Boz To The Future # 24: The Future According to Francois Chardavoine

What this episode is about

The discussion focuses on the intersection of technology and storytelling within the film industry, featuring insights from Francois Chardavoine, the CTO of Lucasfilm and ILM. Chardavoine shares his journey of entering the film world through technology, highlighting how his passion for storytelling drives his work and the historical relationship between art and technology in filmmaking.

Key takeaways

• Storytelling evolves, yet its essence remains: a primal connection to our shared human experience.
• Technology is the unsung hero of storytelling—creativity often sneaks in through the back door.
• From campfires to VR, the medium changes, but timeless story arcs endure through the ages.
• Affordable tech has democratized storytelling, enabling indie voices to craft high-quality narratives.
• Immersive storytelling blends art and tech, inviting audiences to participate beyond the linear experience.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Francois Chardavoine (Host) · 32 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Francois Shardivoan, Lucasfilm, Industrial Light and Magic, Star Wars
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Star Wars
3. 15:00 – 20:00: Industrial Light and Magic
4. 20:00 – 25:00: Lucasfilm, Star Wars
5. 30:00 – 35:00: Star Wars
6. 35:00 – 40:00: Star Wars, Lucasfilm
7. 40:00 – 45:00: Lucasfilm, Industrial Light and Magic, Star Wars, Terminator 2

Notable quotes from "Boz To The Future # 24: The Future According to Francois Chardavoine"

• Attention to, but it is a story that's a goes back a long way. I remember a conversation in his book Ed Catmull talks about who's the founder of Pixar talks about the reason he…

  about Ed Catmull · at 1:30

• Entertainment and art with storytelling bringing you along when you're passionate about whether it's a Star Wars universe or something else that ability to take people on a…

  about Star Wars · at 4:51

• What you have is now an even bigger toolbox to solve the problem And despite all that, we have more artists today at Industrial Light and Magic than we ever had in ILM's history and not less.

  about Industrial Light and Magic · at 15:42

• Funnel for just highly creative, really good content. Like we work on Star Wars, but we also work on sinners and us and movies like that where you make some of these stories…

  about Lucasfilm · at 35:49

• Efficiently in the highest level of quality possible? And this is kind of niche, but the Escape from New York.

  about Escape from New York · at 40:50

• Into more CG. And I know a lot of people mention Jurassic Park as a key milestone. For me, it was Terminator 2.

  about Terminator 2 · at 42:32

• Lucasfilm, Industrial Light Magic, Skywalker Sound. lots of fun stuff posted there. I'm a little less active online, but F.Cheartan first initial last name on threads and Instagram. You can find me there.

  about Francois Shardivoan · at 45:08

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Francois Shardivoan — Person · Main guest · 1 mention · first at 0:23
  Interview subject discussing the intersection of technology and storytelling, drawing on his leadership role at ILM/Lucasfilm and experience in immersive/interactive media (VR/AR, real-time workflows, StageCraft).
• Ed Catmull — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at 1:35
  Cited as an example of the common art-technology pathway: wanting to animate but lacking traditional skills, leading to foundational computer graphics innovation and the founding of Pixar.

Companies & orgs

• Lucasfilm — Company · Business focus · 4 mentions · first at 0:37
  Primary company discussed, known for its contributions to film and storytelling through technology.
• Industrial Light and Magic — Company · Business focus · 3 mentions · first at 0:39
  Subsidiary of Lucasfilm specializing in visual effects, discussed for its pioneering work in film technology.
• Pixar — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 1:36
  Mentioned in the context of the intersection between art and technology in animation.
  Talks about who's the founder of Pixar talks about the reason he started doing the technology stuff because he wanted to do animation but he couldn't animate and so he like…

Media & podcasts

• Star Wars — Media · Case study · 7 mentions · first at 4:56
  Franchise discussed as an example of storytelling and technological innovation in film.
• Terminator 2 — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 42:37
  Highlighted for its groundbreaking use of CGI and visual effects.
• Return of the Jedi — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 42:02
  Mentioned for its innovative optical compositing techniques in visual effects.
  Return of the Jedi. There's at the very end the space battle when the Millennium Falcon arrives. there's a point of view from the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon with all the…
• Jurassic Park — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 42:32
  Mentioned as a milestone in the use of CGI in film.
  And then obviously down the road then there's the tipping point into more CG. And I know a lot of people mention Jurassic Park as a key milestone. For me, it was Terminator 2.
• Escape from New York — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 40:53
  Cited for its creative practical effects to simulate computer-generated imagery.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:08 Welcome to BOS to the future. Uh a podcast that I created so that we would have time to go much much deeper on a small number of topics as opposed to kind of being surface deep across a larger number as is so often the case in in our industry and kind of in general. I'm thrilled to be joined here today with Francois. Okay, I'm going to just try it again. Fransaw Shardivoan whose last name I struggle with as an Angloile who doesn't speak French very well but I I apologize in advance if I've murdered that. More importantly than that uh the by by terrible pronunciation he's the CTO of Lucasfilm um industrial light and magic or ILM and who has a 20-year history in immersive storytelling and you are familiar with a great great deal of his work I assure you. Uh, I have a habit on my, uh, podcast. I don't like to introduce people, uh, not just for lack of me being able to memorize your prolific bio, uh, but also because I

0:58 think it's sometimes I miss the key piece. What do you think is the most important thing for the audience to know about you? I think the most important is even though I have a technology role, that's not what I got into the industry for. In many ways, technology was the back door. I always wanted to make film, tell stories. I wasn't a great artist and technology was sort of that back door to get into it of like, okay, I can do that and I can help and I can participate in this process.

