Ep 3 Holograms

[JediNyt]

Copied and pasted from Hyperspace

 

Filmed in Holoscope

January 21, 2004

 

In ways large and small, Episode III bridges the gap between trilogies. While the big connections like recurring sets, costumes and characters get all the attention, sometimes it's the tiniest of details that hold the saga together. It's a Star Wars tradition, for example, for characters to handle communication through holograms. Darth Sidious probably gets the best long distance rates.

But a closer examination of the prequels shows a difference between holograms of the Old Republic and those of the Empire. For one thing, the visual effects process has changed. In the old days, the film footage of the holographic character would be played on a video monitor and physically distorted by tampering with the playback. This tampering would be filmed and photochemically treated to look luminescent and blue. In Episodes I and II, these video degradations were added digitally, with care taken not to distort the image too much to affect readability. But something was missing.

 

"In the original films, we noticed that the holograms had some color, but in Episodes I and II, they're just blue," says Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll. For the holograms slated in Episode III, they'll have a hint of color. So if Darth Sidious, Mace Windu, Ki-Adi-Mundi or even Darth Vader make a call, they won't be so blue.

 

Another holographic tidbit to file under 'Things You Never Really Thought About' has to do with the angle that these holographic characters appear. So far, we've always seen them head-on. For one shot in Episode III, as Obi-Wan watches a holographic image, the camera angle is slightly higher, looking down.

 

So, how do the scan lines read when you're looking at this angle? All the holographic characters we've seen so far are covered with horizontal lines to represent projection. But that didn't look right, so the visual effects team at ILM has added curves to those lines that define the hologram's three-dimensional contours.

 

As for the explanation as to why holograms have suddenly become more colorful, no one seems to be sweating it too much. "This is a different model," says Director George Lucas of Obi-Wan's transmitter. "This is a Sony."

 

Pablo Hidalgo

[RoxStar]

Hmmm....

Thats very interesting.

 

Maybe will see a combonation of both in Episode III?

[DarkLord60]

Never even thought of this. Hmmmm