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like, a silver hand, and then they would show you on a movie screen.

Our experience on the trilogy- what was really

interesting was that you

realized you were really

creating these images in post.

You couldn't shoot the image, you were making the image in the computer.

Middle to late '90s, I guess

it's standard-def.

It sounds like it's visual effects, kind of, was the way to get in.

We had a problem at I.L.M.

doing our effects.

We had to convert from film to

digital in order to do it.

We could save a huge amount of money just by not having to convert anymore.

Film is cumbersome, so I just said, "I'm gonna take my money and my time.

I'm gonna fix it."

And we went to Sony and we said,

"We would like to help you-

work with you to build a digital camera."

He was bound and determined

that Star Wars Episode II was

gonna be shot digitally.

We need to get that all worked

out and get our pipeline

figured out for doing full-on

production with the digital cameras.

One of the problems with early digital capture was resolution.

Resolution is dependent on many factors, but in the most basic terms,

it is the number of pixels a camera can record.

The more pixels you have, the

higher the resolution and the

more detail an image will have.

A typical standard- definition,

or SD, camera usually had

a resolution of about 720x480 pixels.

Really, the turning point was

in the year 2000 when we came

out with the F900 camera, which was our first high- definition camera.

Before that, whatever you were looking at really looked like video.

High-definition cameras

record a resolution of about

In 2002, we did Attack of the Clones.

It was the first major feature

that was shot high-definition.

What George did on the

Star Wars movie was take an

experimental hd camera and apply

it to a feature-film paradigm.

That was unthinkable at the time.

It meant that he went around the

entire film community, but it

more deeply meant that he went

around film itself.

It became a really, really

polarizing time for a lot of

people in hollywood.

They got up and had a big

meeting, saying that I was the

devil incarnate, that I was

gonna destroy the industry, that

I was gonna destroy all their

jobs, that this is inferior,

that he says he shot Attack of the Clones digitally, but he didn't.

We have word that he actually used film cameras, that he's not shooting digital.

He's lying to everybody.

When the F900 came out,

I thought, "the images on that

are just truly appalling."

I don't think that was

a cinematic camera at all.

The early years, I didn't

feel that digital capture or

digital reproduction was the same.

They would always say, "See, you can't tell the difference,"

and I could tell the difference.

We'll be the first to admit

that the F900 wasn't designed

like a film camera.

Of course, George Lucas said

after he shot Star Wars that he

wouldn't shoot another film on

film again.

And that created, you know,

quite an uproar in Hollywood.

Digital technology and

digital cameras looked like

a threat to people's existence and way of thinking and way of working.

Filmmaking is an art, and to

the traditional filmmaker,

it looked like we were messing

around with art.

You know, they would say,

"Why are you going backwards?"

You know?

But there's a lot to be said

about the necessity to kind of

lean back to be able to

spring forward.

See, I remember George Lucas

pulling together everybody about

ten years ago at a conference he gave at the ranch up in San Francisco,

and when objections arose about

the idea that digital will put

an end to the art of cinematography, he pointed out

it's just another tool,

and this is true.

When people saw George Lucas's tests- they said,

"That's-that's-no, that's not gonna work."

It was that same sort of closed-minded, "we're gonna wait ten years to adopt this."

I wasn't gonna wait that long.

I said, "I'm following Obi Wan.

Obi Wan knows what he's talking about.

He knows what time it is.

He always does.

I can tell that this is gonna be

the beginning of something big,

and I want to be there for that."

But the image sucked.

The image wasn't bad, but the

image wasn't as good as film.

But it allowed me to do something you could not have done on film.

I picked up my Sin City book, and I went, "I know how to do this now.

My god, if I shoot this digital,

I can make it look just like this book."

The night is hot as hell.

I'm staring at a goddess.

She's telling me she wants me.

Sin City would not exist if

I had shot that on film.

I couldn't have-I wouldn't have

even thought to do it.

I was able to do things that pushed the art form.

Technology pushes the art, and

art pushes technology.

When Sin City came out, it hit

people like a brick in the head

'cause they had no idea what

they were looking at.

Instead of hiding from it under

a rock and hoping it goes away,

you ended up doing something that people then realized was possible.

You know, I was just so amazed-

the richness that it had.

I didn't know it was even

possible, but the systems got

better for color timing it and

for working in that color space.

After the movie is shot,

edited, and VFX have been added,

A colorist or color timer at the

lab makes adjustments to the

look of the movie.

In the traditional photochemical

method, the negative is

developed, and a print is made.

Timing goes back to the days

when, you know, there was only

black and white.

These scenes show the

darkroom operations of the

laboratory in the old days.

The guy that had my job, he used to look at the negative and

decide how long it would have to

stay in the bath.

If at first it wasn't right,

dunk, dunk again.

So it was time.

It was time-related.

With the advent of color

film, the timers became more

involved in the creative process.

At the lab, the color timer,

DP, and director determined the

look for the final prints that will be seen by the public in the theaters.

The only adjustments that can be

made photochemically are color

balance between red, green,

blue, and brightness.

Our job, basically, is to

achieve the vision of the

director and the director of

photography and make it happen

on a piece of film.

Like, I would sit with the

director or the director of

photography, and they would say,

"That looks a little bit too red

to me" or "too blue," and we

would manipulate it in our mind

as to how much to change it or

to make different cuts balance

with each other.

Well, the timers on the film,

they got to deal with pretty

much from the head, you know,

by the intuition, you know.

Yeah.

It was hard.

It was very hard.

So, you know, there was a lot of

art and labor involved in it.

You know, those people really

work hard to achieve that.

I still found it very, very

frustrating, the timing

process- that you're kind of

talking over the thing while

it's running and trying to keep

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