Made in Hollywood

Die-hard fans of Star Wars and Star Trek have always been sworn enemies, and unlike Duke's always-masked role for Simon Pegg, Benedict Cumberbatch wants to compete for leading man Well, if there is not enough interest in such a thing that is seriously contrary to the opinions of the core audience, Duke will definitely not do it casually.

Besides, he plans to use a Chinese actor like Daniel Wu for the second leading role, and a Latino actor for the third leading role. Bendinick Cumberbatch does not meet this requirement at all.

Although Benedict Cumberbatch showed the desire to actively fight for the role, and the popularity and popularity are higher, Duke still chose to refuse.

Duke doesn't know much about the Star Trek series. In his spare time for preparations, he also watched the most classic Star Trek series. After all, a series can be produced for such a long time and get the support of so many fans. , must have its merits, and perhaps we can learn something from it.

After watching a few Star Trek episodes, though, Duke found that it didn't do Star Wars any favors.

Although Star Wars and Star Trek are both science fiction films about space wars, they are fundamentally different. The two series emphasize completely different things.

In Star Wars, like other typical Hollywood blockbusters, the most important thing is to punish the evil and promote the good, and everything else must be compromised. The evil forces cannot defeat the light forces, otherwise it is politically incorrect. In Star Trek, the most important thing is the development of science and technology, and the spirit of exploration. Good and evil are not important, and strength is the foundation of survival in the universe.

So Star Wars is pseudo-sci-fi, just a blockbuster with a sci-fi cloak.

In Star Wars, it doesn't matter whether the technology is developed or not. As long as you have the force, you can conquer everything. The force can surpass the laws of physics and produce supernatural phenomena. This setting greatly reduces the sci-fi attributes of Star Wars, and is more like a magical story.

To a certain extent. The Star Wars series is a space opera, very epic, with very grand scenes, and a very clear plot flow; Star Trek can be regarded as a space cowboy theme, and the core of his plot is often mentioned in the movie version, exploring the unknown and moving forward bravely.

While Duke was preparing the film. Lucasfilm has also signed promotional cooperation agreements with some companies.

In February, virtual reality fans and Star Wars fans got the news they've been waiting for. Star Wars is about to enter the full virtual reality experience. The full experience has officially started production. It will open a new Star Wars universe.

This full virtual reality experience will include a compelling story and exclusive never-before-seen content directly related to the new Star Wars series opening, and fans will be able to access the official Star Wars app to experience.

Google isn't just doing Star Wars VII VR, they're already tying each of the related apps. Users are asked to choose the light or dark side, and a dedicated department keeps track of relevant information.

in this spring. The news about Star Wars 7 basically occupies the front pages of most entertainment media. Whenever the heat drops slightly, Lucasfilm and Warner Bros. will break out new news to attract the attention of movie fans.

However. After all, the current time period is the awards season, and the news about the awards season still grabs a lot of attention. Just when the Oscar nominations were announced and the media’s attention shifted, Duke, Lucasfilm and Warner Bros. jointly convened a press conference. At the press conference, it was officially announced that the film of Star Wars 7 will be called Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

This news has brought back the attention of movie fans.

There are still three months before the shooting of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and the film's special effects work has already begun. One of the key points is to design a brand-new robot. In the draft setting submitted by Duke to Industrial Light and Magic, this is named BB-8's robot won't fight enemies like R2D2 does in the film, its main job is to be cute.

BB-8 will shoulder the important task of promoting and promoting sales of peripheral products.

Although the level of drawing is very limited, as early as last year, Duke made a prototype of BB-8 and drew the first draft of BB-8 on a piece of drawing paper.

Considering the handcrafted style of the Star Wars series and the film atmosphere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Duke's hand-drawn draft shows that BB-8 is composed of two stacked spheres, while The eye is represented by a small dot on the upper sphere, and this artwork became the core concept for designing BB-8.

Duke's ideas also led ILM designer Christian Alzmann to the final design of BB-8.

In order to complete the design of the robot that rotates on the sphere, Christian Alzman tried various methods, taking into account Duke's idea on the one hand, and showing new features on the other hand.

