Hyperspace: John Knoll Chat Tonight!

[Pendo]

Joining us today for a Hyperspace chat is Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll. John brings unique expertise and innovation in computer graphics to the creation of visual effects. Knoll and his brother are the original creators of Photoshop, a high-end digital image-processing program.

Knoll was also the Computer Graphics Project Designer on The Abyss, for which ILM was honored with its tenth Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

His credits as Visual Effects Supervisor include Episodes I, II, and the Special Edition Trilogy. He also served as VFX Supervisor for Pirates of the Caribbean, now in theaters. His previous credits include Mission to Mars, Deep Blue Sea, Star Trek: First Contact and Mission: Impossible.

The chat is scheduled for Thursday, July 17, 5:30 pm US Pacific time (8:30 pm US Eastern time, or Friday, July 18, 10:30 am Sydney time).
ph

Well that's in half an hour. Rick McCallum's chat is about to start so that means there's gonna be two running at the same time. I think I'll concentrate more on John, I've already participated with a Rick McPrick one :p.

PENDO!

[Pendo]

Here's some info revealed from the John Knoll chat:

Clonetroopers will still be CGI, and they'll be noticably different.
Wat Tambor is back. And badder than ever!
Page 7, word 12 is "trench".
There will be more planets in this Episode than any previous one.
Some big spectacular battles.
No CG Chewbacca.
R2-D2 uses his rocket boosters again.
R2 and 3PO will be created digitaly in a few scenes, for the same reasons as in Episode II.
Anakin's arm will be the same as the end of Episode II.
No new lightsaber colours, Mace still uses purple.
The elevator loby is NOT in the Death Star.

Overall a very interesting chat :).

PENDO!

[Battle Droid]

I hope Tambor has more screen time this time.

Maybe he'll decompress his pressure shell and blow up. LOL

[Anakin2121]

Amazing news, Pendo. Ep2 had the most planets up until now -- five. (Coruscant, Naboo, Kamino, Tatooine, and Geonosis.)

I wonder what new worlds EP3 will have? So far in Star Wars we have:
-A basic Earth-type planet (Naboo, Alderaan from the exterior shots, and I guess Yavin 4)
-A jungle planet (Yavin 4)
-A forest/woods planet (The forest moon of Endor)
-A snow/ice/arctic planet (Hoth)
-A desert/sand planet (Tatooine)
-A desert/rock planet (Geonosis)
-A water planet (Kamino)
-A gas giant/sky-based planet (Bespin)
-A swamp planet (Dagobah)
-A city/technology/industry planet (Coruscant)

The only environment I see left to do would be one with a barren surface so everything is put underground, or a volcanic planet. Hint, hint. :)

[Jedi Clint]

Rick said that they haven't filmed THE duel yet, and Chris Lee is in Sydney but hasn't filmed any scenes. We already knew we'd see Tatooine again, but that was confirmed as well. The EU character shoots it's scenes early next year. Part of the scenes that show why Anakin chooses the dark side have been filmed. Rick says we won't be dissappointed by Vader's screen time, but fails to discredit the "5 minutes" JEJ spoke of. Mace's role will be larger and "unforgettable". Keira Knightley won't return and there will be no location shooting (that's been mentioned before).