the force behind star wars: turning design ideas into reality

The Force Behind

Turning Design Ideas into Reality

Description:

You!ve got an idea. Maybe it!s a new idea for a web application.

Maybe it!s a new product idea you need to push through your

organization. The question is: How do you turn an idea into reality?

To answer this question, we!ll look at the making of Star Wars. We!ll

look behind the scenes at what it took to get George Lucas!s space

fantasy from script to screen. From assembling the right team to

navigating the Hollywood corporate studio environment to tapping into

powerful universal patterns—speaker Stephen P. Anderson will

present a dozen lessons UX designers (and developers!) can all learn

from this adventure.

Not adventurous enough? In the spirit of the season, Stephen will be

raiding his garage to give away some great Star Wars prizes!

= Dreamer

(Video Clip - Intro from ‘Empire of Dreams’)

A year ago in a library not too far away....

http://markup.thekraemers.com/2006/11/21/the-prototyping-of-star-wars-2/

xWhat other

lessons can we learn from the making of

Star Wars?

xWhat other

lessons can we learn from the making of

Star Wars?-I won’t be quoting from SW

-there are 15 lessons

-I’ll be moving briskly

-Expect too many quotes!

-not much tactical stuff, just stories and principles

-Yes, I am a SW geek

-I’m assuming I’m among other SW geeks...

http://images.movieeye.com/store/images/luke-skywalker-scaled-replica-lightsaber.jpg

You are a dreamer.

You have an idea.

How do you make this idea reality?

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUMLesson I:

TAP INTO UNIVERSAL PATTERNS

“When I started out making the movies,

I was working toward making it modern

mythology. I had studied anthropology

in college, and social sciences was my

major before I got into film...

I did more research before I wrote the

screenplay for Star Wars. I read and

reread The Hero With A Thousand

Faces.

-George Lucas

Mythic Patterns?

Typically, the hero is the orphaned son or royalty. Unaware of his true identity, he is consigned to a life of drudgery and exile.

He is first called to adventure by a herald, signifying that "the time for the passing of a threshold is at hand" (p.51). The threshold represents a rebirth into adulthood; the hero or heroine must overcome the parents, who stand as "threshold guardians."

Mythic Patterns? (continued)

Along the way, the hero often encounters a protective figure, "some wizard, hermit, shepherd, or smith, who appears to supply the amulets and advice that the hero will require....The call, in fact, was the first announcement of the approach of this initiatory priest" (pp. 72-73).

Mythic Patterns? (continued)

Once he leaves the safe boundaries of the farm, Luke can never go back. As the attack of the Sandpeople shows him, the world is a desert place filled with danger, but only by abandoning the security he had known, leaving the womb of his childhood, can he enter the adult world. Luke at first refuses the call to adventure, but joins Ben when he discovers that, in his absence, Darth Vader's Stormtroopers have burned the farm and killed his aunt and uncle.

Different eras. Different heroes. Same mythic qualities.

“Last year's action movie is last year's action movie. Most of them are forgotten. Something mythical like Star Wars endures...

The stories speak to something inside us that wants to know how our world lives, that wants to make order of it and find some meaning.”

Shanti Fader, editor of Parabola magazine, a publication of the Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition.

What universal patterns can we tap into?


To create a better story, Lucas looked to anthropology.


To create a better story, Lucas looked to anthropology.

To create a better product, We can look to ____________.

To become a better designer, become a better student of human interactions...

Focus less on the end design, and more on the effects and results of the design.

Tap into universal human patterns.

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUM

Lesson II:

GAIN CREDIBILITY WITH A ‘COMMERCIAL’ PROJECT

free

prize! !

What 2 movies did George Lucas

make before Star Wars?

free

prize! !

What 2 movies did George Lucas

make before Star Wars?

A: THX-1138 & American Graffiti

original short won first prize at the 1967-68 National Student Film Festival

When Warner Brothers executives saw the finished product, they demanded Coppola return the $300,000 the studio had advanced for THX 1138 and other projects...

full feature film well received by critics

failure at the box office

Coppola challenged Lucas: ‘I bet you can’t do just a silly comedy’

“Gra!ti would be cheap, it was quick, and I thought it was really commercial” - George Lucas

3rd highest grossing film for that year

Nominated for five Academy Awards

Won a Golden Globe

“After Graffiti became a big hit, they couldn’t refuse it...