1:23 Yeah, I find this such a fascinating um relationship between art and technology and it's one that people don't often pay attention to, but it is a story that's a goes back a long way. Um I remember a conversation in his book Ed Catmull talks about who's the founder of of Pixar talks about the reason he started doing uh the technology stuff because he wanted to do animation but he couldn't animate and so he like invents 3D graphics you know invents the Zindex as a path this is it's not not an uncommon story for people to do that

1:53 not at all and and the history of film in many ways is a history of technology just the evolutions that little by little incrementally led to changing the way we tell stories based on technological evolution technological push back to like what we're seeing now in terms of evolution.

2:14 Yeah. The early, you know, colorization of of film was just like an absolute somebody going completely rogue and that, you know, the the chemistry didn't support it yet, but they could draw it in and that's how they could do it.

2:25 Yeah. And then moving to digital every single step of the way. It's funny. I think um there's a degree to which um storytelling is evergreen and you go back to you know Plato and the Republic you go back to the

2:38 stories around the campfire stories around the campfire and the Okavanga Delta and like there's this evergreen construct of storytelling and there's these story arcs that seem like they show up at every era of human history but we keep pushing the medium forward like we keep developing new and different ways of telling the story. Um, and you've been at the forefront of that now for a long time. A lot of the ways in my lifetime that storytelling, visual storytelling has gotten richer are the techniques that that your uh company has developed. Talk to me about um the past of storytelling and what that tells us about the future of storytelling.

3:12 Yeah. And storytelling is interesting in all the various mediums, whether it's film or interactive. The there there's a combination of art and entertainment. And that that's true as well around the campfire. And the different ways in which you try to you weave both together, I think really creates something that transcends beyond just the the the the super practical and it makes us feel a very particular way that you don't in in in other areas. And for me, there's been a little bit of an arc where I actually started in real time interactive immersive uh like 3D cave setups with active stereo glasses doing collaboration but also doing like it's like you're on a roller coaster. Yeah.

3:53 Uh what year was this were you doing this stuff? This was in late 90s early 2000.

3:59 Really pioneering at that point. Yeah. Still somewhat. It was also transition to from SGI to commodity Linux and that made it a lot more affordable to do some of these kinds of things.

4:07 Um and then progressively moved into film and then did more and more episodic. And at the time film was kind of the like the bar versus TV. and you look at what you're doing on streaming and episodic and TV and the the quality of storytelling and the different kinds of stories you can tell that that evolution in visual effects becoming more affordable or being able to do more uh the camera the digital has allowed for indie uh productions that you couldn't before and and now we just have so much more highquality content and then moving one step back to some of the things I was working on before which is interactive wearable devices VR things like that where now you can weave a whole lot more that that combination of entertainment and art with storytelling bringing you along when you're passionate about whether it's a Star Wars universe or something else that ability to take people on a journey

5:01 that's not just a linear journey is really really interesting and with the quality of headsets and other things progressing uh I think there there's a lot of potential there a good example is the um uh well we collaborated on this but Star Wars Beyond Victory.

5:17 Yeah. Uh it is a little bit of a culmination of everything that ILM XLAB ILM interactive progressively just experimenting with different ways of storytelling based on input devices, the ways in which you can be immersed

5:29 and coming to a place where you're really weaving between storytelling and gameplay and exploration and creation. Yeah. And uh with AR in particular, even going back and forth between AR and VR and figuring those mechanics out from a design point of view, it it just leads to a very different way of thinking about storytelling than than the kind of traditional linear ways we were thinking of before.

5:52 Yeah, this is such an interesting part, [clears throat] you know. Um so you have this like throughine of storytelling and I thought you said it well like the effect is a feeling. Um and there's art and there's entertainment and there's they exist together. Um and um and that's like the effect that we're trying to create in the world uh for some person who's experiencing this media. But then you hit like 10 different fronts that like are all advancing which is so cool. I mean that's [clears throat] actually let let me start with this immersive we just talked about. Yeah. because it's a video games are a good example probably of a media that in my lifetime has just made tremendous progress and it's still undervalued as an art form, underappreciated as an art form

6:37 by certain groups. Yeah. No, they're not steeped in it. Yeah. And longtime listeners of my podcast will know, I hit on this all the time. This is the history of all art forms. Uh it was the history I'm an avid uh photography buff and Anel Adams when he created the F64 group they were fighting for the legitimacy of the medium because all the painters were like this isn't legitimate

6:57 right um and he had to say creating anything you didn't you didn't you didn't earn this knowledge you didn't learn how to paint like Raphael like I did it didn't take you 40 years therefore it's not legitimate it's like a different but and it ultimately we come to see it as a different media but that does have an impact on where painting goes like that does have an impact on the other media that live in the ecosystem together because competitive for time, attention, emotion, connection amongst the audience. Um, and so

7:20 but on the painting side now you value things that are a lot more creative rather than photoreal.

7:24 Yeah, it's and it's a tremendous shift as a consequence. So these things all have a dynamic relation to one another. So I'm a huge believer in these the idea of storytelling in video games having its deserving a little bit more credit for the art,

7:39 right? Not just the entertainment side of it. Um and yeah, this is a place where the interactive uh part of of you know what it means to be at ILM interactive really comes to the forefront. How when you have a new canvas like that, that's different. So, so I mean again, not to blend the pieces together, but in visual effects, okay, there's a we know what a movie is. We can imagine this as a as a classical uh movie. We can imagine what it looks like with a practical effect. We can imagine what it looked like with a visual effect, but it kind of fixed frame,

8:10 but it fits inside of a frame. How do you go about it when you don't have these constraints that are, you know, inherited, but they give you some comfort, like you know what you're going against?

