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Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution
The inside story of George Lucas, his intensely private company, and their work to revolutionize filmmaking. In the process, they made computer history. Discover the birth of Pixar, digital video editing, videogame avitars, THX sound, and a host of other icons of the media age. Lucas played a central role in the universe of entertainment technologies we see everyday.
518 pages, Hardcover
First published October 24, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 3, 2023
An exhaustively detailed look at the history of Lucasfilm (up until 2005), the company created by George Lucas. This looks at the filmmaking but is largely a deep dive into the technological achievements pioneered by the people there. Lucas himself is responsible, both directly and indirectly, for the landscape of modern filmmaking. Non-linear editing, surround sound, the visual effects revolution and Pixar all had beginnings with his company.
It's a dense read, but one I found engrossing. Be warned, it becomes extremely technical as it progresses. I grew up with computers, messing around with software like Photoshop, 3DSMax, Blender, Premiere Pro, Reaper and DaVinci Resolve, so a lot of the terms made some sense to me but my eyes certainly glazed over certain parts. Happily, the stories are told via the people who were there and their passions come through. There are a lot of entertaining anecdotes and revelations about how things were. Still, parts of it are tough to get through just due to the amount of names and terms being thrown at you.
The book a fascinating look at people who tried to create things that the technology of the time just wasn't quite ready for. The narrative focus is on the 1970s and first half of the 1980s, as that's when the biggest fight for innovation took place, and the struggles these incredibly intelligent folks went through to create things that we take as completely standard today.
I also loved the brief look at the games division which eventually became LucasArts. They created what to this day remain my favourite video games ever.
It's a dense read, but one I found engrossing. Be warned, it becomes extremely technical as it progresses. I grew up with computers, messing around with software like Photoshop, 3DSMax, Blender, Premiere Pro, Reaper and DaVinci Resolve, so a lot of the terms made some sense to me but my eyes certainly glazed over certain parts. Happily, the stories are told via the people who were there and their passions come through. There are a lot of entertaining anecdotes and revelations about how things were. Still, parts of it are tough to get through just due to the amount of names and terms being thrown at you.
The book a fascinating look at people who tried to create things that the technology of the time just wasn't quite ready for. The narrative focus is on the 1970s and first half of the 1980s, as that's when the biggest fight for innovation took place, and the struggles these incredibly intelligent folks went through to create things that we take as completely standard today.
I also loved the brief look at the games division which eventually became LucasArts. They created what to this day remain my favourite video games ever.
December 28, 2017
Fantastically detailed account of how George Lucas (with a little help) changed the film making industry in the 1970's and 80's. I have always known the general outlines of this story, and often said that Lucas' greatest achievement was not creating several of the greatest movies ever, but rather the changes he wrought on the way movies are made.
Partly, his achievements are a case of being in the right place at the right time. His development as a film maker coincided with the rise of the personal computer; if Lucas had come to film making just a decade earlier or a decade later, our collective experience of films would be markedly different. From the way images and sounds are edited to the technology used by theaters to exhibit movies, and reaching out into the worlds of gaming, medical scanning, and everyday computer apps like Adobe Photoshop, all were fundamentally transformed by the research and development done at LucasFilm.
This book is a history of the time period in which Lucas went from being a young film student at the University of Southern California to owning a filmmaking empire. Its author purposely avoided rehashing previous biographies of Lucas. Instead, Rubin conducted interviews with nearly everyone mentioned in the book (including Lucas) and had access to the archives at Skywalker Ranch. Oh, and the author was also an employee of LucasFilm for a time, giving him unparalleled understanding of the internal and external politics involved in the evolution of the company and its products.
While Lucas was the driving force behind the innovations, the book focuses on the roles played by dozens of employees at LucasFilm. A few of the names might be known by hard-core Star Wars fans, and others are rock stars in their very specialized industries, but for the most part, these are the stories of everyday people who came together in a very special place that fostered their talents and made it possible for them to innovate on an unprecedented scale. In this sense, the book very much reminded me of Apollo: the Race to the Moon, which barely mentions the astronauts, focusing instead on the work of the technicians, engineers and scientists who made the moonshots possible.