They couldn’t not do it. Just in terms of politics and the political intrigue of Hollywood. That’s what it came down to in the end.

George Lucas

Got a big idea? Prove your skills with

something smaller, first.

(this puts you in a much better position, later)

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUMLesson III:

DEVELOP BUSINESS FLUENCY

“He didn’t care for the studio system. But he needed it, there was no other way of doing what he needed to do.

Gareth Wigan

“The Star Wars Corporation will

own... all sequel rights [to] the

screenplay ‘The Star Wars.’”

“SWC shall have the sole and

exclusive rights to use... the

name ‘The Star Wars’ in

connection with wholesale or

retail outlets for the sale of

merchandising items.”

To protect the other 2/3rds of the story

To promote Star Wars (T-Shirts, Posters, etc.)

l

l

When you think of ‘business fluency’

what comes to mind?

“Business fluency has two sides— cultural and conceptual—and to successfully attract investment designers need both pieces.

Conceptual fluency means understanding the vocabulary of business and what ideas underlie business measures of its health, like profit and loss.

Cultural fluency means navigating relationships, politics, power structure, emotional decision making, and organizational thinking.

Jess McMullin, “Investing in Design”

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUMLesson IV:

FIND A PATRON

‘Patron’ could be...

an outside investor

an outside advisor

someone high up in the organization

“We had a meeting, and George said well I’ve been thinking about this thing called Star Wars...

The technology part of the whole thing was completely over my head. But, I just believed in him, his genius.

Alan Ladd, Jr., VP of Creative Affairs at Fox in 1975

(Video Clip - Interviews with Alan Ladd, Jr. )

“Alan Ladd, Jr invested in me. He did not invest in the movie. And it paid off.

George Lucas

SOMEONE...

from the business worldproviding financial support or business counsel

WHO

is influentialcan defend your efforts against criticism

trusts and supports youwon’t interfere with the project

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUMLesson V:

ASSEMBLE THE RIGHT TEAM

“First, get the right people on the bus...”-Jim Collins

“If people are on the bus because of who else is on the bus, then it’s much easier to change direction...

...if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away.

Jim Collins, commenting on patterns of ‘Good to Great’ companies

“All of us had worked with each other and were pretty good friends...

And we talked to each other on a weekly basis just as friends. When John put the crew together, he put it together instantaneously, at least the nucleus of it.

Grant McCune, commenting on the origins of ILM

In forming ILM, Lucas pulled people who worked on

commercials and architectural models – not feature film makers.

He also kept this team ‘autonomous’, with artistic decisions coming only from

himself and two others.





a new kind of project needs...





a different type of person

la new kind of project needs...





a different type of person

l

managed in a different way

l

a new kind of project needs...

The right people often approach problems a bit

differently...

“Everybody sort of cross-trained and worked in different techniques. That was different than the Hollywood system that had very strict sort of union rules. But there was no way that this work could be done that way, or that the Hollywood unions could understand what we were doing…

Dennis Muren

“Broad and Deep Generalists”People who are ...Passionate

Curious“Synthesizers”

Siloed DisciplinesVS.

Researchers Interaction Designers

Visual Designers

Front-End Developers

Information Architects

Usability/ Human Factors

Back-End Developers

And in front of the camera?

“I spent 6 or 7 months casting Star Wars… I interviewed 1,000s of people

George Lucas

Lucas looked for individual screen presence as well as

chemistry together

He also mixed in a few established actors

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUMLesson VI:

IT’S OKAY TO BORROW

Date MasamuneDarth Vader

free

prize! !

Name a specific film by Akira

Kurosawa that heavily influenced

the plot of Star Wars...

“Hidden Fortress was an influence on Star Wars right from the very beginning…

I was searching around for a story. I had some scenes- the cantina scene and the space battle scene—but I couldn’t think of a basic plot. Originally, the film was a good concept in search of a story. And then I thought of Hidden Fortress, which I’d seen again in 1972 or ’73, and so the first plots were very much like it.

George Lucas

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope features the exploits of C-3PO and R2-D2, whereas the plot of The Hidden Fortress is told from the point of view of two bickering peasants. The two peasants, Tahei and Matashichi, are first shown escaping a battle, while C-3PO and R2-D2 are first shown fleeing an attack in A New Hope. Additionally, both films feature a battle-tested General -- Rokurota Makabe in The Hidden Fortress and Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope -- who assist a rebellion led by a princess and engage in a duel with a former rival whom they fought years earlier.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_sources_and_analogues

“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Albert Einstein

Video Clip - Showing how ILM matched frame-for-frame aerial dogfights from old WW2 films that Lucas spliced together)

It’s okay to be ‘influenced by...’ ‘intentionally reference, or borrow/modify very specific

design elements.

