Star Wars: Episode
I "The Phantom Menace" is a milestone in the
development of digital film technology. Creatures that are 100 percent
synthetic are on the screen for almost half of the 130 minute film,
and 95 percent of the picture contains some form of computer generated
detail. ILM was able to create scenes with 7000 computer generated
soldiers and other scenes with countless thousands of digital extras.
Computer generated characters are able to talk and act in the film
and digital artists are now capable of placing them in any part of
the universe the imagination can create. Just a few years ago computer
artists were struggling to make a single dinosaur seem real. Now they
are capable of doing almost anything that men like George Lucas and
Steven Spielberg can dream up.
Rob Coleman, the animation director of The Phantom Menace, says
that when he was asked to direct the animation by George Lucas, he
found the project to be both amazing and daunting. He explains, "You
get the script and realize how much screen time the digital characters
will have and you ask yourself, `Can we do this? Can we handle the
kind of work George is asking us to do?' Being ILM you get used to
taking on the impossible, but I'll tell you, I was worried because
over half the movie requires computer-generated characters to interact
with live actors. I wasn't sure we could maintain their performances
with the live actors...that is a very high benchmark to hit every
time."
ILM's First Animation Director
Coleman, who was the animation supervisor of Men in Black
(1997), and a supervising character animator of Dragonheart
(1996), is the first person at ILM to be given the title animation
director on a feature. In the past the head of animation on a feature
at ILM was called a supervisor. George Lucas considers his latest
creation a live-action/animated science-fiction feature, so he felt
it was important to honor Coleman with the new title.
It was Coleman's job to direct the animation of anything that had
a head on it. He supervised a team of 45 animators who created over
60 digital characters that were well defined. They also animated thousands
of extras. When he joined the company in 1993, ILM employed a total
of 10 animators.
The animators put a tremendous amount of detail in both the major
and minor characters. While some CGI characters had major speaking
parts, others were simply added to give the film a greater sense of
realism. For example, the role of a family of short creatures was
simply to walk in and out of scenes. Other characters were relegated
to being barely seen as a moving texture in the background. Lucas
had artists add flying birds and other creatures to add further to
the illusion of life.
The technical wizardry in the film is quite amazing. To demonstrate
the skills of artists who work with light and shadow, Coleman showed
me a scene where a man walks from a dark enclosed space into an open
outdoors space lit with sunlight. The change of lighting was a digital
effect. The scene was shot with a man walking in front of a blue screen.
The background architecture was digital, as was the exterior space
and sky. Everything in the scene was digital except the man.
Seemingly simple looking scenes in the film were often extremely challenging
composite shots. Some shots contain footage shot in several locations.
An actor filmed in London might appear with a background created in
California and a sky full of clouds filmed in yet another location.
Other scenes were even more complex. Some had 100 or even 200 elements
composited together to make a single frame of film.
Coleman showed a crowd scene with a long procession wandering through
it as an example of a scene with a lot of composite elements. The
procession was constructed from several images of four people carrying
flags. By shooting them over and over and adding different computer
generated elements in between them, a composite artist created a long
procession when the parts were finally strung together.
Coleman was one of the few people who had a copy of the entire production
as it developed. His copy was updated weekly or monthly as things
changed. "I was one of the only people on the crew who had my
own copy of the movie through the entire production because I needed
to look at each sequence. I had my copy for over a year and a half.
You really need it. I don't know how you can direct a film with this
much character worked in it and not have a copy of it. George understood
that right away. Of course there was a security issue. He didn't want
to share it with the world. I kept it in my office with a wrong label
on it."
Lots of Helping Hands
The key to this production's success was careful planning and
ILM having a well-seasoned staff. Coleman concentrated his efforts
on directing the performances of the digital actors. He divided the
animation production staff into teams. For example, some of the artists
spent two years animating Jar Jar Binks, a leading character. Coleman
says, "This way I didn't have to teach all 45 animators how to
animate every character."
Coleman worked closely with Scott Squires, John Knoll, and Dennis
Muren, the feature's three visual effects supervisors. The four men
met with George Lucas on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9 to 11.
They would review the film's progress and depending upon what was
being discussed they would invite other key people to take part in
the meeting.
The labor of the three visual effects supervisors was divided so each
worked on specific parts of the film. For example, Dennis Muren supervised
the underwater city scenes, John Knoll supervised the space battle
sequences, and Scott Squires supervised the Queen's city and the Jedi
battle in the energy room.
About half way into the production Tom Bertino was brought on board
to supervise the ground battle animation. The sequence contains 7000
characters including alien creatures and robotic warriors. Bertino,
who has a long list of ILM credits, joined the company in 1986 as
supervisor of the rotoscope department. He is presently the animation
director on an untitled digital Frankenstein feature being created
at ILM for Universal. Coleman says Bertino was a "tremendous
help" to the Star Wars project.