8:22 A lot of trial and error. Honestly, there there there are things that you think are going to work. You try them out and they don't. There are things that uh you just explore and you stumble upon some sort of mechanism or a concept or something that oh wait a minute this is a way we can draw people in and you still feel like you have agency in an interactive world but you're still following a story along and and you're you're able to get people to feel about the story in ways that are different than they were if they were just passively watching it. And we've experimented with this in a few different areas including, you know, parallel complimentary type stories where you might watch uh an episodic um show, a Star Wars show or or anything else and and you have some other way of exploring that same universe and and seeing like other storylines that happened at the same time on your own. Now the real challenge

9:09 is how do you make that as compelling in terms of you know composition and emotional beats and what if something happens but you're looking over there and what kind of subtle cues like audio to pull you back in and so there there's a lot of that um that that mostly comes from trying things out and it's where it's really interesting when you have new devices or new technology because it it it kind of shakes you up a little bit and be like oh wait that doesn't work as well what about this oh we can use this new way that's also why it's really hard to do content that works well across different modes of interaction because in terms of experience design for something to really work like are using gestures or using your controller or using something else those are very different experiences. Um but those

9:52 Yeah. Even if you can mechanically get them to work as well, the actual experience that you have in terms of what how you engage in the story is different,

10:00 right? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And you want you want it to be great. Uh you want it to just be delightful. Yeah.

10:05 And that that's hard to do in a more generic way. Yeah. This is such an this is such a a a thing that I think people miss so often when exploring in new media. The history of new media is people taking the old thing and pouring it into the new thing. So the first TV uh the first um uh movies were plays and the first TV spots were radios shows that were just being filmed and this expansive media that we have you now you're laying on interaction and a high degree of dimensional freedom. Um and it's a quite demanding. It's it's hard to even pull a previous thing over as it exists, you know previously

10:42 and and you're always tempted to latch on to that previous thing because like you said, there's a sense of safety. We know that works. We we're we're familiar with it. We have experience

10:50 and anything else, especially when you have the wild card of, you know, a million people Yeah. with different personalities who are going to try it and and you want all of them to be engaged in that way.

11:01 So, one frontier then of storytelling is interactive. Another frontier is immersive and of course you're working both those at the same time with immersive and interactive and that's you know that's it own challenge. Um those aren't the only frontiers of storytelling. U you I think we've seen the the the rise of short form storytelling you know which is also as old as time. I I suspect I sus I really I don't know this for sure. I just have a sneaking suspicion that caveman did oneliners. I just I just feel like as soon as you could we were dropping dad jokes on the people. I just feel like it's a deep part of

11:32 thought I had time to carve them. I just it's literally it's like all those carvings on the wall are just actually dad jokes that we just we don't we've lost we've lost the punch. It's all it's all mimemetic. That's right. It's all memes.

11:41 Um so there's there's all these other kind of forms of storytelling and you said another thing that was so so interesting. You talked about digital and digital having been such an unlock for so many more people to participate and that's another interesting angle here u where the future of storytelling is okay if immersive and interactive is expensive and hard and inaccessible in many ways uh the conventional storytelling has never been more accessible um and AI hasn't a promise to even potentially go even further although there's some some kind of risk there how are you thinking about the direction that yeah film in television and episodic, how are those going to change in the next, you know, 5 to 10 years?

12:22 I think they grow rather than change. I mean, I think we're we're still reading books. We're still like there are forms of storytelling that work really well no matter what they are. And and I think there's a lot of what that's is going to continue to be done that's just going to be really good film making, really good episodic, interactive. I think some of Dionlock's I mean you look at technology evolution even my job in technology uh spent 20 25 years uh on the one hand pushing the frontier of what you can put on screen what you can accomplish. You have to do a lot of R&D to actually be able to execute someone's vision.

12:59 Yeah. Absolutely. Uh as accurately and faithfully as possible within the means of their budget, their time, etc. which means that you're constantly optimizing, streamlining, and you're making some things that were really hard 5 years ago. Well, now they're commoditized and and you're basically moving the goalpost of what it is that we have to tackle next. And so that cycle of uh pushing the frontier and then commoditization and then pushing some more and then little by little more and more people are able to do more. Um I see that trend generally continuing and and to some extent AI fits into that in the sense that uh there are some areas where you're going to be able to do things you were never able to able to do certainly not with the the constraints you have.

13:41 There are other areas where you're just helping you're optimizing uh you're taking some of the drudgery out so that people can focus on the creative aspects that matter. Uh and generally speaking the more accessible you make things

13:53 the more things get created. Yeah. And that's opportunity for I think a lot more stories to be told that wouldn't have been told before.

14:00 Yeah. Uh which is one of the things I'm most excited about. Yeah. And this is such a smart point. Um the history of technology, of course, it's disruptive and and we recognize that and there's a bunch of jobs that used to exist that don't exist today. But we've never turned that into nothing. We've always turned it into more. We've always done it as the entire history of our speed. We've always turned it into more. Um, and uh, it's funny. Jim Karen said something very similar, which is like, I don't want to make my movie for half as much money. I want to make two movies. Like that.