It’s not okay to rip off someone else’s work.

http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/000016.html

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/copy-great-designers-steal

Lesson VII:

CONFRONT YOUR WEAKNESSES

Q U I C K M I N I - A S S I G N M E N T :

What is something you are weak at?

Challenge yourself. Turn that into an assignment.

“This is from 1975:

In film school, I tended away from storytelling; I just didn’t like it… I thought that maybe I hated it so much because I couldn’t do it. This is one of the reasons why with Star Wars I want to attempt a storytelling film.

George Lucas

Lesson VIII:

EMBRACE CONSTRAINTS

constraints force you to see things differently

(and often result in more creative solutions)

What does this have

to do with Star Wars?

free

prize! !

“Graflex 3-Cell

Flashgun”

“Luke’s

Lightsaber”

“Denix C96 Mauser”

“Han Solo’s

Blaster”

(same hallway for many scenes!)

Instead of freaking out about these constraints, embrace them. Let them guide you. Constraints drive innovation and force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to your advantage...

Constraints are often advantages in disguise. Forget about venture capital, long release cycles, and quick hires. Instead, work with what you have.

http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch03_Embrace_Constraints.php

“Man built most nobly when limitations were at their greatest.

Frank Lloyd Wright:

Lesson IX:

MAKE THE INVISIBLE, VISIBLE

“It wasn’t until George acted it out or told you what a Wookie was, and what it was going to look like, that it started to make sense. Because it was really a universe that nobody could understand from the scripts.

Willard Huyck (c. 1975)

““

I think they were done as a substitute for arm waving and verbal descriptions, and to start budget talks.

Ralph McQuarrie

So the studio can get a picture of what I’m talking about.

George Lucas

Prototypes get people excited. And they clarify.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quadmod/523335664/

“The tools traditionally used to communicate strategy— spreadsheets and powerpoint decks— are woefully inadequate for the task...”

-Tim Brown, IDEO

“...because it’s pictorial, Design describes the world in a way that is not open to many interpretations.

Designers, by making a film, scenario, or prototype, can help people emotionally experience the thing that the strategy seeks to describe.”

-Tim Brown, IDEO

free

prize! !

The Falcon's design is inspired by...?

free

prize! !

The Falcon's design is inspired by...?

a hamburger, with the cockpit being an olive on the side.

Lesson X:

BE PASSIONATE, BE PREPARED TO GO AT IT ALONE, AND EXPECT

THINGS TO GO WRONG

Few people believed in the script

2nd day of shooting, the Sahara had the first major rainfall in 50 years!

ILM ran behind schedule

Many technical problems with robots

Lucas had to go to the hospital at one point

Film came close to being shelved

“It was very hard for us to wrap our heads around the idea of a golden robot and a little beer can. We just didn’t know what it meant. But George never gave up and he worked and worked and worked.

Hal Barwood

“It was the first two weeks of shooting, we had run into a lot of weather problems, the sets had blown down, I didn’t get everything shot. It was a disaster.

At that point, I was pretty depressed. saying ‘Boy, I’ve gotten myself way in over my head. I don’t know what I’m going to do...’

George Lucas

“...they [ILM] had pretty much spent half their budget and only produced 4 shots, none of which I would accept.

George Lucas

Video Clip - footage from ‘Empire of Dreams’ showing various struggles Lucas went through...

““It is amazing what you can do when you have a vision, when you have an ambition, and when you can bend other people’s will to your desire. And the thing that kept it focused towards the ambitions was George’s vision and his passion for the ideas.”

Harisson Ford

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUM

Lesson XI:

LET THE VISION DRIVE THE TECHNOLOGY

Three letters: ILM

“Don’t worry about how we’re going to do it, we just want to see an impression of what these scenes are going to look like on the screen...

George Lucas, speaking to Ralph McQuarrie about concept paintings for Star Wars

“We started out with almost no experience in building models in this quantity or this type...

Grant McCune

“We took the concept of motion control... and we made it production savvy, by tying it into a computer, which at that point was custom built microprocessors. There were no PCs... We built them from scratch.

John Dykstra

Focus on people and interactions. Not interfaces.

