The Force Behind
Turning Design Ideas into Reality

Description:
You!ve got an idea. Maybe it!s a new idea for a web application.
Maybe it!s a new product idea you need to push through your
organization. The question is: How do you turn an idea into reality?
ll
To answer this question, we!ll look at the making of Star Wars. We!
look behind the scenes at what it took to get George Lucas!s space
fantasy from script to screen. From assembling the right team to
into
navigating the Hollywood corporate studio environment to tapping
powerful universal patterns—speaker Stephen P. Anderson will
n
present a dozen lessons UX designers (and developers!) can all lear
from this adventure.
be
Not adventurous enough? In the spirit of the season, Stephen will
raiding his garage to give away some great Star Wars prizes!

= Dreamer

(Video Clip - Intro from ‘Empire of Dreams’)

A year ago in a library not too
far away....

http://markup.thekraemers.com/2006/11/21/the-prototyping-of-star-wars-2/

x
What other
lessons can we learn
from the making of
Star Wars?

x
What other
lessons can we learn
from the making of
-I won’t be quoting from SW
-there are 15 lessons
Star Wars?
-I’ll be moving briskly
-Expect too many quotes!
-not much tactical stuff, just stories and principles
-Yes, I am a SW geek
-I’m assuming I’m among other SW geeks...

You are a dreamer.
You have an idea.
How do you make
this idea reality?
-skywalker-scaled-replica-lightsaber.jpg

Lesson Two:
Lesson I:
TAP INTOLORUM IPSUM
UNIVERSAL PATTERNS

When I started out making the movies,
I was working toward making it modern
mythology. I had studied anthropology
in college, and social sciences was my
major before I got into film...
I did more research before I wrote the
screenplay for Star Wars. I read and
reread The Hero With A Thousand
Faces.
-George Lucas

Mythic Patterns?
Typically, the hero is the orphaned son or
royalty. Unaware of his true identity, he is
consigned to a life of drudgery and exile.
He is first called to adventure by a herald,
signifying that \"the time for the passing of
a threshold is at hand\" (p.51). The
threshold represents a rebirth into
adulthood; the hero or heroine must
overcome the parents, who stand as
\"threshold guardians.\"

Mythic Patterns? (continued)
Along the way, the hero often encounters
a protective figure, \"some wizard, hermit,
shepherd, or smith, who appears to
supply the amulets and advice that the
hero will require....The call, in fact, was
the first announcement of the approach of
this initiatory priest\" (pp. 72-73).

Mythic Patterns? (continued)
Once he leaves the safe boundaries of the
farm, Luke can never go back. As the attack
of the Sandpeople shows him, the world is a
desert place filled with danger, but only by
abandoning the security he had known,
leaving the womb of his childhood, can he
enter the adult world. Luke at first refuses
the call to adventure, but joins Ben when he
discovers that, in his absence, Darth Vader's
Stormtroopers have burned the farm and
killed his aunt and uncle.

Different eras. Different heroes. Same mythic qualities.

“Last year's action movie is last
year's action movie. Most of them
are forgotten. Something mythical
like Star Wars endures...
The stories speak to something
inside us that wants to know how
our world lives, that wants to make
order of it and find some meaning.”
Shanti Fader, editor of Parabola magazine, a publication of
the Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition.

What universal patterns can we tap into?

What universal patterns can we tap into?
To create a better story,
Lucas looked to anthropology.

What universal patterns can we tap into?
To create a better story,
Lucas looked to anthropology.
To create a better product,
We can look to ____________.

To become a better designer, become a
better student of human interactions...
Focus less on the end design, and more
on the effects and results of the design.
Tap into universal human patterns.

Lesson II:
Lesson Two:
GAIN CREDIBILITY WITH A
LORUM IPSUM
‘COMMERCIAL’ PROJECT

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id George Lucas
hat 2 movies d
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fore Star Wars?
make be

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id George Lucas
hat 2 movies d
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fore Star Wars?
make be
A: THX-1138 & American Graffiti

X

original short won first prize at the 1967-68
National Student Film Festival
When Warner Brothers executives saw the
finished product, they demanded Coppola
return the $300,000 the studio had
advanced for THX 1138 and other projects...
full feature film well received by critics
failure at the box office

Coppola challenged Lucas:
‘I bet you can’t do just a silly comedy’
“Graffiti would be cheap, it was quick,
and I thought it was really commercial”
- George Lucas

!

