George Lucas Plans To Build Digital Film Production Studio In Northern California

George Lucas wants to build a new state of the art digital film production studio in Northern California. Lucas has asked Marin County to consider plans to build a 262,728-square-foot building that would house a maxim of 340 employees at the former Grady Ranch in Lucas Valley.

Thomas Forster, the former director of operations for Skywalker Properties, says that the new building would "gives us that we don't currently have in Marin is a digital production space for actual shooting, a few large rooms to do digital blue or green screen work."

Before anyone gets excited, I should disclose that this isn't enough space to shoot the new Star Wars live-action television show. That is, unless the whole show is filmed completely with computer created backgrounds. And it is Lucas, so you never know. But a Sin City/Sky Captain production would probably be too costly. The LucasFilm facility in San Francisco's Presidio houses a complete motion/performance/green screen capture studio which is used for LucasArts video games and some Industrial Light and Magic effects work.

Some residents in Marin are taking issue with the new building's design, particularly two 85-foot towers at the front. In a letter to the county of Marin, Nona Dennis, president of the Marin Conservation League, wrote, "The Lucasfilm proposal continues to be massive in scale, requiring equally massive excavation. It will add an influx of daily traffic on Lucas Valley Road, and it presents an esthetic intrusion on the landscape."

source: marinij