AP Photo/Franco Castano
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STAR WARRIOR
COMPANY Lucasfilm Ltd., Founder and chairman
NET WORTH $2 billion
AGE 55
ADDRESS www.lucasfilm.com
BIO Nope, Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace didn't gross as much as Titanic.
And yes, the annoying Jar Jar Binks may have set the cause of digitally created
characters back a few decades. But whatever your take on the latest chapter of
the Star Wars saga, you have to agree that special effects hit a new high-water
mark this year--thanks to George Lucas. Of the movie's 2,200 shots, 1,965 were
digitally enhanced. Some of his fabrications, like the pod races, were
spectacular in an obvious way; others were spectacular because they were
invisible. If he didn't like an actor's facial expression in one scene, he simply
lifted a better one from another shot. And let's not forget Lucas' most basic
accomplishment: after 16 years of all being quiet on the Jedi front, he finally
gave us another installment of America's most loved space opera.
BEST LINE "An artist working on fresco had to paint everything before the plaster
dried. Then oils were invented. That's what digital is to movies. You can go out
in the real world and paint, then come back the next day and finish it."
FORWARD TILT Lucas is building a new digital studio at the Presidio in San
Francisco. Oh, yeah, and he's also writing the next episode.
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