Design first. Build later.

“How do people think? Technology should map to that.

—Rashmi Sinha

Data

Logic

User Interface

How applications are traditionally designed:

(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

User Interface

Magic!

How customers view an application


Data

Logic

User Interface

How modern applications are designed:


Lesson XII:

GET THE DETAILS RIGHT / KNOW WHEN TO LET GO

free

prize! !

Name either of these two fonts.

free

prize! !

Name either of these two fonts.

A: Trade Gothic (top), Franklin Gothic (bottom)

“The details are not the details. They make the design.”-Charles Eames

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Welcome to White Space

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adipiscing elit. Curabitur tristique, sapien id

scelerisque euismod, turpis lacus sollicitudin

nulla, non iaculis quam nulla ullamcorper erat.

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parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

Maecenas malesuada mattis metus. Proin

vehicula pretium nunc. Donec est arcu, viverra a,

rutrum sit amet, interdum vitae, est. Aenean

enim orci, faucibus in, posuere et, congue

pretium, nunc. Vestibulum sagittis turpis vitae

pede. Praesent est. Aenean consectetuer ornare

arcu. Nulla rhoncus.

http://www.jasonsantamaria.com/archive/2006/01/05/under_the_loupe_1_white_space.php

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/the_long_road_to_simple_creating_debating_and_iterating_add_an_event.php

“I’m realistic enough to know you have to make compromises when filmmaking, but if I can avoid them, I will.

George Lucas

Lesson XIII:

FOCUS ON HOW, NOT JUST WHAT

What’s the difference?

Video Clip - Showing the radical difference between the first and final edits of Star Wars footage

(No change in logic or data)

After:

Before:

ExperienceBased

Differentiation

Obsess aboutcustomer needs

Treat UX asa competence

Reinforce brandwith everyinteraction

Solution: “Experience-Based Differentiation”

“Obsess about customer needs, not product features. Rather than racing to bring new product features to market, companies need to refocus on the needs of their customers — who might even want fewer features.

-Forrester Research

Lesson Two:

LORUM IPSUM

Lesson XIV:

DONT GET ATTACHED TO YOUR FIRST IDEA

Iterate! Iterate! Iterate!

free

prize! ! Prior to writing the script for

Star Wars, George Lucas

originally wanted to make a film

of what popular sci-fi series?

“I wrote four entirely different screenplays for Star Wars, searching for just the right ingredients, characters and storyline.

George Lucas

Darth Vader originally wore a mask to allow him to breath while space walking!

Star Wars was originally set in the 33rd century

Original script starts with Annikin Starkiller spotting a spacecraft orbiting the fourth moon of Utapau, where he is hiding with Kane, his father, and Deak, his ten-year-old brother.

In the second draft, it is a Deak Starkiller-- not princess Leia-- that is captured and help captive by Lord Vader

In the rough and first drafts, General Luke Skywalker is described as a large man “apparently in his early sixties but actually much older”

It was during filming that Lucas decided to kill off the Obi Wan Kenobi character...!

At one one point, Han Solo had green skin and gills

In the 2nd draft, Luke was a girl

In early concepts, Stormtroopers carried lightsabers!

“I remember thinking that the first script he showed me was really good and I was sort of curious as to why he was, you know, dumping that.

Francis Ford Coppola

http://garrettdimon.com/archives/2007/9/23/webmaster_jam_session_2007_again/

“The iPhone developed the way a lot of cool things do: with a false start. A few years ago Jobs noticed how many development dollars were being spent... on tablet PCs.

...so he had Apple engineers noodle around with a tablet PC. When they showed him the touchscreen they came up with, he got excited. So excited he forgot all about tablet computers.

“The Apple Of Your Ear,” TIME Magazine, January 12, 2007

Lesson XV:

EMBRACE YOUR COMMUNITY

Friends:Francis Ford CoppolaBrian De PalmaSteven SpielbergJohn MiliusHal BarwoodHaskell WexlerFrancis Ford CoppolaPhil Kaufmanetc.

“I usually help them with their editing and they help me in my scriptwriting. They give me all their ideas and comments and whatnot, then I go back and try to deal with it. All of us have crossover relationships, and we are constantly showing each other what we are doing and trying to help each other.

George Lucas

Dallas Ruby Brigade

Thanks!

MY PERSONAL SITEME

THE BEST WAY TO REACH ME

Stephen P. Anderson / www.poetpainter.com