The hardcore fans of Star Wars and Star Trek have always been mortal enemies, and unlike Duke's role in masks prepared for Simon Page, Bendinick Cumberbatch wants to compete for the male lead. If there is no sufficient benefit in this kind of thing that is seriously contrary to the opinions of the core audience, Duke will definitely not do it casually.

Besides, he is planning to use a Chinese actor like Daniel Wu in the second protagonist, and the third protagonist uses Latino, and Bendinick Cumberbatch does not meet this requirement at all.

Although Bendinick Cumberbatch showed positive performance in winning roles and was more popular and well-known, Duke chose to refuse.

Duke is not particularly familiar with the Star Trek series. He also watched the most classic Star Trek films. After all, a series can be produced for so long and has the support of so many fans. There must be something good about it, and maybe he can learn from it.

However, after watching several Star Trek movies, Duke found that this would not help Star Wars.

Although Star Wars and Star Trek are both science fiction films about Wars of the Universe, they are essentially different, and the things emphasized by the two series are completely different.

In Star Wars, like other typical Hollywood blockbusters, the most important thing is to punish evil and promote good, and everything else must be given up. Evil forces cannot defeat the power of light, otherwise it will be politically incorrect. In Star Trek, the most important thing is the science and technology exhibition, which is the spirit of seeking the spirit. Good and evil are not important. Strength is the foundation of survival in the universe.

So Star Wars is a pseudo-science fiction, just a drama blockbuster dressed in a science fiction guise.

In Star Wars, technology is not important. As long as there is the Force, you can defeat everything. The Force can transcend physical laws and produce natural phenomena. This setting greatly reduces the science fiction attributes of Star Wars and is more like a magical story.

To a certain extent, the Star Wars series is a space opera, very epic. The scene is very grand and there is a very clear plot process; Star Trek is a space cowboy theme, and its plot core is often mentioned in the movie version, exploring the unknown, and moving forward bravely.

While Duke was preparing for the film, Lucasfilm also signed promotion cooperation agreements with some companies.

In February, virtual reality followers and Star Wars fans received the news they have been waiting for. Star Wars is about to fully enter the virtual reality experience. Lucasfilm has held a strategic cooperation exhibition with Google. The complete virtual reality experience has officially begun production, which will open a new Star Wars universe.

This complete virtual reality experience will include a compelling story and exclusive content that has never been seen before, which is directly related to the opening of the new Star Wars series that fans will be able to experience by accessing the official Star Wars app on iOS and OD.

Google is not just doing Star Wars 7 VR, they have tied up each related app, requiring users to choose the light or dark side. There are specialized departments that closely track relevant information.

This spring, news about Star Wars 7 basically occupied the front pages of most entertainment media. Whenever the popularity drops slightly, new news will be revealed between Lucasfilm and Warner Bros., attracting the attention of movie fans.

However, the current time period is awards season after all, and the news about awards season has taken away a lot of attention. Just as the Oscar nomination list was announced and the media's attention was diverted, Duke, Lucasfilm and Warner Bros. jointly convened a press conference. It officially announced that the movie "Star Wars: The Force Awakens".

This news has attracted the attention of movie fans again.

There are still three months left before Star Wars: The Force Awakens filming begins, and the special effects work of the film has begun. One of the key points is to design a brand new robot, in the setting draft submitted by Duke to Industrial Light and Magic. This named bb8 robot will not fight enemies in the film like D2. Its main job is to be cute.

bb8 will shoulder the important task of promoting and driving the sales of peripheral products.

Although the level of painting is very limited, Duke made a prototype of bb8 as early as last year and drew the original bb8 sketch draft on a piece of drawing paper.

Considering the usual purely hand-crafted style of Star Wars movies, as well as the film atmosphere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In Duke's hand-painted draft, bb8 is composed of two spheres stacked together, and the sphere above represents the eyes, this artwork has also become the core concept of designing bb8.

Duke's idea also prompted Industrial Light and Magic designer Christine Alzman to complete the final design of BB8.

In order to complete the design of this robot rotating on the sphere, Christine Alzmann tried various ways, taking into account Duke's ideas on the one hand, and showing new features on the other hand.

