LJ Talks to Michael Rubin

Rosalind Daylen, South Regional Library, Broward County, Florida -- Library Journal, 11/1/2005

Having worked for the DroidWorks division of Lucasfilm, which created film and sound editing equipment, author Michael Rubin saw and learned a lot about technological advancements in film. In his new book Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution, he offers a keen insider's view of the workings of Lucasfilm, telling the story of Lucas and the many other creative people who revolutionized movies with the likes of Star Wars.

MR: I spent about 18 months trying to figure out how to get in there. It was early 1984, and I had heard there was a new initiative started to market new technologies that Lucasfilm was developing. By early 1985, the person I had been communicating with, and who was only remotely interested in me, was about to hire an MBA to help her. When those applicants fell through, I convinced her I was as good as any MBA (ha!)—and a lot less expensive.

So, what exactly did you do when first arrived there?

When I first got to Lucasfilm, I was in the Droid Works, a new group dedicated to movie and television postproduction. I became the expert on the EditDroid and SoundDroid. I demonstrated these tools everywhere, at Lucasfilm, in Los Angeles, in New York, and I helped write the user manual. Eventually, when people started using the EditDroid for TV or movies, I went to L.A. to help support its use. I also spent days with George Lucas's friends who wanted to understand them, including Barbara Streisand, Terry Gilliam, the Grateful Dead, and Norman Jewison.

Can you describe the day-to-day mood of the office? Were you working under extreme pressure, or was it more relaxed?

That's an interesting question. The office was casual. The president wandered around in his socks. Everyone wore T-shirts, generally related to the Lucasfilm projects. But everyone was always busy, like any start-up, and there were constant deadlines and fires to put out. The era of pure research and development had ended by the time I was there, and by then we had sales to make, customers to support, and so on. When the Droids were being used on real productions, the pressure was enormous. You know how tricky computers can be? Well, it was worse then. The people using them had little experience with "hangs" and "crashes." Movie people don't like being told they can't see something or have something. It was always fun to be there, but yes, it was pretty stressful.

What was George Lucas like as a boss?

Few people saw George often. But he'd come around and was always interested in the tools and the company's progress. I never met anyone who didn't like him, although the occasional criticism was that those around him weren't always giving him the most direct information. He is soft-spoken, focused, a little funny, and a regular guy. But no one approached him just to chat. He struck everyone as a remarkably busy man.

What do you feel was Lucas's most influential contribution to film technology? Why?

His influence is very wide. Just digitizing the process was radical and the biggest lasting change. His desire to control the material led to a great array of tools, all of which are standard today. I couldn't pick just one thing, but what I can say is that he is generally linked to film technology relating to special effects. He changed the way effects are done, but that's really too limiting a way of looking at him. It misses his greatest work, which is about the entire process of filmmaking, and not just sci-fi or special effects.

Why did you decide to write about the history of Lucasfilm, rather than a memoir?

While I played a marginally important role, I think my observations are less historically interesting than those of the people I worked with, the project leaders, the executives, the filmmakers, and the computer scientists. I've always seen my job as translating between these people, and exciting others about this work. For a decade, I was the guy who evangelized the coming of computers to Hollywood. By the late 1990s, that had shifted, and I was evangelizing the coming of computerized filmmaking tools to consumers. Anyway, I always thought that it was easier to understand all the confusing technology around us if you could tune into the story of why it was invented and what it did back when things were simpler. In the end, I felt Lucasfilm in the 1980s was a very important place in the history of media, and no one really knew it. That's why I decided to write this book.

Are you a fan of Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III? Do you think they ever employed too much technology?

You know, I think my feeling about the latest films isn't that important. I'm not a film critic. When I look at those films, rather than see a prequel of movies that goes before the first three, I see the conclusion of decades of technological advancements. It's a perfect arc. The first three films highlighted the need for new tools for filmmakers, new ways of working, and they gave one independent filmmaker the financial resources to try to make that come true. The second three films paid off that vision and were made using those tools. Each film in the latest three pushed the boundaries further, for the benefit of all filmmakers. I find that a fitting end to the technology story begun in the 1970s.

But do you think the films work?

These films were made for kids. My son loves them. It's insane. So in that sense, the films work. Do I think they're as fun, funny, and well scripted as the first three? I don't think so. But I'm not a kid anymore and have different eyes. Kids like different things now, and these films manage to keep up with the times. For whatever you like or don't like about the new trilogy, the problems aren't with the technology used in their construction. Like with all films, bad experiences are simply about problems in script, story, and acting. For better or worse, technology is a convenient scapegoat, but I don't think it's that relevant.

How did working for Lucasfilm affect you?

It changed my life. It was my first job after college. I was impressionable, and I deeply believed in the vision I got from Lucas. I believed this technology was good and necessary, and that it would in time be the status quo. That's a powerful thing to get put in your brain. People who worked at Lucasfilm always joked that the company "gave good letterhead." Just having that name on your resume was powerful for future jobs, for being taken seriously.

What do you think Lucas will do next?

He has said in interviews that he wants to go back and make smaller, arty films. I think that's likely. He has said he's earned the right to fail. I believe its public knowledge now that his company will turn out a TV version of the Star Wars series, probably in much the way it approached adapting Raiders of the Lost Ark into The Young Indiana Jones series: fun, based on characters, and partly educational. Lucas is deeply passionate about education, and I doubt he can do much that doesn't at least in some way move that agenda forward. I'm certainly interested in what kinds of unusual explorations he takes in this creative era of his life. I'm optimistic it will be innovative, and like any great artist, he will likely fail often. When he does succeed, which he's bound to do, it will be very cool.