14:31 That's like the real goal is to make double the the the double the output. Then you have much more competitive marketplace and more stories being told. That means you as the consumer of a story have more to choose from. Is more likely that there's going to be some resonant piece of of art and media out there.

14:47 And and certainly, I mean, the history at least look at the history of visual effects. the through constant um evolution of the technology, we're doing a lot more, not less. Yeah. And and to be honest, even movies are not necessarily the choices haven't been made to make movies cheaper, at least not systematically. The choices have been made to make movies bigger, better, more impressive, really leaning into the spectacle. And so what it gives you is the the choice

15:15 Yeah. to to to do all of it. uh and and that I mean a perfect example that that that we talk about internally quite a bit is we've been through tech transitions from a technology point of view from everything being practical uh models miniatures to more and more progressively being digital most things being digital but not everything we still do stopotion we still do miniatures with motion control uh one it's fun but two it it helps ground things in a certain way and in some cases it is the most efficient choice what you have is now an even bigger toolbox to solve the problem And despite all that, we have more artists today at Industrial Light and Magic than we ever had in in ILM's history

15:55 and not less. Yeah, totally. Um, I'm I'm optimistic about the future continuing that trend.

16:00 It is such an unusual time and I think some of this to your point about, hey, listen, we still read books. We're still doing every form of media we've ever created. Basically, we're still doing. Hey, I've still been to look at cave paintings, so I'm still looking at those, you know, dad jokes. I don't understand. So like every media we've ever created is still a part of a larger ecosystem of consumption that people do. Um is it is the so many people are are uh pessimistic about the future of of cinema, the future of movies. You see it right all the time and people really criticizing the box office receipts of this or that or the profitability of this or that. Um, and at the same time, as a consumer, as someone who loves film, I feel like I've never had more great things to watch and more interesting and unusual things to watch.

16:44 Um, how do you see that? I mean, you must be, like you said, you know, you got into this for the art of it, for the the goal of making telling these stories. Um, do you find that if somebody's on the inside of the industry, you share an optimism about the industry and about so you the optimism you have for the technology and the stories they can tell? I get that's also what you do professionally. So I would hope you feel optimistic about that. But what about the broader economics, the broader industry itself?

17:11 Yeah, I I will say there's a lot of uncertainty. Yeah. Uh visual effects and film making regardless of technology has had plenty of es and flows like really good years, really really bad years. It's a competitive business. It's a low margin business depending what role you play.

17:25 Yeah. Um so that that uncertainty around the future and a concern from especially from a a job safety. Uh I I think that's always been there. I think where going forward, especially people in a leadership position and how you're setting company culture, you have a responsibility to take that into account and make the best possible outcomes happen. You have to think about where can technology really help and are we actually going in that direction or in a different direction? If not, what are the incentives? Yeah. That that would help us go in in a more constructive and positive direction.

18:00 There I there's legitimate reason to be concerned, especially with less people going to the theater.

18:04 Yeah. On the other side, there's opportunity for creating new and different kinds of content as well. And then where do you le lean into that to really maximize,

18:12 you know, both the art of it, the stories that you want to tell, but but also as a business, you know, sustaining yourself. No, you make a good point and I think it's it's so funny. People would accuse us of this, I suspect, but it's so important how you started talking about why you got into this. I do think sometimes you see a project that's made where it feels like the technology was used for technologies sake um as opposed to like for the sake of what the story needed like how what what was required to tell that story in that way. Um, and you and I have both had this experience, I'm sure, of like, you know, I've seen incredible films with tiny budgets and, you know, very limited or no no, you know, major effects budget. And it's a story that's a great story that's worth telling. But there is a smaller number of those stories by definition. You know, it's if you're doing a science fiction epic, that's just a really tight

18:58 it's really tough to to to play it, you know, completely earthbound with conventionally available things. Um, and so the story the number the number and type of stories you can tell becomes more expansive. Um, I've gotten a little bit farther a field. Forgive me. I just find this such a fascinating topic. Let's get back to this technology question. Um, let's go deep on some of these pieces. Um, for um, okay, do you guys start with a story idea? Is that how it starts? Do you, you know, you start with us say, "Hey, um, here's a universe that we if we if we play in this space of the universe or here's a character, you know, where does it start for uh, you guys in the in the inside of the industry before you layer in all the technology? before you lay all the effects like where what's the kernel of it?

19:43 Honestly, it it it really depends. And this is a little bit out of my wheelhouse, but the sometimes it starts with just ideas around a moment or a character. Sometimes it starts with like you think of Rogue One, it started with two lines in the opening crawl.

19:58 Totally. Yeah. Got to fix one of the all-time great open questions. Yeah. Yeah.

20:02 And you're like, where where does that take you? Sometimes it's more around like what are the kinds of stories we haven't told before that we would like to I know certainly for Lucasfilm uh a lot of how uh when we work with filmmakers we don't bring them in telling them make a Star Wars movie we we bring them in and ask what's a really great story you want to tell

20:20 and then you generally figure out like what makes sense in a particular universe but that's not the starting point you're you're you're not just like all right here are five building blocks uh that we'll let you assemble with. I I think you really want something unique, exceptional, engaging, and then the franchise of it all in some ways is a little bit secondary, right? Because you really just want something great,

20:41 fluid, and there's a there must be a dialogue between the, you know, the filmmaker, the director, and the vision they have and what you know is possible. So, sometimes you're having to say, "No, I'm sorry. We just

20:53 I wish that happened more often. Go on." No, no. And but sometimes you must also tell them, "Hey, did you know this thing is now possible?" like you know is is there there's a there must be some back and forth that happen has to be a negotiation here.