Coleman also worked daily with several other key people. Geoff Campbell
was head of modeling. Tim McLaughlin was enveloping supervisor (muscles
and fabrics), and James Tooley was the lead technical animator. Jeff
Light was the key motion capture supervisor. Motion capture proved
to be very valuable for analyzing complicated actions. The Droid soldiers
were based on motion capture data. That gave them a smooth mechanical
movement while the organic creatures in the battle were animated by
hand and had a more lyrical movement to them.
Converging Talents We couldn't actually do that in 1997 when we
started the movie, but by 1999 we could. We saved those shots `til
the end of the production. Luckily we made it!"
While most people have some idea about what animators do, Coleman
pointed out that there are dozens of other hands that touch each shot
of film before it is released. What an animator moves on a computer
screen is also the work of a design team, model builders, painters,
composite artists and other artists/technicians.
Important contributions were made by the computer technical staff.
Coleman says, "Digital techniques improved as the show progressed.
When we started the show we knew we couldn't do clothing as realisticly
as we wanted. We have a great software department so we were confident
they could do what was needed. We knew we were going to do a ground
battle with 7000 characters.
Coleman also discusses the importance of the composite people and
rotoscope artists who still do a lot of work by hand. To keep track
of everything there were three composite supervisors on the film and
each had a staff under them to gather and organize all the art elements
needed. ILM's high-end composite system, called Sabre System, along
with a lower resolution system for tests and preliminary work, proved
to be reliable workhorses. Both systems were developed at the studio.
Coleman also spoke highly of ILM administrators. "It was a well
organized production. Our producers are very skilled at determining
what we have to do and when Even though we worked very hard and long
days (8 a.m. to 7 at night), I rarely worked more than five days a
week. I did do a stretch of six Saturdays in a row, but I never worked
around the clock 7 days a week. It doesn't do any good if we burn
out the talent. We need everybody at their top to do this kind of
work. This company is sensitive to that. I've worked at small studios
where it was do 100 percent or 110 percent for the whole project and
not pay anyone for overtime. It's not like that here. They pay for
the overtime and they want you to go home so you are well rested.
It is a great place!"
A Job Well Done "Can we do almost anything? George and
Steven Spielberg, they tend to want you to do almost anything. There
is a huge amount of labor that goes into this work. George understands
the need to plan shots, but he sometimes pushes you past that, and
says, `Figure it out.' We used to have motion control cameras locked
down on the set. The amount of freedom now is significantly more than
there was five years ago. It gives the director more freedom to tell
the story the way he wants to tell it."
It is fascinating to see CGI develop so rapidly as an art form
at ILM. Coleman says, "Lucas crammed so much detail in each scene.
It is overwhelming to look back on your two years of work and see
how much you crammed into it."
"I have loved animation since I was a kid. Once I realized you
can do it as a career I was on that path. I've always been fascinated
with work that combined animation and live-action. It is magical seeing
a real person interacting with an animated character. They pull you
and the other audience members into the frame. That is why I love
working at ILM. That is what ILM specifically likes to focus on. Anybody
in the audience can feel that they can be there in the movie talking
to Jar Jar. That is pretty remarkable."
Biographical Notes
Rob Coleman studied experimental animation techniques at Concordia
University in Montreal (BFA, 1987). His first commercial work was
as an apprentice at a Toronto company producing Captain Power,
the first TV show to combine computer animated characters and live-action.
In 1989 he worked at the National Film Board of Canada on a project
for the World Health Organization. Coleman joined ILM in 1993 to work
on The Mask. He was a computer animator on Star Trek Generations
and Disclosure in 1994, plus worked on several other features.
He was a supervising character animator on Dragonheart (1996),
and the animation supervisor on Men in Black (1997).
Dennis Muren worked on the first Star Wars feature as the second
cameraman for visual effects. He has since won eight Oscars and was
just honored with a star on Hollywood Blvd. This was the first star
given for visual effects.
John Knoll is the co-author of Adobe's Photoshop, the industry standard
in image processing software. He joined ILM in 1986. He was visual
effects supervisor on Star Trek First Contact (1997), Mission
Impossible (1996), and Star Trek Generations (1994).
Scott Squires developed the cloud tank effect used in Close Encounters
of the Third Kind (1977), and was a founder of Dream Quest studios,
1979. He joined ILM in 1985. He was presented a Scientific and Engineering
Award for his pioneering work on input scanning by the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1994. He was nominated for Oscars
for visual effects for The Mask (1994) and Dragonheart
(1996).
Karl Cohen is President of ASIFA-San
Francisco. [5] His first book, Forbidden
Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators [6], is
published by McFarland Publishers. He also teaches animation history
at San Francisco State University.
Links:
[1] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/4095
[2] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/4096
[3] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/4097
[4] http://www.awn.com/imagepicker/image/4098
[5] http://www.awn.com/../../../asifa-sf/index.html
[6] http://www.awn.com/../../issue2.11/2.11pages/2.11langer.html