Interviews
Adam Benton-Editors of Star Wars Revelation
> • How did you become involved in the post-production of the film Star Wars: Revelation?
Shane posted on renderosity.com in the jobs forum - he requested assistance from any willing volunteers with cg skills, and when I responded he showed me some early footage he'd shot for the prisoner scenes in the quarry. I was already impressed with the production values and decided I'd like to know more. I sent him some renders I had done in the star wars vein, and he was impressed, so we went from there. I'd seen a lot of fan films up to that point, and very few of them had really impressed me with their CG production values, so the fact that Shane wanted to push the envelope, and see how far we could go really attracted me to take part.
> • What works have you done before working on this fan film?
I'd been freelance doing cg illustration and some animation since 2000, working on all sorts of commissions for advertising, publishing and education markets.
> • How did you communication with the Director during the production stage, i.e. online? Or meeting him in person? Did Shane Felux deliver the materials to you via internet?
He is based in the us, and i in the uk, so face to face meetings were impossible. Most comms were via email and we had a news group on yahoo which allowed us all to show progress and critique each others work, and for Shane to add his directions etc. Shane would also phone me every few weeks depending on what needed discussing in more detail. Large green screen footage files etc were usually uploaded to an FTP for me to download.
> • What were your assigned tasks?
They started being concept design, and 3D modelling for the ships ( I designed, modelled and textured the hero and villain ships as well as the imperial carrier ship), but as production progressed I ended up creating most of the planet matte paintings, designing and modeling the initial shipyards, the interior of the Jedi temple. Then it made sense for me to take some of the shots through to completed animations, as well as doing the compositing of green screen elements into some. In the initial scripts, the
shipyard sequence wasn't even written in, it just mentioned the shipyards at correlia, so a fellow cg artist and friend of mine sat down and scripted the idea of actually taking a chase through the shipyards, making for something really dynamic and exciting- we visualised storyboards describing the action and shots within the sequence, and I created the first animated shot from inside one of the tunnels as a proof of concept. The sequence grew from there with the help and development of a further two US based CG (Computer Graphics) artists.
In the final film, I contributed about 10 full animated shots as well as a large number of 2d and 3d assets used through the whole production by other artists.
> • Were you expecting to be paid for what you have done in this production? Or was it a volunteer job?
No, there was never going to be a fee - no one can legally earn anything from a star wars production unless they are working for lucasfilm themselves, so none of us were under any illusions - it was done for the love and the challenge of it!
> • What were the benefits from working on this fan film?
It was a real test of skills. I agreed to do many things I simply hadn't ever tried before, or at least to the levels required for this production. It was a huge learning experience, and probably of more technical benefit than any number of commercial jobs I had done, because I was seeing how far I could go to recreate the right look of a star wars film using CG.
> • What were the main editing softwares and hardwares that you used to create this fan film?
Cinema 4D and After Effects for me primarily, but every 3d package there is was used by one artist or another (Lightwave, Maya, 3DSMax, Bryce etc). After Effects was used for all compositing by everybody, and final edits were done by Shane in Premiere I believe.
> • Any advice to those people who are thinking of doing similar film productions?
Give it a go! -there's lots of fan films being made, but very few with proper production values, so if you find one that looks like it has a real schedule in place, and the people behind it seem to have the same level of commitment as yourself, then you'll definitely benefit from it. Like many painters copy a classic painting by an artist they admire to learn and understand what makes it what it is, attempting to create a scene/element for at least the essence from a film you admire, will teach you an awful lot as well. I delivered a couple of shots to Shane that he called me over, saying that I'd managed to create something so visually close to the style of shots in the original trilogy, he felt they could have been from the Lucas film archives themselves, which felt like quite an achievement.
Adam Benton
www.kromekat.com
> • How did you become involved in the post-production of the film Star Wars: Revelation?
Shane posted on renderosity.com in the jobs forum - he requested assistance from any willing volunteers with cg skills, and when I responded he showed me some early footage he'd shot for the prisoner scenes in the quarry. I was already impressed with the production values and decided I'd like to know more. I sent him some renders I had done in the star wars vein, and he was impressed, so we went from there. I'd seen a lot of fan films up to that point, and very few of them had really impressed me with their CG production values, so the fact that Shane wanted to push the envelope, and see how far we could go really attracted me to take part.
> • What works have you done before working on this fan film?
I'd been freelance doing cg illustration and some animation since 2000, working on all sorts of commissions for advertising, publishing and education markets.
> • How did you communication with the Director during the production stage, i.e. online? Or meeting him in person? Did Shane Felux deliver the materials to you via internet?
He is based in the us, and i in the uk, so face to face meetings were impossible. Most comms were via email and we had a news group on yahoo which allowed us all to show progress and critique each others work, and for Shane to add his directions etc. Shane would also phone me every few weeks depending on what needed discussing in more detail. Large green screen footage files etc were usually uploaded to an FTP for me to download.
> • What were your assigned tasks?
They started being concept design, and 3D modelling for the ships ( I designed, modelled and textured the hero and villain ships as well as the imperial carrier ship), but as production progressed I ended up creating most of the planet matte paintings, designing and modeling the initial shipyards, the interior of the Jedi temple. Then it made sense for me to take some of the shots through to completed animations, as well as doing the compositing of green screen elements into some. In the initial scripts, the
shipyard sequence wasn't even written in, it just mentioned the shipyards at correlia, so a fellow cg artist and friend of mine sat down and scripted the idea of actually taking a chase through the shipyards, making for something really dynamic and exciting- we visualised storyboards describing the action and shots within the sequence, and I created the first animated shot from inside one of the tunnels as a proof of concept. The sequence grew from there with the help and development of a further two US based CG (Computer Graphics) artists.
In the final film, I contributed about 10 full animated shots as well as a large number of 2d and 3d assets used through the whole production by other artists.
> • Were you expecting to be paid for what you have done in this production? Or was it a volunteer job?
No, there was never going to be a fee - no one can legally earn anything from a star wars production unless they are working for lucasfilm themselves, so none of us were under any illusions - it was done for the love and the challenge of it!
> • What were the benefits from working on this fan film?
It was a real test of skills. I agreed to do many things I simply hadn't ever tried before, or at least to the levels required for this production. It was a huge learning experience, and probably of more technical benefit than any number of commercial jobs I had done, because I was seeing how far I could go to recreate the right look of a star wars film using CG.
> • What were the main editing softwares and hardwares that you used to create this fan film?
Cinema 4D and After Effects for me primarily, but every 3d package there is was used by one artist or another (Lightwave, Maya, 3DSMax, Bryce etc). After Effects was used for all compositing by everybody, and final edits were done by Shane in Premiere I believe.
> • Any advice to those people who are thinking of doing similar film productions?
Give it a go! -there's lots of fan films being made, but very few with proper production values, so if you find one that looks like it has a real schedule in place, and the people behind it seem to have the same level of commitment as yourself, then you'll definitely benefit from it. Like many painters copy a classic painting by an artist they admire to learn and understand what makes it what it is, attempting to create a scene/element for at least the essence from a film you admire, will teach you an awful lot as well. I delivered a couple of shots to Shane that he called me over, saying that I'd managed to create something so visually close to the style of shots in the original trilogy, he felt they could have been from the Lucas film archives themselves, which felt like quite an achievement.
Adam Benton
www.kromekat.com
