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Droidmaker: George Lucas And the Digital Revolution [Hardcover]

Michael Rubin
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)

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Book Description

October 24, 2005 0937404675 978-0937404676 1
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.

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Droidmaker: George Lucas And the Digital Revolution + Skywalking: The Life And Films Of George Lucas, Updated Edition
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"...what the evolution of technology means for our culture, and the human story of how we got here." -- Steve Silberman, Contributing Editor, WIRED magazine

"Brilliant... a detailed glimpse under the hood of Lucas’ digital skunkworks." -- Thomas Dolby, Musican & Technology Entrepreneur

"The ultimate insider guide to the making of cinema’s greatest saga…" -- Dan Dubno, Producer, CBS News

"This is a compelling introduction to a revolution in visual communication and story telling." -- Andries van Dam, Chairman, Brown University Computer Science Dept.

"Wow. I love Rubin’s ability to interweave a story about business, technology and movies—three of my favorite things!" -- Reed Hastings, CEO & Founder, NETFLIX

From the Publisher

This book ventures in territory never explored, as Rubin-a former member of the Lucasfilm Computer Division-reconstructs the events in Hollywood, in Silicon Valley, and at Lucas' private realm in Marin County, California, to track the genesis of modern media. With unprecedented access to images and key participants from Lucasfilm, Pixar and Zoetrope-from George Lucas and the executives who ran his company, to the small team of scientists who made the technological leaps, Rubin weaves a tale of friendships, a love of movies, and the incessant forward movement of technology. This is a compelling story that takes the reader into an era of technological innovation almost completely unknown.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 518 pages
  • Publisher: Triad Pub Co; 1 edition (October 24, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0937404675
  • ISBN-13: 978-0937404676
  • Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 9.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #749,262 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
(33)
4.7 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
137 of 138 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Rubin Gets It Right November 14, 2005
Format:Hardcover
I am the Co-founder of Pixar, with Ed Catmull. After years of reading mangled "histories" of Lucasfilm/Pixar, I am extremely pleased to read one by a guy who gets it right, including the arts, the technologies, the businesses, and the personalities. Michael Rubin not only gets the gist correctly imparted, but also those pesky details. I watched Michael as he carefully reconstructed our history, never quite believing all the stories we fed him, checking and double-checking the stories of the participants against one another and against the written record. Often he caught us (me anyway) having unconsciously edited out boring bits of the truth, and he put those bits back in. His book has allowed me to celebrate again a wonderful time of my life and, surprisingly, to teach me new things. For example, I came away from my first read of his book better appreciating exactly what George Lucas and Steve Jobs (and Francis Coppola) contributed to our part of the digital revolution, it not being in either case what is often claimed for them.
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35 of 35 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent telling of the story March 9, 2006
Format:Hardcover
I was there to witness a great deal of the story. The book captures in great detail a story, a time, and place that was of great significance to me. (Now I don't have to try and remember it all!) Rubin's narrative rounded out parts of the saga I knew nothing about. It is really a strange feeling of destiny as I look back over the passion and inventiveness of those years and connect it all to the tools I use daily in my moviemaking today. The book is a unique historic document of a unique subject.
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
There are countless books out there about George Lucas and his rise from film school know-it-all to cultural icon and even more books about how Lucasfilm came to be and how it changed the world of filmmaking. I've read a good number of these books and then essentially stopped reading them because they seemed to paint the same picture with a different brush. All the main points were there and while some of the small details were different, something was always missing from these books. I could never quite figure out what it was, but they left me with more questions than answers more times than not.

I think it might have been the fact that they focused so much on Lucas himself and that all the bit players who made things happen never got their due. The importance of the smaller guys in the company cannot be understated. Without each and every Lucasfilm employee, especially in the beginning, they would not be where they are today.

DROIDMAKER by Michael Rubin fills the void present in those Lucasfilm biographies by letting us know that Lucas wasn't the only brain in the company. He was more like the Wizard of Oz himself - the idea man who made films and started a business while hoping others would bring the technology forward enough to meet his vision, which was way ahead of its time.

