didn’t have the time to animate characters thoroughly enough to convey the fight. At this point, Dozoretz decided to use ILM and its motion capture facilities to form the base of the fight. In one day we captured what we thought would be a really good base for the sequence. Using that data in Maya we were able to pull off a first version of the sequence that was very believable and was closely followed on-set during shooting. However, this marked the last time we would use motion capture on a sequence. Overall it produced good results but it was a technological challenge that at the time took more time than it was ultimately worth.

Episode II marked the last time video cameras were used for preproduction on a Star Wars picture.

Over the length of production of Episode II, the previs department became a pre-post production facility. After shooting had taken place, there were still big questions to be answered. First of all, most of what had been shot was on blue or greenscreen, making it very difficult to cut together and especially difficult to view. Watching a 20-minute sequence on blue or green is enough to send even experienced visual effects artists to the loony bin or at least into a deep sleep. At this point, it became our responsibility to fill these plates out with digital sets and characters. So not only were we putting together all digital sequences but now we were doing all the steps ILM does to complete the final shots only we were doing them very rough and very fast. From tracking the plate, to keying out the blue to rotoscoping to full compositing, each artist was a full production pipeline unto to himself. By completing this work in an early rough form, Burtt and Lucas were able to make much better decisions about how to cut sequences of the film and of course our work made these sequences viewable. By the time ILM started taking on the final shots, the previs department had almost the entire movie filled out with digital sets, digital characters and digital scenes that were believable and very story complete.