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This is something I wold normally find very dry, but Rubin has found a way to express the drama that no doubt occurs. From interviews with over eighty Lucasfilm employees, including George Lucas, the story is told over three 'Acts', from Lucas' days at USC in the late sixties through to the mid eighties when much of the research and development at Lucasfilm had been divested; the computer graphics group's setting up of Pixar being the prime example. Rubin has an engaging writing style which brings together numerous anecdotes where the participants talk about various pivotal technical ideas (Rob Cook's use of sampling to solve the motion blur problem) and encounters with the big names that were continuously paraded through the offices to look at George's toys (Slyvester Stallone's attempts at using the paint programs). This is not a book of the latest in special effects and moviemaking. "George Lucas wants to set up a research group." The final Act takes us through the growing pains as some projects did not come to fruition and the company needed to decide how to manage the various groups which did not necessarily fit into their core film making business. As Rubin says, this story has already been covered in many books and documentaries. Act Two kicks off with the story of Alex Schure and the New York Institute of Technology where much of the early CG work was starting the late 70s to look at ways of using technology to improve film animation.
The focus however is one of the difficulties of traditional film making and in particular the editing process which was very mechanical. Act One tells the story of Lucas and Coppola and American Zoetroppe. The lower resolution video was hoped to improve the situation, but film and video did not play together nicely. Do the recordings smell better after that.Overall though, its a wonderful in-depth look at how someone like Lucas, with a passion for film making and independence, can use his resources to allow smart people to experiment with new ideas on the off chance that it might pay off one day.
Michael Rubin has written a well researched book into the early days Lucasfilm focusing on the developing uses of computers for computer graphics, video and sound editing. Schure was able to purchase the then expensive equipment (in 1978 an 8 bit frame buffer cost $60,000 - four were needed to create a red, green, blue and alpha image) to allow the researchers to play with paint programs and 3D graphics. That was until they got the call from Lucasfilm, which anyone who was a fan of Star Wars would have loved to get. The book is as much a look at some of the technical breakthroughs as it is about the organisational and business life cycle of a privately funded research and development group. Both Lucas and Coppola knew there had to be a better way and from their early film successes they were able to fund research into new equipment.I have been working in computer graphics for over twenty years. Although referring to software to remove noise from old analog recordings as "de-nosing" was amusing. Its more the story of how things moved from the old analog film making processes to where we are today. The book could have been improved with a bit more rigorous proof-reading.
Rubin relates the story of how Coppola was able to create a rough cut of a sequence from Apocalypse Now using video, but there was no easy way to use that to cut the original negatives since there was no way to tie the video time codes to the film reel and frame number. So for me this was an engrossing look into the pioneering work of people like Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith. There were a few too many typographical errors which interrupted the otherwise great narrative. I wish I'd been there.
Definitely. That it is awesome. Finding out how it came to the current state, and just exactly how much of it was instigated by George Lucas and Fracis Coppola [among others] because of their never ending quest to improve the craft of film making, and bring the ability to make film to the masses, is one hell of a ride. That it is the most well researched and executed piece of work about Lucasfilm.ltd available today.
But none as honest, truthful and human as the tale told in Droidmaker. Sure. That you should buy it if you work with computers, film, or have any sort of interest in the history of cinema. What can i say about Droidmaker. Not only am i glad that i bought Droidmaker, and not only do i rave about it to all my friends and family, but i can see what an important document of history this is, in that it is a candid and majestic [though not at all exaggerated] telling, of the truth behind the path of modern cinema, and its lasting effect for all users of personal computers, and all purveyors and enjoyers of entertainment, from now, into the forseeable, and unforseeable future. Even though we know the outcome by looking at the state of Hollywood today.
With enough landmarks along the way [like the release of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films] to give a clear understanding of where in time you are, and how fast the innovations were progressing. As stated in other reviews, there are other books proclaiming to tell the history of George Lucas.
Buy this book. Yes.
By focusing not just on the over arching vision of the film makers, but also on the individual people who brought those visions to life, and then went on to follow their own dreams with the technologies and methods they developed. This book is impossible to put down, and i dont mean like that time i glued War and Peace to my palm in 8th grade because i was bored.
I mean in the "So riveting you can't bear to miss out on whats going to happen next" kind of way. You will see bits of yourself in these fascinating people, and get a clear mental image of the lives they were living, in order to make dreams into reality.
Today.
This is a great book, entertaining and intricate, which tells an important story. I invented the concept for the program "Sound Designer" and worked closely with Evan Brooks of Digidesign to implement this program on the brand new Macintosh computer. Today, tape recorders exist only in museums. In 1981, I desperately wanted to break into computer music, having studied electronic music and electrical engineering. There were many other people working in digital audio, but few published as much, or were as bold, or had such a broad vision of how far the technology could go to replace the existing technology, or how dramatic the new technology could be. I visited Andy Moorer at DroidWorks in 1982, who gave me an incredibly generous hour long tour of the headquarters, and showed me the prototypes of their Audio Signal Processor. The guys a DroidWorks pioneered the digital audio industry that exists today. Moorer and his friends blazed the trail for the whole audio industry, publishing and lecturing extensively on what they had done.
I eventually did break into computer music when I went to work at E-mu Systems in 1983, where I implemented a computer audio editing system. I certainly wanted to have my own system like the astounding machines I saw at DroidWorks, and designing my own was the only way that I would ever get my hands on one. All movies, sound effects, and music are produced using digital systems, and DroidWorks showed the way. It was as vivid as a Lucas Film movie, and as futuristic, but it became real.
This book is required reading for anyone with a basic level of curiosity on how the digital revolution came to be. "Droidmaker" is a remarkable book, bringing the story of computer animation to life, allowing non-technical people like me to understand how this process evolved.
The brains of the people that write these things are obviously wired very differently than mine. I am a borderline technophobe whose mind goes blank whenever I am forced to read any computer product user's manual.
His name is Michael Rubin. The leaden, sterile word choices and phrases used by this engineering culture make the sense of disconnect even worse.
The good news is that I finally have found an Electronic Moses to lead me to the promised land. The photographs of the people and events involved in the story are particularly well chosen.
There isn't another one out there like it
The first half, dealing more with Lucas and the history of Star Wars is probably a little more accessible, but the back half, with its detailed telling of the evolution of Pixar and other Lucas-driven technical innovations, is equally fascinating. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book. If you have a passing interest in modern movie making, the history of Pixar, or are a fan of Star Wars/George Lucas, you really have to read Droidmaker. Oh, did I mention all the stuff about video games. Seriously, this is among the best books I've read in the past five years.
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