21:04 Absolutely. Yeah. You know has a real impact on what story is told. Yeah. because on the one hand um so Vicky Dobbeck Dobs who who um ran XLAB and our our immersive business um has a great quote which is that creativity leads and technology enables but sometimes technology can inspire as well and and so you have that reinforcement mechanism of I had this idea partially biased because you didn't think something else was possible and then you realize wait a minute I could do that and that leads your creative in a different way. So honestly the way we start is typically unbounded in the sense of like what's the story you want to tell right

21:42 and then there's the realities of like yes but it's coming out next summer and here's the budget you have

21:46 right and that's where you you talk about options of like what if you did it this way oh if we just change this thing then we can actually accomplish this or maybe we can develop some R&D

21:54 that'll work in that way and so that led to for instance our stage craft technology which is

22:00 uh circling a set with an LED volume with real-time rendering that adjusts a parallax at the camera. And so you have the combination of just being much more accurate lighting, which on a show like Mandalorian, if you have a walking chrome ball as your main character,

22:14 you're not going to want to fix in post. Absolutely. Uh but then you also have some ability to actually find your shot in a way where you you may not be able to do that in a sea of green screens.

22:24 Yeah. Um and so that led to like, oh, wait a minute. If we're doing it this way, here's some more that we could do on a show or different kinds of shows this way. And so you have one pushing the other.

22:35 Yeah. This is which is the most interesting bit to me. Mandalorian really brought it all together with that technology. But you but John Favro even when he was on Lion King was early adopting using VR headsets to scope out and make sure that what he was going to get in the eventual render was right. So you're minimizing being applied to tell these stories isn't even necessarily in the print. It's it's some of it is even upstream in the process which I think is interesting.

23:00 And I think that's where there's a lot of opportunity to improve things as well. the day we we rely on a on a very a pretty slow process for as you're building a story, as you're going through cuts, you're trying to figure out if it works. You're going to do story boards, you're going to work through previs, you're going to try it out, you're going to realize, ooh, those beats don't really work. Then you're back to the drawing board.

23:20 That cycle of iteration can sometimes lead to just not being able to tell a story because you missed your window. Your director's not available. Your release date's not available. that ability to answer some of those early creative questions uh much more quickly rather than waiting until you've gone way into visual effects which is a really expensive time to make changes

23:37 means that uh you have a higher likelihood to make the movie. You have a higher likelihood for that movie to be great and you're really going to be efficient in your post-production because you know exactly what you want and then now the key is accomplishing it to like the highest quality possible.

23:52 Uh so that's not really talked about as much but I think there's a lot of opportunity there.

23:56 Yeah. No, tremendous. It's kind of interesting to me. Um there, uh so much of the work of the film is cheap up front and expensive in the back, right? It's like it's like and so if you get it right, you know, up front like the

24:10 but it's also like the butterfly effect like your cheap changes if you make the wrong ones then it's going to be really

24:14 branches out indefinitely. Yeah. No. Incredible. You talked about the R&D. What I'm kind of curious about for you guys is like you know so you you have Yeah. you have the projects, those projects are inspiring capabilities that if you had those capabilities would make things easier and sometimes you have these real breakthroughs. Um like and again without any giving up anything specific obviously what are the areas of R&D that you think are the most interesting um for uh visual st storytelling? Uh there there's a couple areas I think I think one there's still a frontier with just digital humans and digital characters to a level where you you're completely immersed and and never question it.

24:51 Yeah. Um it's amazing how hard that problem is to get that last like uncanny valley is is

24:56 and the lizard brain is so programmed to the very all the little spec specificities of of the human twitches and the face and things like that. tremendous progress has been made, but that's still still an area where it's

25:08 um it's very easy to get it wrong. Yeah. And and pushing that along. The other area for me is

25:14 moving into more and more interactive workflows. The more you can work in real time, the closer you get to, you know, indie film making on set where you can make those decisions, you know, right away whether you got it or not, whether it's good or not, you can tell that if I move in that direction, it's more this way. In that direction, it's more this. And the more you can work in an interactive fashion, um, the better your outcome. You're not hitting a button, then waiting, then hitting, then waiting, and you're not quite sure what the button does because you haven't hit enough times, right? And you know that's that's where artists are just I'm always in awe of their ability to le to to lean into the technology as it is today with all its warts and flaws and still come out with something amazing because they not only have the the creative eye and intent for like what is good and where they want to get to but really

26:02 understanding how to like kit bash I have this solution this solution I'm going to combine it in this way I'm going to hit this I know it's going to take two days to simulate but I've done these things and all of that is um I think is the key to everything and and and a lot of times when people talk about technology they they leave out the fact that sure it enables things that weren't possible before but it enables nothing. you don't have the people and the artists who are there leveraging it to its fullest extent extent and what's really this is the history of visual effects but uh I'd say at ILM in particular there's an ability to just you know kit bash and orchestrate all of the solutions that you have available in a collaborative way people working together to say okay for this shot here's what'll really work for this shot here's what'll work and it's not just one thing nobody's hitting a button

26:54 they're figuring out the best choice choice as they go along. Um, and and all of the technologies, whether it's traditional all the way to like generative AI, as we're looking into these things, these are all going to be tools in an artist's arsenal. Yeah.

