The lecture included both preliminary video and slides of the artwork that was used to create the textures and flavors found in Episode One. Although the lecture was well done and full of great information on the creativity process for the film, the lecture can easily be explained as the audio version of "The Art of Star Wars - Episode One," an excellent book featuring many of Chiang's work on the film.

In my opinion, the highlight was the hour-long Q&A session after his lecture (which was equally as long). Kudos to all of the Star Wars educated people there for asking great questions - unfortunately, due to the size of the auditorium, not very many of the questions were heard by the rest of the audience. Please contact TFN if I have the wrong question to the answers below.

Q: How did you get hired at LucasFilm and did working around other artists help you in your creativity and quality in your own work?
A! : When I came to ILM, it was probably one of the best experiences for me. I'm not classically trained in art design and I've only formally had three art classes so I learned really on the job. The art department at ILM, where I first worked, had some of the most helpful people go through there.

During that time, everybody was pretty certain that George was going to start on Episode One. What I focused my time on was to develop my own style. I made it a promise to myself that I would actually spend time on weekends painting my own style. For a whole two years, I really did a painting every other weekend on my own subject matter to explore and develop myself. Fortunately, after I finished that, I had a created a great body of work. George announced he needed a staff for Episode One and so I had a portfolio that was already set - so I essentially just compiled everything. A little bit of storyboards, a little of my own personal work - which wa! s combining nature and animals with the technology of today. I also had some of my digital art. So it was these three mediums that I submitted I felt would broaden my chances of being accepted.

Fortunately, I found out later that George's first labor was to look over all the hundreds of portfolios submitted. From that group, he personally selected the people that would work in the art department, and I was one of them. It's kind of mind blowing.

Q: Why did George Lucas decide to use a grassy field for the final battle? It is so different from the other SW movies.
A: For that, it was actually interesting because George likes big grassy plains. If you look at the early, early artwork of the original Star Wars, Joe Johnson had drawn some grassy plains, and so it's something that George is very fond of. I don't know if it is because he grew up in Marin County where there are a lot of grassy plains. For me, I like it because I am fon! d of Western painters and I have always wanted to paint those kinds of views. That painting that you saw here tonight was kind of my tribute to that. Fortunately, it was the same image that George had in mind.

Q: I heard that George Lucas stamps the artwork with "Good" and "Not So Good" stamps. Did you ever get a "Not So Good" stamp on a piece of artwork that you spent hours and hours on and thought it was good and what was your reaction?
A: He actually had three stamps: DEEP REGRET, OK and FABULOSO. And those are things he came up with. And the fabuloso stamp was the coveted one. We celebrated after we got that - but it was mostly OK's. Fortunately for us, he didn't use deep regret. If he didn't stamp it, it meant deep regret - but he just didn't have the heart to do that to us.

Q: What type of paint do you use?
A: Pure Acrylics. It's mainly because for no other reason than I just did. It's not the best medium for what I do! because it's really hard sometimes. It's a really tough medium but I kind of gotten used to it. One of these days I'll be brave enough to experiment and try something new but it took me so long to get used to it that I don't want to now.

Q: I noticed in many books that you guys deal in models. Do you feel that the digital artwork will take away model makers jobs?
A: You know, the model shop at ILM was always very fearful of CG for as long as I have been there. My personal feeling that it's not going to go away. Models will always be there. There are certain things and certain qualities that you can get from a physical model. It's very easy for a model builder to get a texture in one quick swipe versus painting texture using texture painter on a computer. Painting all of those beautiful accidents. In fact, most of the images you see in Episode One, even though they are digital images, we built physical models and painted them and use! d them as textures to scan in. It's always very helpful, even in the early design stages, George would like holding something up to look at it versus seeing it rotate on the computer. My personal feeling is that modeling will never disappear - it is always going to complement [digital graphics].

Q: As an artist, how do you keep your ideas fresh and not letting your ideas get stagnant? How do you go back to the drawing board and not stare at it for three hours a day without a new idea?
A: I wish I had that answer because I am going through that now! It's really hard! Part of my situation, which is very different from everybody else that I work with, is I like to just sit down and force myself to do it. It is just my way of working. One thing I find really helpful is I turn the drawing or design upside down, or draw the idea but from a weird angle. I find when I do that, I start seeing it in a different light. It's a very powerful way o! f working. It doesn't always work, but it at least gets you thinking of something new. The other way to [break your artist block] is to look at everyday life. There are a lot of inspirations that you can see in common day objects. One of my biggest inspirations is automotive drawings. I'm a big fan of automotive drawings because there is so much in those designs that you can interpret spaceships, vehicles and robots from them if you know what to look for.

Q: Can you tell us your usual workday during the making of Episode One?
A: My day started at 8am and for me, I would draw straight through not taking any breaks until lunch. We typically leave around 8 - 8:30pm. That was consistent for Terryl Whitlatch and I for about two years - and then it got worse! Once we got into production, we were there till about 10pm sometimes just working straight through. It is very hard not to get burned out. Unfortunately there is just this huge list of th! ings that need to be designed. We knew that a lot of people expected a lot from us and we didn't want to let anyone down so it just forced us to keep on going. Plus, we are all just big fans so we wanted to do it.

Q: What is the ratio of artwork created and artwork used?
A: In the initial stages, it was probably 10% that got used and slowly after a couple of months, it became about 50%. And now it's been consistent at about 50%. Usually, George selects about half of the designs when he sees everything. We are pretty fortunate for that.

Q: What is it like to work with George Lucas?
A: George is very inspiring to work with. I know it's a typical cliche but I have a lot of respect of him. He is surprisingly very visually aware of things, he knows how to read the drawing. I have worked with many other directors before and sometimes you have to explain what things are. George will look at it and immediately understand what it is. On! e of the things that I really appreciated about George is that he respected the art, respected how well it was drawn and respected the design. But he is also very aware of fine art history. I learned a lot from him in that regard. For me, he was an ideal mentor. Just being in that environment and kind of experiencing how he was going through the story problems and how he solved them. It was very enjoyable, because I could see how he overcame it and all the other steps. The backward steps, the forward steps. It was a very privileged experience.

I could see George's genius really blossom starting early on. He could look at a shot one that we've been looking at for hours and days and immediately identify what was and wasn't working. It's a skill that not very many people have that takes a lot of training for George in that situation. I think that is really what defines why Star Wars works. Even now, I try to anticipate what George would li! ke - but he always disproves it. So it's still a learning experience.