Vision & Craft

We are thrilled to report that Rob Bredow, Executive Creative Director & Head of Industrial Light & Magic, is among the six newly elected members to join the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ 2020-2021 Board of Governors. Additionally, Jessica Teach, San Francisco Executive in Charge, and 12 individuals from our artist and engineering ranks have been invited to join The Academy.

“I’m supportive of many of the positive changes that have been made within the Academy recently, and I want to focus on continuing this positive momentum,” said Bredow, adding, “I believe the VFX Branch will be stronger if we are more inclusive. A number of brilliant and accomplished visual effects experts are joining the Academy, including a few from ILM who I am excited to work alongside in this capacity. There is still much to be done. I’m excited to be joining the board of governors in this time of change.”

Bredow, who helped start the Academy Software Foundation and serves as chair, is also passionate about sharing  “I think as leaders in our field, we have the honor and responsibility to share what we’ve learned for the next generation of filmmakers.”

The 2020 Academy Invitees from ILM:
MEMBERS-AT-LARGE
Jessica Teach

VISUAL EFFECTS BRANCH
Jon Alexander – Avengers: Age of Ultron, Noah
Tami Carter – Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Lucy
Karin Cooper – Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Kong: Skull Island
Ryan Church – Transformers: The Last Knight, Avengers: Age of Ultron
Leandro Estebecorena – The Irishman, Kong: Skull Island
Stephane Grabli – The Irishman, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Douglas Moore – 12 Strong, Ant-Man
Nick Rasmussen – Ready Player One, Star Wars: The Last Jedi
David Seager – Aladdin, Terminator: Dark Fate
Amy Shepard – Playing with Fire, Doctor Strange
James Tooley – Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Paige Warner – Terminator: Dark Fate, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

For a full list of the 2020 Academy Invitees, click here and for a full list of the current 2019-2020 Academy governors, click here.

Today, ILM Senior Compositor, Charmaine Chan explains her visual inspiration for the Kylo and Luke confrontation after the Battle of Crait in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. 

These days, majority of blockbuster films are shot in front of a giant green/blue screen. Taking an actor in front of a screen and grounding them into a scene to help promote their development and storyline is always a tough challenge. On Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I got tasked with such a scenario, specifically the scene where Kylo and Luke finally confront one another after the Battle of Crait. It’s a tense moment and I was assigned to handle the Kylo Ren shots under the direction of VFX Supervisor Eddie Pasquarello and my sequence lead Peter Demarest.
The scene we were set out to create was right after a giant battle has just occurred, the land was all torn up, ash and salt flying everywhere, and we needed to create a sense of intensity, passion, and rage from the duality built up between Kylo and Luke.

The first time I saw the plates they reminded me a lot of the sparring sequence from Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. It actually happens to be the 65th anniversary of Seven Samurai this year, so its only appropriate to give a nod to the film and cinematography that has influenced so many other films, including this one!

The main thing I noticed within Seven Samurai is the simplicity and stillness of each shot and angle. Yet the way the subject is framed leaves us in anticipation of their next move. We wanted to do the same within our shots, where the backgrounds were not distracting us from focusing in on the two main actors.
We had the AT-M6’s in the back at a complete stand still waiting for orders, and a dramatic landscape that was subtlety changing as time passes by during their exchange. We represented this change via two major factors: the sun setting and the buildup of salt over the red kyber crystal floor.

When Kylo first approaches Luke, we set the backdrop very warm with saturated orange and reds and a strong contrast. We went through many iterations of both the sky color and FX animation of smoke/dust wisps over the floor. We then slowly transitioned the sky color to be less saturated, and used the animated smoke to create even more salt on the ground. By the time Kylo is ready to fight Luke, we’ve created a very different aesthetic that’s both cool toned and diffused.

What transpired next is probably one of my favorite saber duels, and being able to help set the mood right before that fight was a great refresher on visual storytelling.

Today our guest writer is Todd Vaziri, Lead Artist at ILM who chronicles how the Blockade Runner engine shot from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story went from idea to reality:

I was thrilled to get to work on this shot with my friend and frequent collaborator, ILM lighter Tom Martinek. (Leia’s Blockade Runner escapes, tying Rogue One directly to the start of Star Wars (1977)? Yes, please!) We loved bringing this moment to life. It was a thrill to be able to help create the updated look of a classic ship we haven’t seen on screen since 1977. Also, it’s fun to realize that pretty much no one agrees how to pronounce “Tantive IV.”

Our first task was to study those first fleeting glimpses of the Tantive IV from the original Star Wars. Replicating the engine look of the engines *precisely* from the first film would not work for our movie. This was a recurring theme for the design challenges we took on for Rogue One.

I created the Blockade Runner ‘engine look’ to appear the way you *think* you remember it from Star Wars, not the way it actually appeared — honoring the spirit of the original look and updating it to fit modern sensibilities and the stylistic signature of our new film.

First, I matched the hue of the engine glow from the original film. From there, I wanted to add an organic “jet engine” texture to the inside of each engine, so I rotoscoped and stabilized some footage from a Bell 209 helicopter engine, which had a lot of built-in dynamic energy.

I placed the texture inside the engine geometry of each of the eleven engines so we could get peeks at it when looking down the tunnel, and offset and rotated the helicopter engine footage for each engine (so each engine would have an unique energy signature).

Tom developed a flickery cucoloris effect to create the interactive light from the engine cast onto the inside of the chamber–I split that into 11 passes to animate them separately. Then I had to come up with a way for the engines to ignite as if from a cold start.

I knew we never saw a Blockade Runner power up in any of the movies, but I asked Pablo Hidalgo (Lucasfilm) and others to see if there was any precedent set in any of the animated series. Apparently, there was none! So, I thought it would look cool if the four corner engines fired up first for stability. Then the other seven engines followed up behind. I didn’t want the shot to become a big lens flare show, so I only had a few crisp flares peek through (taking my cues from the original trilogy X-wing engine flares).

This engine look became a quick-start setup for the other Blockade Runners you see in the film. Finally for this shot, I added a hopefully-subtle camera rumble as the engines ignited.

We had a lot of fun talking about the rotating dish atop the Tantive IV. Look carefully at it in the original Star Wars (1977)–in shot 1, it’s not visible. In shot 2, it’s rotating counter clockwise. In shot 3, it’s rotating clockwise! For Rogue One, we animated the dish counterclockwise.

Rogue One (2016), visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic. Visual effects Supervisor John Knoll. Full ILM credits.

ILM’s Chief Creative Officer, John Knoll was among those honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at this year’s Sci Tech Awards.
Watch David Oyelowo present Scientific and Engineering Awards to Thomas Knoll and John Knoll for the original architecture, design and development, and to Mark Hamburg for his continued development and engineering of Adobe Photoshop:

Congratulations to John, Thomas, Mark and all of those honored this year.