Of course, the robot image in the original sketch looks gentle and likable, so he cannot design this character in a serious or irritable direction. Duke has to give corresponding feedback every time he designs a new bb8 image, and finally the complete version of the bb8 concept design drawing.

Christine Alzman admitted to Duke that he observed all kinds of strange ball objects in order to find inspiration when designing BB8, until he saw a football rolling in front of him. He thought it was really the feeling he had always dreamed of.

When Alzmann determined the basic design idea, the next work was how to combine this concept with reality.

After continuous trial and repeated thinking, the designer from the Biological Group of Industrial Light and Magic Company finalized the final BB8 image, a rotatable spherical body and a semi-spherical suspended head, which looked simple but not simple, a typical Star Wars style.

And in order to make actual shooting cheap, designers can remotely control bb8 to make various actions.

Completed concept design is only half the success, and how to materialize the concept is the key to success.

To this end, the Star Wars: The Force Awakens crew hired Industrial Light and Magic legend Neil Scanlon as the director of the mission.

At Duke's request, Neil Scanren followed the design philosophy of the other two designers, but turning bb8 into reality is still a huge challenge.

This model team, led by Neil Scanlon, started to create multiple puppet versions of bb8.

When conceptual design drawings are applied to reality, some changes will inevitably occur. Duke is very clear about this and specifically asked the model team under Neil Scanlon to create different versions of bb8 to find the most suitable version.

Neil Scanlon and Duke discuss a lot about how the bb8 robot moves, such as whether it requires a retractable neck.

But Duke believes that there is no need for this. In order to prove his idea, he asked the model team to spend half a day building a mobile puppet robot.

The flexibility of this puppet robot is simply amazing. Its head and arms can be moved at will. Everyone thinks this robot is great. This puppet version of the robot has laid a solid foundation for the final physical bb8.

After making the puppet, how to manipulate the puppet for actual shooting became another thorny problem faced by Duke and Neil Scanlon’s team.

Two staff members, as the controller of bb8, hid in the studio of Warner Studios and spent two weeks proficient in bb8's sports routines and expressions.

At the same time, Duke asked John Schwartzman to send a photography assistant to record various expressions of bb8 with the lens in the studio, constantly adjusting and practicing, so that bb8 can make rich and coherent movements and expressions.

After the process of making models and actual manipulation, Neil Scanlon's team showed Duke the fruits of their labor. When he saw the spiritual activities and rich expressions displayed by BB8, Duke felt relieved and could finally put down the burden he had placed on his shoulders for a long time.

The wonderful performance of bb8 also conquered the crew of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It seems that it is not a puppet model, but the real bb8 in the movie.

At the same time, in order to better serve Star Wars: The Force Awakening and the subsequent series, Lucasfilm specially asked Industrial Light and Magic to set up a studio in Los Angeles, which was led by Rose Urban, a famous figure in Industrial Light and Magic, and Duke also made him the visual effects director of Star Wars: The Force Awakening.

Today's Industrial Light and Magic, visual effects directors like Russell Earl still inherit the tradition of "serving filmmakers", which was first established by George Lucas in the 1970s.

Russell Earl joined Industrial Light and Magic in 1994. At that time, he was also a technical assistant. Up to now, he has been responsible for the production of many popular blockbuster special effects such as Mission Impossible 2, Pirates of the Caribbean series, Transformers series, and Avengers. He is experienced.

If a director wants to add a spaceship to the movie, or let Iron Man fly around the sky, or stuff hundreds of animals into Noah's Ark, he must need a visual effects director to lead the entire special effects team, and Duke is no exception.

Directors like Duke always hope to improve their special effects to a higher level. In today's Hollywood, every special effects need to be upgraded, while the production time is shrinking.

Therefore, all Duke's projects have special effects work that always starts from the project establishment, and some even need to start before the project is established.

Fortunately, Duke has always been with Industrial Light and Magic over the years, and now Industrial Light and Magic has become his asset, so there is basically no need to worry about special effects.

When the preparations came to an end, Duke received a call from Erin Lauder's cousin, a billionaire from New York who wanted to talk to him about the heroine of the film. (To be continued.)

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Chapter completed!