No surprise here: Five ILM films are on the preliminary list for the Best Visual Effects Oscar. The list of 15 will be narrowed down to 8 finalists, and from there to the 3 Oscar nominees.
Happy Holidays from LFL
On the official site this week, Lucasfilm’s 2007 holiday card, which in keeping with the ringing in of the year features caroling stormtroopers. Meanwhile, Slashfilm looks back at 30 years of LFL cards.
I particularly like the 2000 card, above.
LFL threefer: Post-pro and Padawans
Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound servicing more than just the big budgets – both post-production firms are becoming more available to ‘smaller’ films.
Cnet’s Daniel Terdiman gets to visit the Ranch for a behind-the-scenes look at Skywalker Sound. (Copy editing quirk: Han Solo has a lightsaber?)
Last but by no means least: Lucasfilm Animation Singapore is starting up the Jedi Master Program – a paid apprenticeship for computer graphics artists. Sounds like an amazing opportunity – the competition to get in is sure to be fierce!
Dispatch from the Cinematic Titanic
Pablo writes about it, and Bonnie posts the pictures.. Sadly, they were not mocking the Holiday Special as I hoped, but something called Brain of Blood, which sounds at least equally awful.
Lucasfilm and the strike
TFN contacted Lucasfilm to ask how the writer’s strike will affect them, and got the following statement:
“Lucasfilm has many projects in various stages of production. We do not at this point know what impact, if any, the strike will have.”
Well, it’s not like we have solid dates on any of the TV stuff to begin with… And I doubt we’d see much of anything substantial before Indy IV and TFU.
LFL folks celebrate Halloween
Indy IV theft déjà vu for LFL?
Two similar incidents to this week’s Crystal Skull production theft occurred in 1977 at the Star Wars publicist’s office and ILM’s Van Nuys studio. That time, however, the stolen items were never full recovered.
Star Wars roundup: Yippie ki-yay
George Lucas attends Salesforce.com user conference and gives keynote, talking about education and technology. The company has registered force.com. Forget Lucas – what does Philip Wise think?
- The BBC returns to ILM.
- Poll: BloggingStocks pits George Lucas against Steven Spielberg.
- You’ve just been dying to know Natalie Portman’s prequel makeup secrets, right? (via)
Fandom
- Vic and Lisa’s Star Wars home theatre gets some love from Gizmodo. Famous on the internets!
- The 501st has put troopers on all seven continents this year. Next up: The moon!
Expanded Universe
- Wired’s Geekdad blog gets an early look at A Pop Up Guide to the Galaxy. (via)
- Timothy Zahn will be at Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books next month.
Star Wars in the news
Music teacher wants to show class the opening scene of Star Wars – but Fifth-graders gets a quick look at porn instead. This isn’t the sci-fi epic you’re looking for!
Also…
LFL for tech geeks
For you hardcore alpha geeks just dying to know about things like Lucasfilm’s render farm, Computer World interviews some of their IT staff for ‘IT optimization the Lucasfilm way.’ (via TOSblog)