Beyond a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Excerpt from article in Post , June 2005
By Ken McGorry

Many of Hollywood's A-list filmmakers, including (Rick) McCallum and (George) Lucas, convened at ShoWest in Las Vegas last March were, McCallum says, "Jim Cameron warned the exhibitors, 'In two years I'm going to have a 3D digital movie out and you better have the theaters for me.'"

McCallum believes that theater owners have to create an environment that makes the movie-going experience special again, and that will be done, someday, with digital display. He and Lucas are already working with the In-Three (www.in-three.com) process which turns traditionally captured 2D images into "Dimensionalized™" 3D motion pictures. Lucas demoed Dimensionalized™ scenes from SW2 at ShoWest and you can expect to see all six episodes reappear in 3D in digital theaters annually starting in 2007. "They're an absolutely fantastic company," McCallum says of In-Three. "They've got about 87 patents and will take any material and turn in into a 3D thing. There's no strain on your eyes, you can watch a movie for two hours with very comfortable glasses."

Where does Spielberg stand on 3D? "I think Steven's still wedded to film. Although he and George are talking about doing Indiana Jones 4 – and that he would consider the possibility of maybe thinking about shooting in HD." Lucas will be executive producer on the new Indy which, McCallum jests, will be made "sometime in the next 15 years."

McCallum, along with Lucas, was instrumental in the rebellion against shooting on film and helped forge the relationship with Sony that resulted in SW3's all-HD acquisition with Sony F950 HDCAM cameras recording RGB to Sony SRW-5000 decks. As for savings, he points out that shooting HD helped save millions on match-moving alone for SW3's over 2,000 effects.