27:08 To to lead to the best possible outcome. It's never going to be just one. Uh, and I think really the strength is leaning into hybrid workflows. Those like you're going from real time to 3D to something maybe generative that helps you hear, bouncing back into a 3D portion. Like all of these things, that's going to be the superpower. This is such a fascinating angle. So, you know, for those of us who who are watching films, it looks effortless, right? They're be it's you see this exquisite product. One of my favorite Instagram accounts is it's called Shitty Rigs. And I'm a photographer, so but it's for cinematographers. And it's all the hilarious ways that they've like rigged up their cameras and lighting because they didn't have the right, you know, crane. They didn't have the right thing and what to do. And there's like a there's a software version of that too where it's like yeah like you know the

27:49 output looks great but you have no idea like the hilarious sequence of like intermediate steps that we had to take to get to that output and you don't care and you shouldn't care because this is it's a production. It's funny this will be a good transition actually because obviously we got to talk about generative AI. It's it's a hugely important adjacent piece that's going to affect visual effects. It's going to affect storytelling. Um, and it's funny, some of the effects might actually not even be. There's so much uh energy going towards the artistic questions about it, which are fair and valid questions, but actually the workflow questions, you know, you might be able to crush these workflows and bringing these kind of kits together much more dynamically if you have it. When I think about the augments, you know, interacted uh interactive augmented reality storytelling where having an understanding of the physical context in

28:36 real time of a world that the that the storyteller has never seen and hasn't considered because it's the consumer's world. It's it's it's easy to adapt to those circumstances. Um there are all these pieces that feel impossible without impossible or economically improbable without some additional new technology that lets us to synthesize these things. So we'll cover both sides of it. Um at the highest level, how do you see you know generative AI uh as a uh contributor or uh a danger to this art and entertainment? You talked a little bit how it could be contributor.

29:13 some of these things um are just too expensive today so we don't do them. So if it makes them less expensive maybe that now becomes a story we can tell was before we couldn't tell the story. That's one piece. Are is there more that we're missing here?

29:27 Well I think [sighs] one thing both AI and generative AI as terms are are overused totally in many ways.

29:34 We they're inspecific at the very least. Yeah that's right. We we've been using AI for over a decade like machine learning in various areas bo both both to to optimize or improve processes uh facial performance tracking to make sure that an actor's performance is fully preserved when put on a character. Yep.

29:49 Um all the way through denoising which is basically generative AI. You have an input image and an output image of a different style. It has less noise.

29:56 That's right. And and and so little by little some of these workflows they just progressively are adopted when they're the right tool for the job.

30:04 Yeah. And like you were saying, leading with technology a lot of times uh either is wasteful or doesn't make sense or it doesn't help the creative like what exactly are we trying to solve? And so it's really again going back to that that best tool for the job as things evolve.

30:20 Um we want to maximize the number of tools that we have at our disposal and that the artist can use to do their job as well as possible to tell the best possible story. Now I think where there's risk I don't see that risk for us but I I do see that risk in general is that there's there's an interesting aspect that isn't that isn't very well studied which is how much the way in which you come up with the result affects the quality of the result.

30:49 Yeah. what kind of like friction was involved in figuring out the storytelling, the look, what you wanted out of it and if um you know in some UCD's like hitting a button type solution of like text to video

31:04 the friction goes away what the likelihood of having um the content being as good as it could be is lower.

31:11 Yeah. I think there's also a higher chance of constraints inspire where when you have a box uh you know we were talking earlier about like if the shark had worked better better in Jaws would it be a worse movie and and there's a little bit of that where it forces you creatively to uh not be completely unbounded for better or worse

31:32 uh but often leads to much better outcomes and and I think that's where there's a little risk where suddenly um you lose sight of what matters most is the storytelling good is the composition, the beats, etc.

31:45 And um the fear is being flooded with content is bad on something like YouTube or or elsewhere.

31:51 Yeah. Yeah. Uh on our end, we don't have our risk because our our our brand, our goal is executing a creative vision at the the highest level possible on time and on budget.

32:02 Yeah, that's right. Um, but so slop is like the furthest it could be from from what we but I think there is that risk of sometimes if

32:11 certain things are too easy uh you lose a little bit on that kind of push and pull that you get when working something out. Yeah, there's a one of the observations I've had about uh if you look at the history of technology, um humans constantly rediscover what it is to be human, what is uniquely ours, and then we kind of think we have it and then we have like some new technology and it challenges that notion and we find we don't find that we've lost our humanity. We find that there's like actually an even more fundamental piece.

32:40 There's a degree of faith you have to have in audiences here, you know. [clears throat] Um, I'm sure there are stories that can be generated at the push of a button that like audiences find entertaining or interesting or whatever the thing is. Um, in my head I it echoes with the story I told about Ancel Adams and photography where it's like yeah and then you have you have these you have the stories people tell will have to be even more outlandish to break through and we will discover through that process like an even more fundamental construct. But it is like the faith has to be in audiences like you have to trust an audience is going to like want the thing and that we as creatives uh well we as toolmakers but the larger audience of of creative storytellers will find those resonant im those resonant areas that are for whatever reason dark like they're just they're not lit up uh maybe not by the a

33:31 maybe not even in the history of human storytelling like they're just like they're latent they're available and they're interesting and they're compelling. Um, the biggest my biggest counterpoint to a lot of these like the push a button pieces is if you think about how tremendously big the audience is for example around a Star Wars or not to be entirely a home team like Harry Potter or uh Tolken like the tremendous audience is built over time and people cannot get enough of these stories like the the depth of desire they have to um to immerse themselves in these uh universes is is very these are big universes and they have nuance and they have rules that they're