To be honest, there were sections (toward the end) that I skimmed because they were heavily detailed accounts of the development of computer games that I have little knowledge of, but I'm sure others, particularly students of computer game programming, would very much enjoy reading about the "stone age" of computer games and how these pioneers continually pushed the envelope of what computers were capable of in their quest to entertain (and make money!).
Importantly, this insider view of how computers changed one industry is also a highly readable chronicle of the rise of the personal computer. For those of us who have lived through this revolution, the book is a trip down memory lane alongside the paths of giants. For younger folks who have grown up with a cell phone in their pockets, it's a textbook on how to use technology to achieve your vision and a reminder that we are where we are today because we rest on the shoulders of giants.
Partly, his achievements are a case of being in the right place at the right time. His development as a film maker coincided with the rise of the personal computer; if Lucas had come to film making just a decade earlier or a decade later, our collective experience of films would be markedly different. From the way images and sounds are edited to the technology used by theaters to exhibit movies, and reaching out into the worlds of gaming, medical scanning, and everyday computer apps like Adobe Photoshop, all were fundamentally transformed by the research and development done at LucasFilm.
This book is a history of the time period in which Lucas went from being a young film student at the University of Southern California to owning a filmmaking empire. Its author purposely avoided rehashing previous biographies of Lucas. Instead, Rubin conducted interviews with nearly everyone mentioned in the book (including Lucas) and had access to the archives at Skywalker Ranch. Oh, and the author was also an employee of LucasFilm for a time, giving him unparalleled understanding of the internal and external politics involved in the evolution of the company and its products.
While Lucas was the driving force behind the innovations, the book focuses on the roles played by dozens of employees at LucasFilm. A few of the names might be known by hard-core Star Wars fans, and others are rock stars in their very specialized industries, but for the most part, these are the stories of everyday people who came together in a very special place that fostered their talents and made it possible for them to innovate on an unprecedented scale. In this sense, the book very much reminded me of Apollo: the Race to the Moon, which barely mentions the astronauts, focusing instead on the work of the technicians, engineers and scientists who made the moonshots possible.
To be honest, there were sections (toward the end) that I skimmed because they were heavily detailed accounts of the development of computer games that I have little knowledge of, but I'm sure others, particularly students of computer game programming, would very much enjoy reading about the "stone age" of computer games and how these pioneers continually pushed the envelope of what computers were capable of in their quest to entertain (and make money!).
Importantly, this insider view of how computers changed one industry is also a highly readable chronicle of the rise of the personal computer. For those of us who have lived through this revolution, the book is a trip down memory lane alongside the paths of giants. For younger folks who have grown up with a cell phone in their pockets, it's a textbook on how to use technology to achieve your vision and a reminder that we are where we are today because we rest on the shoulders of giants.
May 16, 2021
I didn’t fully appreciate the computer/media age until I read this book. It was wild to see where our first digital animation, movie sound system, and the machines designed to make it all happen. You get to see it step-by-step with the dreamers who brought it all to life.
October 8, 2021
A fascinating insight / glimpse behind the curtain of one of the most influential technical movements in modern society. It would be easy for a book like this to be an homage to Lucas, but it isn't. It inevitably shows him in a good light, but ultimately its focus is on the work, the processes and the products and how they managed to keep so much of what did hidden in plain sight.
The work that was done was incredible considering the lack of technology at the time. Everything was grafted and it is incredible to see what was achieved with the technical equivalent or sticky back plastic, egg cartons and imagination.
Well written the chapters are extremely accessible avoiding the pitfall of in-depth technical speak, and the photos are great. I really enjoyed the chapters looking at Coppola, as his name tends to get overlooked in the mainstream when it comes to technical innovation.
The quality of Lucas's work as a Director and Script Writer is questionable. His work behind the scenes as an innovator, visionary and entrepreneur are not. Be very clear - this book is NOT a Star Wars love-fest. Lucasfilms and the spin-offs were involved in so many more projects. By focusing on the engineers behind the scenes and the work they did, it demonstrate that whilst the like of Lucas (and Jobs) may have the vision, guts, nerve, genius and resolve to create environments in which brilliant minds can thrive, the real stars of the shows were the people sat in dark rooms wearing jeans and t-shirts whose names you never heard of.
