It whizzes by so fast that nobody notices it. Now Chiang and his colleagues turn directors' ideas into drawings that establish each film's look. For Back To The Future II, set in 2015, the idea was to design everything with a 1 950s feel but a futuristic twist. Chiang holds up a pre-production drawing by fellow artist John Bell for a future McDonald's eatery, staffed by robots. Another drawing shows tomorrow's taxicab, a flying 1959 Citroen.
Ideas come from odd sources.
Freeway lampposts have inspired the shapes of the spaceships. That, he said, was how Jabba should look. Artists sculpted tiny prototypes, inches high, for Lucas to examine. The final Jabba was an amalgamation of several prototypes, a big latex puppet worked by cables. Also, their studio's furnishings include a pencil the size of a baseball bat and an Uzi squirt gun.