34:12 and they have a really high bar for them. Very high bar and they have a compelling point of view that for for some reason is widely resonant. Right. Right. Like there's just we've told thousands and thousands and thousands of stories and sometimes some of them just arise above the others in terms of the resonance that they have, the longevity that they have um and the conccommatant conviction and audience they build. Um, and that feels that feels deeply human. You know, that's something that we talk about a lot in in our social network business is like these are communities that have formed around content. Content is the this like interesting piece of um a a piece of an artifact that exists in our world around which humans align themselves. Um, and you know, we think of it sometimes it's it's more naked when it's like a football team. Uh, and it's like, yeah, we're all out in the in literally in uniform like rooting for

35:01 it, but like no football team has the fan base that Star Wars has. Like, you know, like none of them do. Um, so I think it's a very interesting that's another part of this question for me is also, okay, in a world where the top of the content funnel is ever bigger because every person uh can tell whatever story, it's more competitive, it's harder. Um, but I feel like it doesn't I don't know how much it changes the bottom of the funnel, the ones that the resonant ones, they break through and the the connection that we feel around those,

35:33 right? Yeah. I I entirely agree with that. Uh, and I I think it's interesting the the the three that you mentioned, like there's Harry Potter, Lord of Rings, or or Star Wars,

35:45 those are huge, big budget. Uh, but then there's also the the the bottom of the funnel for just highly creative, really good content. Like

35:54 we work on Star Wars, but we also work on sinners and us and movies like that where you you make some of these stories possible that again wouldn't have been possible before and that people crave because they're they're unique. They tap into something that is not just the drudgery that they see all the time.

36:10 I think that's the competitive advantage for both studios and people executing the work is um focusing on those things that stand out in a way. Uh what's really interesting to me too in storytelling is like there's like you know five classic stories that you just tell in different ways. But I think that's also where you you deeply connect to human emotion and to that aspect of feeling good about uh like being a hero doing right or things like that that you're also putting something into the world that I think helps you navigate the world. Yeah.

36:40 where, you know, we're not curing cancer, but there's an aspect of uh positivity and like what kind of human do you want to be that stories and film and interactive that that that helps be a mirror for that and helps drive you, I think, in positive directions. I do think I feel really good about there being aligned incentives for like you're saying, how do you differentiate yourself if the funnel is that big? You differentiate yourself by creating things that are really great.

37:08 Yeah. And that that means that from a business point of view, there's an incentive to do something better and different, which is which is exciting.

37:15 Yeah, this is an interesting point. It's al it's not just one funnel. There's a fun maybe there's one funnel for the Lord of the Ringses and the Star Warses of the world, but actually what's cool about the modern landscape is there's like infinity funnels like like every per like you know, you can in a way that really wasn't possible 20 years ago. you can tell a story and if it's even resonant with a small audience, it has a chance of finding that audience, which was not previously the case. Um, so yeah, no, super fascinating. I'm really eager to see how it plays out. I'm really excited about the potential to increase the amount of stories that can be told. I think that's a I'm very fascinated to see what we do with that.

37:52 Um, but I share everyone else's anxiety about what is the how do we on the audience side manage this tremendous uh top offunnel influx of content in a way that we still get connected with the stuff that we care the most about uh in the end the things that that are resonant with us in the end.

38:08 Right. Right. We've gone through so many of these things here. Let me share how we're doing. Storytelling. Yes, we've done that. State of the art of AI uh and creativity and visual effects. We've done that. This is one I'm pretty excited. This is this is more of a quickfire question but it's a fun one. I love whenever I talk to somebody who has, you know, really reached a super high level of in their craft, I kind of like to know what they see as the pinnacle. What are the things that impress you? So, when you think when you look at um visual effects in film and you go back and you think of all of whether you've been involved in them, you're you're welcome either way to to tell your own work. When you think about all the visual effects you've seen in film, what stands out to you in your memory as like that was an unbelievable achievement in film.

38:55 Yeah, it's I think there's a difference between what was the hardest to accomplish or what was the best visual effects versus what what resonated what had what you might have an emotional connection with. I would go with the one where you as an audience member, not not you as a technician necessarily, you as an audience member were like, "Wow, that was like spectacularly well done. It like so it's a combination of like the achievement and the resonance of that achievement for what it did for the for the thing."

39:25 Yeah. I It's hard to pick your favorite. I'm sure it occurs me now. I'm probably asking you to pick between work that your colleagues all did or just tougher. Well, and it's also so growing up, I was really into horror films. Uh, and and so a lot of what I initially wanted to do was like uh makeup effects, transformation, miniatures that you blow up, the going from the Roger Corman's, the world to uh all the way through. And so I early on, one of the things that impressed me the most were uh the special effects and John Carpenters is a thing. So this is Rob Boutin. Stan Winston also worked on that, but it also had a mix of different things including so one of the scenes is the they're trying one of the the characters collapsed. They're trying to bring him back to life with like paddles and as they're they're uh doing the shocks, the entire chest opens up, bites off the person's hands, chaos ensues,

40:21 the head falls off, legs grow, and it walks off like a spider. And so all of that is a mix of like stopotion and miniature and animatronic and all these things. And that to me was one of the things of like I want to do all of that.

40:33 That's awesome. Um the the I I'll mention a couple others that uh cuz one we we mentioned like special effects and visual effects are all about cheating. We're like

40:45 we're just filming it from this camera angle or or we're just seeing these things. How do you get that done most efficiently in the highest level of quality possible? And this is kind of niche, but the um uh Escape from New York.

