MD6001 Week 10 - Pre-visualisation research (Star Wars Episode II pre-visualisation techniques)

​This is a bonus feature on the DVD release of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) that explains how pre-visualisation was used for it as well as previous Star Wars films. Below are the most useful points I have learnt from the video:

• Ben Snow, the visual effects director of the film states that six or seven years prior to the production of Episode II, the filmmakers would use storyboards instead of pre-visualisation but animation director Rob Colman argued they were not as helpful as pre-visualisation because they would not tell the filmmakers the movement or “help with the cutting.” This shows that pre-visualisation is more useful than storyboards to show the exact movement to be included in the final outcome. Coleman’s argument is accompanied by a blocky yet detailed pre-visualisation of a man riding spacecraft through passing rocks (timecode 1:43 - 1:51 in the video).

• Prior to Episode II the filmmakers would produce earlier versions of pre-visualisations by making simple hand-drawn cartoons on paper for The Empire Strikes Back (1980, 2:23 - 2:27) and for Return of the Jedi they would make small models of spacecraft on sticks and film their movements on camera (1983, 2:28 - 2:40). When they made The Phantom Menace (1999), they were finally able to produce 3D pre-visualisations, for example one to represent Anakin Skywalker’s pod race sequence (2:40 - 2:49). This shows how much technology has developed during the making of these three instalments of the Star Wars franchise.

• The 3D pre-visualisations also made up animatics.

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