The work that was done was incredible considering the lack of technology at the time. Everything was grafted and it is incredible to see what was achieved with the technical equivalent or sticky back plastic, egg cartons and imagination.
Well written the chapters are extremely accessible avoiding the pitfall of in-depth technical speak, and the photos are great. I really enjoyed the chapters looking at Coppola, as his name tends to get overlooked in the mainstream when it comes to technical innovation.
The quality of Lucas's work as a Director and Script Writer is questionable. His work behind the scenes as an innovator, visionary and entrepreneur are not. Be very clear - this book is NOT a Star Wars love-fest. Lucasfilms and the spin-offs were involved in so many more projects. By focusing on the engineers behind the scenes and the work they did, it demonstrate that whilst the like of Lucas (and Jobs) may have the vision, guts, nerve, genius and resolve to create environments in which brilliant minds can thrive, the real stars of the shows were the people sat in dark rooms wearing jeans and t-shirts whose names you never heard of.
June 29, 2010
What a wonderful, anecdote-packed book this is. A high tech magnum opus concentrating on the minds who created Lucasfilm and eventually Pixar. Michael Rubin, in the words of Alvy Ray Smith, the first head of computer graphics at Lucasfilm, "got it right." A tour-de-force in the history of high tech and its profound influence on the American film industry.
March 1, 2016
If you are involved with computers, editing, computer games, visual effects, digital video, digital audio, graphics, Photoshop, a fan of Star Wars, and or Pixar, you have to read this book to see where the tools and methods that we use (and too frequently take for granted) today originated and were refined.
August 23, 2010
This wasn't a bad book - but it wasn't what I was expecting...
The book gives a good review of all of the efforts that Lucasfilm spearheaded in Digital Editing, Sound and games. What I was hoping it would have was a lot of the interesting ancecdotes that must have come out of the unique personalities and the R&D environment - and was disappointed that there were very few.
If you're interested in a textbook retelling of development of Digitial film and sound editing this is a good book.
The book gives a good review of all of the efforts that Lucasfilm spearheaded in Digital Editing, Sound and games. What I was hoping it would have was a lot of the interesting ancecdotes that must have come out of the unique personalities and the R&D environment - and was disappointed that there were very few.
If you're interested in a textbook retelling of development of Digitial film and sound editing this is a good book.
February 12, 2013
Creative people will appreciate the pathway of Lucas (and Coppola, to a lesser extent) to moviemaking, which was not a straight line or free of frustration. I was struck by the endless revisions of some scripts. He's human! It didn't come easy!
Peeking behind the curtain at his large company was a treat. The tech stuff was almost a secondary character. That is to say, tech is prominent in the book, but there's always a story that the tech happenings are there to tell.
I liked it.
Peeking behind the curtain at his large company was a treat. The tech stuff was almost a secondary character. That is to say, tech is prominent in the book, but there's always a story that the tech happenings are there to tell.
I liked it.
September 26, 2009
A well researched history on LucasFilms, esp. the development of EditDroid editing system, the founding of Pixar, etc. If you are a geek enjoys Star Wars and a movie nerd, you gonna love this book.
The author gave out the book for free, sweet!
Book download link
The author gave out the book for free, sweet!
Book download link
December 30, 2012
Decent telling of the history of Lucasfilm as it goes from the start of Star Wars through the mid 1980's, telling the story of how George Lucas created a world that worked to remake the process of film making using digital tools and computers.
May 18, 2016
Perhaps this is not surprising given my interest in Pixar and everything Lucasfilm, but I loved this book. Filled with interesting information and entertaining anecdotes on not just Lucas, but Pixar, ILM, THX, Lucasarts, and the rise of digital non-linear editing in general. A really great read.
July 22, 2010
A facinating story of film making and film making technology over the last four decades. For those who like movies and especially those interested in Lucas Films, this is worth reading.
October 20, 2014
Amazing, amazing book. For anyone with an interest in digital filmmaking, this book is like reading Genesis.
September 4, 2015
Pretty good.
December 8, 2012
I like the history behind a time that molded me... interesting.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews