The Animatics of STAR WARS Episode III: Revenge of the Sith with Dan Gregoire

by Joshua Griffin reporting at C3

(Report may contain spoilers)

Dan is the man. Let me just start there. This guy brought his "A" game to the Celebration. The MC's warmup of the crowd was a bit awkward, asking about the long lines and such, but the presentation more than made up for it. After a rocky start, Dan took us on a wonderful journey of previsualization for Revenge of the Sith.

Dan was a part of the team for Episode II and knew the challenge ahead, but Episode III was a much greater challenge than anyone expected. Fortunately, there was also a huge jump in the capability of his team, and it really showed.

They got started with the opening space battle sequences, with a team of about 12 (up from 4 on AOTC). All Lucas had at the start was that there would be a gigantic opening space battle, and to go for it. They worked for weeks on what that sequence might look like, and they delivered it to Lucas just before the start of principle photography. He loved what he saw, and shot the final 20-minute animatic in it's entirety. As we know the opening space battle is going to be huge, and is largely the work of the early animators. Of course, there were cuts, but still contains lots of high energy sequences we'll soon see.

So what did he bring with him? He showed us the final TV trailer UNITE to the crowd, then the animatics cut into the same a trailer. It was great - some funny bits included the early version of the Boga lizard, Chewbacca holding Yoda like a baby and Yoda showing a little butt cheek. It is truly amazing to see how the previz team have essentially created a guide for ILM to build a movie upon.

The animatic process
1 - basic blocking and background
2 - look and feel, animation
3 - fine tuning the rough shot

The early Grievous character model from the animatics was eventually upgraded and actually used in the film. This helped ILM get a jump start on how they character would function. One additional sequence had Ewan jumping off of a green box with green screen. The previz team came in and added in Grievous, his wheel bike and the background. This is an emerging type of previz - actually postviz might be a better term. This is where you take some element of the film that has been shot and combine it with an animatic.

There was so much more ... but I have to cut to the chase. Dan pulled out all of the stops and launched a comparison reel of all sorts of new footage and clips running side-by-side with the animatics. It was STUNNING. First off, the animatics looked stunning. Secondly ... the crowd went wild with all of this new footage.

NEW FOOTAGE NEW FOOTAGE NEW FOOTAGE
Spoiler Protected. Hightlight to read:

• Yoda sensing the Clones had turned against the Jedi
• Yoda flipping backwards and cutting off two clones heads
• A wide angle shot of a huge pillar crashing down into the lava with Anakin/Obi-Wan at the top
• Padme's ship landing on Mustafar
• Grievous falling, then landing on the ground like a wicked spider
• Yoda using Sidious' own lightening to knock the Emperor off a Senate pod
• Yoda stopping a Senate pod JUST before he is crushed by it
• R2-D2 getting picked up by a super battle droid
• R2-D2 startling the droid by shooting oil out
• R2-D2 pouring oil on the ground
• R2-D2 firing his jets and lighting the oil on fire
• Obi-Wan cutting himself out of his starship and flipping through the air as it crash lands inside Grievous' capital ship
• Anakin and his starship making 2 missiles crash into each other
• Wookiees swinging onto enemy vehicles, planting grenades and ripping it to shreads
• Grievous wheel bike "leaps" into the air and runs down the sinkhole
• Scout troopers getting picked off by the droids
• Anakin/Obi-Wan fighting while riding surfboards over lava
• Obi-Wan and Anakin in a stare down aboard the lava urfboards
• Clonetrooper helping wounded clonetrooper with Gunship in the background
• Battle droids sniping from way above Obi-Wan on the Boga lizard
• A starship crashing into a pile of battle droids as the capital ship keels
• People being sucked into space as a ship rips apart - the camera tumbles out with them