Most of the other "Lucasographies" I came across, while interesting, were flat at best. I wouldn't call them books that I read with enthusiasm and excitement. They were what they were and according to Lucasfilm and other sources, including Rubin, they're not all entirely factual.
... Read more ›
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars One educator's perspective, December 17, 2005
Format:Hardcover
Michael Rubin has done an excellent job of tracing the interdependent weave of threads that make up the history of digital cinema. He teases apart the fabric of this history in a way that brings us directly into the living world of the personalities responsible for inventing and developing the concepts and techniques many of us now take for granted.

In teaching my courses at CalArts and USC, I have always tried to impress upon the students that the tools we are learning are the result of prolonged intellectual struggle and flashes of inspiration. I believe that some knowledge of the driving forces behind the creation of the tools forms an integrated understanding that yields a more sustainable recollection. I was familiar with some of the stories of pivotal moments told in "Droidmaker" (such as Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith's initial conception of the alpha channel) and I have used them for years in my teaching, however many other stories were unknown to me and the retelling of them will now enrich my lectures.

In addition to serving as a great academic resource for me, "Droidmaker" was a fascinating and compelling read. I found it difficult to put down in order to attend to my routine responsibilities. So many friends and family have become interested in the book while visiting that I have purchased copies as gifts so that I may hang onto my treasured copy --this book invites repeated rereading and I do not want to be without it!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Droid Maker: George Lucas And The Digital Revolution by writer, educator, entrepreneur Michael Rubin (who joined "The Droid Works" at Lucasfilm in 1985 to introduce new sound and film editing technologies to the filmmakers) offers readers the inside story of George Lucas, his intensely private company, and their revolutionary work in filmmaking. Here is the story of how Lucasfilm's Computer Division make film and computer history, as well as Lucas' uneasy role in combining business, filmmaking, and technology. Providing an informed and informative, candid and revealing portrait that cuts through the mythology of George Lucas, here is the chronicled history of his vision made possible by the Star Wars films. Given unprecedented access to company records, personnel files, and photographs, Droid Maker is a definitive biography that is "must reader" for the legions of Lucas fans, as well as a privileged and seminal contribution to cinematic and filmmaking history.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars My Droidmaker Review
Yeah, I know it's been said before, but here's my short review. Once I started reading Droidmaker I couldn't put it down.
Published 1 month ago by Floyd Norman
3.0 out of 5 stars Just like George Lucas: Powerful but overly long winded.
This book is 90% the boring parts of how George Lucas took the money from Star Wars and used it to create the 'Think Tanks' that would give us Toy Story and CGI in every movie we... Read more
Published 2 months ago by jb
5.0 out of 5 stars How Did We Get Here?!
I so enjoyed reading this book - not only was it educational and fascinating, almost like a detective story of how we got from the years when computers were just entering our... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Ann Hearn
4.0 out of 5 stars Great read if you care about the history of computing, animation, or...
This is a great book if you want to learn about the genesis of some of the most important technologies and companies of the last 30 years. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Edward Giardina
3.0 out of 5 stars Too hard to read
Being a Lucas fan, I was keen to read this. But sadly I couldn't make it past the first twenty or thirty pages, because the writing was so ungrammatical as to seem like the output... Read more
Published 24 months ago by Marcuso
5.0 out of 5 stars Ambitious
Incredible amount of information here, and gifted Lucasfilm alumn Michael Rubin presents it without being overwhelming. Read more
Published on July 19, 2010 by Mary Jo Mathew
5.0 out of 5 stars A great tale of business and filmmaking.
Essentially an oral history of the less glamorous divisions of Lucasfilm. Nicely written, well researched, well put together. Read more
Published on June 8, 2010 by Klaus Manifold
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read!
Got this book because I love all things about Hollywood Fx, CGI and model building. As many of these skills are being lost to the computer artists, this book is a GREAT read. Read more
Published on February 13, 2010 by K Brown
5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating story of how the digital revolution kicked off.
Michael Rubin has written a well researched book into the early days Lucasfilm focusing on the developing uses of computers for computer graphics, video and sound editing. Read more
Published on January 4, 2010 by Andrew Myers
5.0 out of 5 stars Michael Rubins Droidmaker: The Missing Tome From Your Bookshelf
What can i say about Droidmaker. That it is awesome? Yes. That it is the most well researched and executed piece of work about Lucasfilm .ltd available today? Sure. Read more
Published on April 29, 2009 by E. Nielsen
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