Tuesday, February 13, 2018

The creation of the Star Destroyer: "I asked George about the scenes. We had a few words in which he described the scenes. I then asked 'Is it bigger than Burbank (California)?'"

The creation of the #Stardestroyer - I asked George about the scenes. We had a few words in which he described the scenes. I then asked "Is it bigger than Burbank?" to determine the size of the Imperial Cruiser and the opening scenes of the movie. The hatch concept was developed in terms of the need of actual scenes later in the movie. In the opeing I was describing something WWII-ish of a concept with a gunner in the fuscelage. The ship was designed with a lot of thought on what the viewer would experience related to the massiveness of the ship. This involved thinking of things and creating relationships between all of the ships and their interactions with each other. George and I also discussed several other topics in which I asked qualifying questions. This gave me enough information to start designing the ships. It also gave him the information to continue with his work. I was separate from George for most of that time and worked on the final products alone. I started by creating what had to be in the middle and things were added on and so forth. I basically designed this ship and other ships around the function and the impact of the ship on the viewer. The sequence of function and the emotion and it had to feel like it was already there. When starting on a ship, I never did know what it would look like by the end. PS - those fighters in the concept illustration were the original imperial attack ships. I didn't create the #TIE until much later. See the other concepts at www.cantwellcollection.com
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Thought I would share more about my #xwing - the 1st #starwars ship. Images seen here are its design in chronological order. The X-Wing had to be different from anything previous. So that also meant that it had to do things that were unique. Part of the environment was that it was sort of a single or two person ship with a pilot and possibly a second person on board. It would have wheels and start by being taxied around. It would also have to take off and land from the ground. It had to engage in combat in a completely diferent way than before. Plus it had to be in scenes from a friendly viewpoint where people were saying their goodbyes while it was on the ground as the characters were preparing to go into combat. The pilot would then get into it and once the captain had the lid down, he would be taking off like an airplane. So it would climb using power and then it would have to arm itself. It would also have to fly in formation and maneuver to avoid in the changing tide of battle. The X-wing had to be unique, I achieved this by having the wings flat while it was on the ground and then they would rotate to split into two pairs in an X shape. Maneuvering had to be very expressive. So the ship was armed by bringing the wings into an X shape. I realized soon that the x shape had to be shallow enough so that it could operate near the ground and then also go to the extreme open X shape so it could fire its weapons. The X wing concept was based on a WWII plane that was highly maneuverable. I thought it had to be slender. which would accentuate the shape on the ground looking like an aircraft crossed with a dragster. It would have to fly in formation and then also be able to do complicated expressive maneuvers. The firing would be from the tips of the wings. This was important because the subliminal aspects had to be symbolic like a cowboy drawing its guns as in a gunfight outside of the saloon. When it was in combat it had to excentuate in a very expressive way. It had a very different combat maneuverability. It owes a lot to the cowboy. Oops, out of room. More on Facebook... #colincantwell
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