Of course, the robot image in the original sketch looks gentle and lovable, so it is impossible for him to design this character in a serious or irritable direction. Duke has to give a corresponding response every time he designs a new BB-8 image. Feedback, and finally a full version of the BB-8 conceptual design drawing.

Christian Alzmann confessed to Duke that when he designed BB-8, he observed all kinds of strange spherical objects for inspiration, until he saw a football rolling in front of him, he thought it was It was the feeling he dreamed of.

After Alzman determined the basic design ideas, the next job was how to combine this concept with reality.

The designers from the biological team of Industrial Light and Magic have finalized the final image of BB-8 after constant trial and error - a rotatable spherical body and a hemispherical suspended head, which looks simple and elegant. Not simple, typical Star Wars style.

And for the cheapness of actual shooting, the designer can remotely control BB-8 to make various actions.

Completing the conceptual design is only half the battle, how to materialize the concept is the key to success.

To this end, the Star Wars: The Force Awakens crew hired Industrial Light and Magic legend Neil Scanlon as the director of the mission.

At Duke's behest, Neil Scanlon followed the ideas of the other two designers, but turning the BB-8 into reality was a huge challenge.

The modeling team, led by Neil Scanlon, first set out to make multiple puppet versions of BB-8.

There will inevitably be some changes when conceptual design drawings are applied to practice. Duke is well aware of this, and especially asked the model team in charge of Neil Scanlon to make different versions of BB-8 to find the most suitable version.

Neil Scanlon and Duke talked a lot about how the BB-8 droid would move, like whether it needed a retractable neck.

But Duke didn't think it was necessary. In order to prove his idea, he asked the model team to spend half a day building a moving puppet robot.

The flexibility of this puppet robot is simply amazing. Its head and arms can move freely at will. Everyone thinks this robot is very good. This puppet version robot has laid a solid foundation for the final materialized BB-8. Base.

After making the puppet, how to manipulate the puppet for actual filming became another thorny problem faced by Duke and Neil Scanlon's team.

The two crew members who acted as the controllers of BB-8 hid in the studio of Warner Studios and spent two full weeks mastering BB-8's movement routines and expressions.

At the same time, Duke asked John Schwartzman to send a photography assistant to record various expressions of BB-8 with the lens in the studio. After continuous adjustment and practice, BB-8 can finally make a rich and coherent expression. actions and expressions.

After making the model and actually manipulating it, Neil Scanlon's team showed Duke the fruits of their labor. When he saw the flexible movements and rich expressions displayed by BB-8, Duke was relieved. I can finally let go of the burden that has been on my shoulders for a long time.

The wonderful performance of BB-8 also conquered the crew of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It seems that it is not a puppet model, but the real BB-8 in the movie.

At the same time, in order to better serve Star Wars: The Force Awakens and subsequent series, Lucasfilm specially asked Industrial Light and Magic to set up a studio in Los Angeles. The character Ross Urban was responsible, and Duke also made him the visual effects supervisor of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

In today's Industrial Light and Magic, visual effects directors like Russell Earle still carry on the tradition of serving filmmakers, which was first established by George Lucas in the 1970s .

Russell Earle joined Industrial Light and Magic in 1994 as a technical assistant. Up to now, he has been in charge of Mission: Impossible 2, Pirates of the Caribbean series, Transformers series and Avengers Alliance and many other popular blockbuster special effects production work, can be described as rich experience.

If a director wants to add a spaceship to a movie, or make Iron Man fly around, or pack hundreds of animals into Noah's Ark, then he definitely needs a visual effects supervisor to lead the entire special effects Team, Duke is no exception.

Directors like Duke always hope that special effects can be improved to a higher level. In today's Hollywood, every bit of special effects needs to be upgraded, while production time is shrinking.

Therefore, for all Duke projects, the special effects work always starts from the time the project is approved, and some even start before the project is approved.

Fortunately, Duke has always been accompanied by Industrial Light and Magic over the years, and now Industrial Light and Magic has become his asset, so there is basically no difficulty in special effects.

When these preparations came to an end, Duke received a call from Irene Lauder's cousin, a billionaire from New York, who wanted to talk to him about the lead actress in the film. (to be continued ~^~)

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