40:56 Okay. Where like Snake Bliskin has to fly into New York, which is this like prison uh also a Darn Carbon movie actually. Um and we could do computerenerated imagery at the time, like the kind of wireframe art that was even in Star Wars, but they couldn't really afford it. It would have taken too long. So, they basically did these black boxes with white retroreflective tape around the edges, lit it up, and graded it green, and it just looked like a wireframe of a 3D model that's playing back on the ship's point of view,

41:25 and and you would never guess that it was not done on a computer, but it was done practically to look like

41:30 That's really funny. They just literally put black boxes with the reflective tape, shot it that way,

41:33 and and it looks like a wireframe. That's really funny. Um but yeah, that that an arrowin of physically boxing up a wireframe was cheaper than doing

41:42 Right. Right. So that we probably wouldn't do today. No, that was that's pretty amazing.

41:46 But um no, I I think all those evolutions um I I I mean sorry I'm going to ramble it. Uh the the one where I was most impressed um uh I think in a in a more in I was going to say slightly more modern era but not quite digital is in Return of the Jedi. There's at the very end the space battle when the Millennium Falcon arrives. Uh there's a point of view from the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon with all the TIE fighters like flying away and then you see a wide shot of the entire battle and optical compositing just made that possible at a scale where like

42:22 it catches your breath. Like it it you're like, "Oh my god, how did they do that?"

42:27 Yeah. Incredible. Yeah, absolutely. I know ex I know exactly the shot. And and then you know, obviously down the road then there's the tipping point into more into more CG. And I know a lot of people mention Jurassic Park as a key milestone. For me, it was Terminator 2. Yeah. Where really that that embedding of like CG for the right reasons and at a level of quality where you're like you're really leaning into what's possible with the technology, not like overusing it.

42:51 It was it's to the And I can't believe how well it holds up. I watched it again recently and it's pretty staggering how good T2 was.

42:59 That's right. Or the T1000 the you know the how how good he metal. Liquid metal to this day. Like I'm like staggering. By the way, great villain, too. What a terrifying concept of a villain just like magically

43:11 runs after you without stopping. Reconitates itself no matter what happens. There's some uh AI allegorories in there.

43:16 Yeah, that's right. No, it's it's a concern. We'll keep an eye on that one. The other character really holds up is Davy Jones like Pirates of the Caribbean. That was the one time where you of course it's CG. There's no other way they could have done it,

43:27 but you don't even think about it. Yeah. It it just feels like you feel that human emotion, that detail.

43:32 Yeah. They were so clever with the interactions, too. like when he pulls the the key and it's he's using his tentacles to pull the key and Yeah. Yeah. There's a real cleverness to how much they leaned on that uh character having that affect in their face.

43:44 That's right. Yeah. Yeah. This is exactly what I like. See this this is like I just for completeness my what I say about this is uh the thing that got me into artificial intelligence as a kid was playing the game video game Metal Gear Solid but MGS3 and they had their AIs in retrospect actually don't hold up. They were very dumb. But like you, you know, if you left footprints in the snow, they would like follow the footprints. And it was like you actually felt like you like had to be slightly clever to out. It was the first time you had to be clever to to outplay an NPC, right? Before that, you're just like, "Oh, I'm standing behind the NPC and like I can stay here as long as they want. They'll never find me." Um that was like so yeah I I I think anyone who gets super deep into any area though has like an origin story and then has like pieces of work that maybe the casual person doesn't respect how hard that was

44:32 or how how hugely successful this effect was and then you see then but you have become an expert and you like you can kind of see those things.

44:39 Um okay this is wonderful. Thank you for joining me. I appreciate you having enjoyed this. I I enjoyed it too and I I really was so grateful for the partnership that we've had uh bringing, you know, these wonderful universes into the immersive space. So, thank you for for taking that leap with us and finding these new new storytelling medium.

44:54 Look forward to more. Uh Fran, where should people follow you if they want to learn more about the latest of what's going on uh with Lucasfilm uh industrial light and magic or you yourself? Obviously, definitely follow all of our kind of social media PR uh channels for Lucasfilm, Industrial Light Magic, Skywalker Sound. Uh lots of fun stuff posted there. Uh I'm a little less active online, but F.Cheartan first initial last name on threads and Instagram. You can find me there.

45:20 Well, wonderful. And you have really a really unfair advantage in terms of the content you guys get to put out on your social media channels compared to the rest of us. So, I do recommend those as follows. Um everyone, uh this has been Bos to the Future. You can listen to it wherever you listen to find podcasts and I will see you in the future.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Boz To The Future # 24: The Future According to Francois Chardavoine"?

Francois Chardavoine (Host).

What is "Boz To The Future # 24: The Future According to Francois Chardavoine" about?

The discussion focuses on the intersection of technology and storytelling within the film industry, featuring insights from Francois Chardavoine, the CTO of Lucasfilm and ILM. Chardavoine shares his journey of entering the film world through technology, highlighting how his passion for storytelling drives his work and the historical relationship between art and technology in filmmaking.

What is mentioned in this Meta episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Francois Shardivoan, Lucasfilm, Star Wars, Industrial Light and Magic, Ed Catmull, Terminator 2. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Boz To The Future # 24: The Future According to Francois Chardavoine"?

The episode runs 46 min; the transcript is about 9,530 words in 130 timestamped sections.

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