written by Barbara Robertson
It's been a busy an exciting three days, but such a wonderful time. Some highlights and pictures. I’ll sketch in details tomorrow.
Thursday: A champagne reception, a screening, and a tour at PDI, plus a live demo of the studio’s amazing video wall during which Eric at PDI made a dinner appointment with John from DreamWorks in Glendale who would be flying to San Francisco on Friday.
Thursday night: Skywalker Ranch
Friday morning: We had boxes of cereal and breakfast bars in our rooms, coffee and milk in the refrigerator, but most of us walked to the “The Inn” for breakfast. Then, we screamed through Skywalker Sound, hurried up the road past vultures sunning their long wings, to the main house where George Lucas has his office and film library, scurried back down the road on a glorious sunny morning, jumped in the big white van, drove to nearby Big Rock where the group animating the television series work, held the first of three screenings and Q&A’s today, and then zigzagged back on Lucas Valley Road to the freeway to make an 11:30 date at ILM in San Francisco.
Our gracious host Kate Shaw led us all to George Lucas’s office. Amazingly, George Lucas gave the Oscar nominees more than a half hour of his time – more about that later. After, the screening in ILM’s grand theater, which was totally packed, the Q&A, lunch in a private dining room off the main dining room with some of the ILM artists, and a break before the next screening – with ASIFA at Dolby labs.
The directors have loosened up now. They’ve become much more comfortable onstage, more of the Oktapodi directors are now answering questions, and they’ve become friends as you’ll see in the pictures. More words tomorrow.
