MANILA, PHILIPPINES — This year, Graphika Online 2022, one of Asia’s most influential design conferences, brought creativity and inspiration to the fore once again. Graphika has acted as an arena for the most talented and imaginative creative forces in Asia and around the world for the past 17 years.
Graphika Online 2022 hands the microphone to some of the most creative leaders in the industry — such as Lucasfilm’s Christian Alzmann.
Alzmann is one of the most experienced creatives in the world of concept art and digital art. With a long-time passion for art and design, he started out at visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) in 2009 creating concept art for well-known action, fantasy, and sci-fi films such as Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence (2001), Pirates of the Caribbean (2003), The Hunger Games (2012), and more.
Today, he works at Lucasfilm, the birthplace of Star Wars, one of the highest-grossing film and TV franchise series of all time, as a concept design supervisor. He has worked on concepts for the most recent segments of the film franchise such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), ROGUE ONE: A Star Wars Story (2016), and the Disney+ live-action series The Mandalorian (2019).
The rebirth of Star Wars
Star Wars was a big influence in Alzmann’s life, and his passion pours out in every single concept piece he produced in the creation of the films Star Wars: The Force Awakens and ROGUE ONE: A Star Wars Story.
In this part of the talk, Alzmann discussed the pre-production process behind the two hit films. He shared that it started out with meetings involving an endless stream of concept art and dialogue, despite the absence of a film director.
Alzmann starts off by sharing some rough/concept sketches for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with initial designs of the notorious droid BB8, as well as the leading characters of the story.#adobomagazine #thewordoncreativity pic.twitter.com/uFSRhD9NoN
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Imagine a Star Wars film where Rey was a more adept scavenger called “Kira,” Han Solo embraced the looks of a rugged, mysterious outlaw, and the aged Luke Skywalker resembled more of a samurai than the hoary Jedi that many of us witnessed; these are some of the many, many concepts that Alzmann and his team developed that eventually didn’t make the cut.
"Concept artists provide a roadmap; a pipeline," Alzmann shares as he presents the process of developing concert art crucial to the development of their film.#adobomagazine #thewordoncreativity pic.twitter.com/5pqP6gMjVj
— adobo magazine (@adobomagazine) February 5, 2022
Some ideas, however, were able to hyperdrive to the big screen (in more or less than twelve parsecs, we hope). For instance, Alzmann used parallels from establishing shots in Star Wars: A New Hope to ignite that spark of nostalgia. Additionally, he based the character Maz on Rose Gilbert, an award-winning mentor to filmmaker J.J. Abrams and production designer Rick Carter—claiming that she was very instrumental to the two individuals’ growth.
And now it’s time for the (art) breakdown
For those who paid due attention to Alzmann’s highly imaginative concepts, the question emerges: What does it take to create such atmospheric and alluring concept illustrations? Alzmann shares his art breakdown, and a few tips that creatives can pick up.
Right off the bat, Alzmann stressed the importance of using references. For every design he conceptualizes, he puts together a set of pictures, or a “reference board” — an easy resource for artists to get inspiration from, helping them create pieces that can have a more authentic feel.
"Design is like 75% failure […] it's lots of back and forth trying to get elements working." Alzmann shares while discussing the breakdown of each character's conceptualization.#adobomagazine #thewordoncreativity pic.twitter.com/nHc6KakDEt
— adobo magazine (@adobomagazine) February 5, 2022
Once he sets up his reference boards, Alzmann goes ahead and creates sketches on post-it notes for composition. On why he uses post-its instead of sketchbooks and such, he shares that it’s easier to sort out ideas with pieces of paper he can easily dispose of. Once he’s satisfied with the sketches, he proceeds to create 3D models of the drawings in a computer program.
It took hundreds of drafts drawn by Alzmann and his team to develop the character designs that millions of people love today. Without any sugarcoating, he states: “Design is 75 percent failure. To get the thing that you want, there’s lots of (going) back and forth, trying to get elements working.”
The convergence of art and modern technology
In the final part of his talk, Alzmann shared more concept designs behind the live-action series The Mandalorian, where he worked with director Jon Favreau.
Favreau considered this series an opportunity to take VFX and film production into greater heights. “What’s fun about collaboration on The Mandalorian with Lucasfilm and Disney is that we have been able to see through a few technological innovations and a few firsts that will have a lot of impact on the way TV and movies are made moving forward.” he said.
In the production of The Mandalorian, their team put together a system where a game engine was used to create and render landscapes and/or backgrounds in real-time. This technology brought several benefits for the production crew, providing a dynamic world with virtually no borders for imagination.
With this transformative setup, Rob Bredow, Executive Creative Director and Head of ILM, comments: “In Star Wars, we are building a rich legacy of innovation. Getting to partner with Jon Favreau to make these ambitious visions a reality, it really is a gamechanger for filmmaking.”
Alzmann concluded his talk with exclusive peeks at some concept designs for season two of The Mandalorian, which is set to air in the near future on Disney+.
You can find more about Christian Alzmann on his website, Twitter, and Instagram. To know more about Lucasfilm, visit their website.
adobo Magazine is an official media partner of Graphika Online 2022.
