One-Third of the Star Wars: Episode VII VFX to be Done at the New ILM Studio in Vancouver.
Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and Industrial Light & Magic chief creative officer John Knoll officially opened the new ILM studio in Vancouver on the afternoon of March 17. The studio will be operating for at least 10 years busy with all the sequel movies + the spin-offs…
The studio will have full capabilities rather than focusing on separate specialities. What’s interesting is that In Vancouver, the company is particularly keen to hire creature technical directors and layout artists.
“Creature technical directors set up their fantastical characters with bones, muscles, skin and animation controls which animators then work with. Layout artists match the output of computer “cameras” with film cameras so computer generated material and filmed material work in concert.”
From vancouversun
Industrial Light & Magic, the legendary visual effects firm George Lucas created for Star Wars, is bringing as much as one-third of the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII’s visual effects work to Vancouver.
“Everybody here is going to be very, very involved in a lot of Star Wars content over the next seven years,” ILM president and general manager Lynwen Brennan said. On the weight of the Star Wars franchise, ILM has taken over Pixar’s 30,000 square foot Gastown studios and intends to staff it with 200 visual effects employees.
“The wonderful place we’re in right now, we have 10 years of work ahead,” Brennan said. There are not only three Star Wars plans in the works, but also spin-off movies. “That enables us to not only invest in jobs but in technology development and R&D.”
“We will be here at least eight to 10 years,” ILM chief creative officer John Knoll said.
Other projects of the ILM Vancouver studio are The Lone Ranger and Pacific Rim. Their current projects are Captain America: The Winter Solider, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
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And the other two-thirds would be covered by? Any articles on that?
Anyway, aren’t they supposed to be using more special effects and less visual effects?
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2014/02/ilm-expands-with-new-vfx-facility-in.html
You guys can search this blog with the tool in the left sidebar. Just type ILM. 🙂
Every movie has vfx.
It ranges from simple to heavily laden cgi.
This news does not indicate they wont use more special effects
So it’s US, Australia, London and Singapore? Doing the round the clock thing I suppose. Different timezones and all.. Thanks.
Hope it’s a good Balance of special and visual effects.
Vancouver is in Canada.
Oops. Meant to type Canada but mind was thinking about JJ Abrams saying he wants to film in Australia! Lol! See JJ , what your complaining about filming in London has decided done to my sanity and clarity of mind.
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Hmm… well I guess I didn’t expect them to build half of an entire monster ala Jurassic Park. At least CGI beasts have come a long way. Still not a fan of CGI Yoda or the Clone Troopers. Mechanical on the other hand has all but been mastered at this point…
Hopefully CGI will used for amazing skylines and spaceships… and less creatures and fake environments/sets. I watch the original Star Wars and think… wow this still holds up. I look at some of the prequel CGI and think… this never looked good.
Special effects and visual effects are more or less the same thing. The distinction that I think we’re all interested in is practical (model) effects versus CGI effects.
no visual effects and special effects are the distinction you are talking about. Special effects and visual effects are not “more or less the same thing” as visual effects are effects that are computer rendered and special effects are done for real. “practical (model) effects versus CGI effects.” are just another way of saying special effects and visual effects haha.
“Visual” does not necessarily mean computer either. Rotoscoping, matte paintings, camera and lighting tricks are all visual too.
I know but he mentioned CGI and I was saying that is what visual effects is. Visual effects are basically stuff not shot on set, which as I say, obviously stuff like cg.
Visual effects were around long before CGI.
All of it is the magic of illusion. The problem is, film-makers have a massive toolbox, and use cgi a la “If all you have is a hammer, everything becomes a cartoon.” Jurassic Park was a great example of using all of your tools to maintain the illusion. People are overexposed to one tool, while the other tools gather dust. Farscape showed that puppets can still work exceptionally well, while Episode 1 had a rubbery looking Yoda (Farscape had darker lighting and other tricks that made it work).
Interesting tweets recently..
“Expect new information on Star Wars VII april 16th. Mark your calendars”
“really?”
“yep. Having a conference”
“Next month, we sware!”
….
….
“Ha, those fans are so gullible”
I just expect it to come out “sometime”. It’s nicer to be surprised.
The statement “we have 10 years of work ahead” does not make me feel right… why not make this a permanent studio? This bothers me almost as much as (Bob Iger? I forgot who said it) the statement “Star Wars will be around for the next 40 years.” Why not forever????
