And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
I recall reading somewhere that it took them five hours of work to obtain several seconds of workable animated footage. The hard work obviously paid off.
Film is 24 frames per second. Stop motion animation shoots 2 frames at a time. So 12 slight moves and set-ups gets you 1 second of usable film. Call it 5 seconds film per actual hour of work. Maybe 5-10 times as long. 40-60 seconds in one entire SFX day. Maybe only 10 seconds. If everything works. If the lighting is perfect. And there's no debris inside the camera in front of the film gate.
At that rate, a ten minute sequence takes two weeks. If you're lucky.
After someone - likely several someones - builds and paints those models. And the scenery.
A scene like Luke ascending and tossing a grenade in a walker, and it exploding and toppling over, is 15-20 seconds' of movie, But it's 2 months' fulltime work by hundreds of people.
Before you cut in the other moving pieces. Snowspeeders flying around. Then SFX afterwards to add blaster shots.
Before you edit in live action, close ups, dialog, matte shots, etc. Then take it to post for sound FX, soundtrack, and any dialog looping, etc.
For all intents and purposes, the battle on the ice planet Hoth was six months' work by a movie factory in and of itself. Probably 2-3 of them, including ILM.
Times 9-15 of those segments to get a movie. This is why what you're seeing now was first shot at least a year ago, in many cases.
But it's also the only business, apart from the US Treasury, where someone like George Lucas can turn 500 sheets of blank paper into a few hundred million dollars. With imagination and a keyboard.
It's an intricately boring, and yet thoroughly amazing, business.
Ray Harryhausen approves.
ReplyDeleteThe great Phil Tippett
ReplyDeleteI recall reading somewhere that it took them five hours of work to obtain several seconds of workable animated footage. The hard work obviously paid off.
ReplyDeleteFilm is 24 frames per second.
DeleteStop motion animation shoots 2 frames at a time.
So 12 slight moves and set-ups gets you 1 second of usable film.
Call it 5 seconds film per actual hour of work. Maybe 5-10 times as long.
40-60 seconds in one entire SFX day. Maybe only 10 seconds.
If everything works.
If the lighting is perfect.
And there's no debris inside the camera in front of the film gate.
At that rate, a ten minute sequence takes two weeks.
If you're lucky.
After someone - likely several someones - builds and paints those models.
And the scenery.
A scene like Luke ascending and tossing a grenade in a walker, and it exploding and toppling over, is 15-20 seconds' of movie,
But it's 2 months' fulltime work by hundreds of people.
Before you cut in the other moving pieces.
Snowspeeders flying around.
Then SFX afterwards to add blaster shots.
Before you edit in live action, close ups, dialog, matte shots, etc.
Then take it to post for sound FX, soundtrack, and any dialog looping, etc.
For all intents and purposes, the battle on the ice planet Hoth was six months' work by a movie factory in and of itself.
Probably 2-3 of them, including ILM.
Times 9-15 of those segments to get a movie.
This is why what you're seeing now was first shot at least a year ago, in many cases.
But it's also the only business, apart from the US Treasury, where someone like George Lucas can turn 500 sheets of blank paper into a few hundred million dollars. With imagination and a keyboard.
It's an intricately boring, and yet thoroughly amazing, business.
Oh ... So these were the ones the mousebot drivers ran. Got it.
ReplyDelete