Showing posts with label skywalker ranch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skywalker ranch. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Fire reported at Skywalker Ranch


Sadly, no sound news today. Yesterday afternoon a chimney fire started at the Main House in Skywalker Ranch.

“The private Skywalker fire crew called for help from the Marin County Fire Department, which called for backup firefighters from San Rafael. No one was injured, said county fire Battalion Chief Mike Giannini. The cause was under investigation, but Giannini said the fire apparently started in the area of a fireplace.
Giannini said the extra firefighters were called in to make sure the fire didn't spread throughout the building.”

According to a Lucasfilm spokeswoman, the fire incident caused  “little to no damage”.
You can read more about it here.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

G4TV visits Skywalker Ranch




Hello there 2011, we are back for some more. If I'm not wrong (the camera moves a bit hectically so I'm not 100% sure), the room that Matthew Wood shows, used to be the sound designer room mainly used by Gary Rydstrom and later on by Randy Thom.

There is little to be learned from this, but it is always neat to catch a fresh glimpse from the ranch and the great people that work there.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Happy Holidays!

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Hello there skywalkers. Again, I apologize for the long absence of new posts, more on that in a bit.

My last post was a very well received tour of Skywalker Ranch. Recently, professional photographer and filmmaker Philip Bloom did an awesome video of the ranch. It’s not much of a tour as it is more of a beautiful display of breathtaking imagery in superb quality.

You can read all about it’s making and Philip’s visit to the ranch over here.


And as a sounding present for our readership I bring you “Alma”, an excellent animated short by Pixar animator Rodrigo Blaas.
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Sound services provided by Skywalker Sound. With sound design by Tom Myers (my personal favorite) and David Hughes.

By the way, “alma” is not only the girl’s name but also a spanish word that means “soul”.

Finally, I wanted to talk a bit about the blog. Since I’m clearly not getting any extra spare time, I would like to see if any of our readers would like to jump in and help me keep this blog updated. You wouldn’t have to search for information or material, as for the most part I have accumulated information for a year worth of blogging. As for news, they also come my way. So, basically I would need someone who would like to write and put a blog post together. The only requirements would be an interest in Skywalker Sound affairs and a minimum knowledge of professional audio, since some blog posts might require a little bit of tech-talk. For anyone interested, be so kind to contact me.

Oh, I almost forgot. Be sure to check out James Cameron’s Avatar (as if you needed to be told), which also features Skywalker Sound’ services and Chris Boyes sound design.

Happy holidays!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Skywalker Ranch Tour (#1)

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Hello there. So, yesterday I was watching Fanboys (which was mixed at Skywalker Sound. Sound design by David Acord and Matthew Wood as supervising sound editor. Very neat movie indeed.) and I thought I should really blog about Skywalker Ranch.

Skywalker Ranch is the filmmaking paradise created by George Lucas. Contrary to popular belief Mr.Lucas doesn’t live in the Ranch (altough he probably stays there on occasion, he owns it after all). It is located in Marin County, near Nicassio, California.

View Larger Map
Naturally, the ranch is not open to the public and there are no paid tours or things like that.
Here is what it looks like to enter the ranch at night. The video is from the Haxan Films crew (creators of Blair Witch Project) who went to mix their latest film Seventh Moon. This actually looks a bit scary and BlairWitchProject-esque:


And now some pictures! The entrance to the ranch:
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A map of the whole ranch:ranchmap
The view from the Main House:180642004_ea750267ba_b
Skywalker Ranch’s own fire truck:182978417_c3798dc32e_b
The Main House in the distance:20026
The Main House:20038
Ewok Lake:
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Somewhere in the ranch:20092
The Technical Building, house of Skywalker Sound:2298821428_ecd515cb6a
The Produce:2422635286_11c9e093e7_b
Skywalker animals:257908149_764a71b732_b
A panoramic view of the Ewok Lake and it’s surroundings:

And that’s all for today I’m afraid. I have tons of more pictures that I’m going to be sharing in the coming weeks.