Star Wars will exist forever. Disney just plans to milk it for money for 40 years.
Yeah. No doubt in my mind that in 25+ years we will see an episode 10, 11 and 12
We will all be seeing 10, 11 and 12 a LOT sooner than that 🙂
It’s savvy of them not to keep it going more than 40 years. By that time, geek interests may be booted out of popular culture dominance and replaced with rated x romance films, for all we know. History is weird like that.
Star Wars is nearing 40 already R3GAR, it had better keep lasting (:
I don’t care as long as the special effects are better than in The Last Airbender film (done by ILM). Got a Sith problem? Our one very slow moving rock will fix it!
So is it true that Iger confirmed time frame of Ep.VII to be 30 yrs after ROTJ and that “familiar faces will be returning along with a new trio of heroes”?
Yes its true.
Starwar.com’s facebook has just posted something interesting about casting and filming in may! Could be our first official announcement concerning these topics!!
Thanks, why didn’t this site post it so we can finally get a rest from the contrarian tweets of the no Carrie Fischer nonsense.
* ? (meant as a question)
http://starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-vii-set-to-roll-cameras-may-2014.html
Looks like this is solid confirmation that EpVII does indeed take place 30 years after ROTJ and, “will be featuring many new and familiar faces.”
I think that really says it all.
Hell Yeahhhhhh!!!!!! right from the official site. This should put an end to the recast rumors. No need to recast the original actors if they are exactly as old as they need to be.
Nice!! Okay, cool. So the general scenario is pretty much what we’d originally assumed that it would be. Set 30 years after the OT, with all but literal confirmation of the original cast making an appearance alongside the new cast of heroes.
It may not be a ton of information, but it’s good enough for the moment. ;^)
It just proves my previous point that they’re stretching out confirmations and official announcements as a marketing tactic. Look how worked up everyone’s getting just by this little tiny bit of official information from starwars.com.
True dat, although I’m not sure if the Disney execs really care what we OT fanboys are debating… I mean all of us are probably going to see it in theaters a few times anyways so their money is already made I bet.
Well that’s great news though, as vague as it is I’m happy to read it. Hopefully We might get a few pics in May? 🙂
They have done everything but confirm the big 3. Every source is saying that they are back. Except that ludicrous, baseless recast article yesterday. 30 years after pretty much does it
“It has also been confirmed that Star Wars: Episode VII is set about 30 years after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and will star a trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces.”
PFTFCDUCNWVC OMG. I hope by familiar faces they don’t just mean the confirmed R2. Hopefully 3PO is back, and why else would they make it 30 years after return of the jedi if the original trio weren’t back. So excited!
Also I’m happy it says “trio”. Hopefully this means Lukes son as the main and Leia and Han’s twins as sidekicks.
Sure the “familiar FACES” will just be one singular character R2 as you stated. They’re all back! 🙂
My mind… you see those pieces everywhere? Yeah it’s blown.
Yes even though most of this was somewhat known it’s awesome to see it confirmed.
Here is a filming schedule for episode 7 or VII it comes directly from starwars.com
http://starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-vii-set-to-roll-cameras-may-2014.html
It starts in my birth month yahoo sadly the movie dosen’t come out then like all the other Starwars movies
Check the years next to those dates…
Familiar faces can mean a lot of things… we all hope it means the big 3, but what if it means only C-3PO and R2D2? What if it means Ewan McGregor’s Obi Wan ghost, or a Yoda ghost? What if it’s only Chewbacca? It could very well mean that the characters are familiar but not the actors playing them (big 3 recast). I’m not going to get my hopes up for something that is still unconfirmed, and its unconfirmed for a reason.
Also episode 7 or VII takes place 30 years after episode 6 or VI as rumored before
also it says new young actors and some ” old ones” maybe the big 3 but maybe not don’t get your hopes up but still cool to read also that link would be good to be posted on this site as an article
Thanks capitain…
Official Announcement:
http://starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-vii-set-to-roll-cameras-may-2014.html
viral, just in case you already aren’t making an article about this, they’ve oficially announced the new movie will start filming in may and is confirmed to be approx. 30 years after rotj.
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/star-wars-episode-vii-to-begin-filming-in-may-1201137849/