3rd highest grossing film for that year
Nominated for five Academy Awards
Won a Golden Globe

After Graffiti became a big hit, they
couldn’t refuse it...
They couldn’t not do it. Just in terms
of politics and the political intrigue of
Hollywood. That’s what it came down
to in the end.
George Lucas

Got a big idea?
Prove your skills with
something smaller, first.
(this puts you in a much better position, later)

Lesson Two:
Lesson III:
DEVELOP BUSINESS FLUENCY
LORUM IPSUM

He didn’t care for the studio system.
But he needed it, there was no other
way of doing what he needed to do.
Gareth Wigan

To protect the other 2/3rds
of the story
l
“The Star Wars Corporation will
own... all sequel rights [to] the
screenplay ‘The Star Wars.’”
“SWC shall have the sole and
exclusive rights to use... the
name ‘The Star Wars’ in
connection with wholesale or
retail outlets for the sale of
merchandising items.”
l Star Wars
To promote
(T-Shirts, Posters, etc.)

When you think of
‘business fluency’
what comes to mind?

Business fluency has two sides— cultural
and conceptual—and to successfully attract
investment designers need both pieces.
Conceptual fluency means understanding
the vocabulary of business and what ideas
underlie business measures of its health,
like profit and loss.
Cultural fluency means navigating
relationships, politics, power structure,
emotional decision making, and
organizational thinking.
Jess McMullin, “Investing in Design”

Lesson Two:
Lesson IV:
FIND A PATRON
LORUM IPSUM

‘Patron’ could be...
an outside investor
an outside advisor
someone high up in
the organization

We had a meeting, and George said
well I’ve been thinking about this thing
called Star Wars...
The technology part of the whole thing
was completely over my head. But, I
just believed in him, his genius.
Alan Ladd, Jr.,
VP of Creative
Affairs at Fox in
1975

(Video Clip - Interviews with Alan Ladd, Jr. )

Alan Ladd, Jr invested in me.
He did not invest in the movie.
And it paid off.
George Lucas

SOMEONE...
ld
from the business worcounsel
providing financial support or business
WHO
is influential
can defend your efforts against criticism
trusts and supports you
won’t interfere with the project

Lesson V:
Lesson Two:
ASSEMBLE THEIPSUM TEAM
LORUM RIGHT

“First, get the right people on the bus...”
-Jim Collins

If people are on the bus because of who
else is on the bus, then it’s much easier to
change direction...
...if you have the right people on the bus,
the problem of how to motivate and
manage people largely goes away.
Jim Collins,
commenting on
patterns of
‘Good to Great’
companies

All of us had worked with each other
and were pretty good friends...
And we talked to each other on a
weekly basis just as friends. When
John put the crew together, he put it
together instantaneously, at least the
nucleus of it.
Grant McCune,
commenting on
the origins of ILM

In forming ILM, Lucas pulled
people who worked on
commercials and architectural
models – not feature film makers.
He also kept this team
‘autonomous’, with artistic
decisions coming only from
himself and two others.

a new kind of
project needs...
In forming ILM, Lucas pulled
people who worked on
commercials and architectural
models – not feature film makers.
He also kept this team
‘autonomous’, with artistic
decisions coming only from
himself and two others.

a new kind of a different
project needs... type of person
lLucas pulled
In forming ILM,
people who worked on
commercials and architectural
models – not feature film makers.
He also kept this team
‘autonomous’, with artistic
decisions coming only from
himself and two others.

a new kind of a different
project needs... type of person
lLucas pulled
In forming ILM,
people who worked on
commercials and architectural
models – not feature film makers.
He also kept this team
‘autonomous’, with artistic
decisions coming only from
himself and two others.
led in a
manag
different way

The right people often
approach problems a bit
differently...

Everybody sort of cross-trained and
worked in different techniques. That
was different than the Hollywood
system that had very strict sort of
union rules. But there was no way
that this work could be done that way,
or that the Hollywood unions could
understand what we were doing…
Dennis Muren

“Broad and Deep Generalists”
People who are ...
Passionate
Curious
“Synthesizers”
VS.
Siloed Disciplines
Usability/
Information Interaction Visual Front-End Back-End
Researchers Human
Architects Designers Designers Developers Developers
Factors

And in front of the camera?

I spent 6 or 7 months casting
Star Wars… I interviewed
1,000s of people
George Lucas

Lucas looked for individual
screen presence as well as
chemistry together

He also mixed in a few
established actors

Lesson Two:
Lesson VI:
IT’S LORUM IPSUM
OKAY TO BORROW

Darth Vader Date Masamune

e!
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p ic film by Akira
Name a specif
vily influenced
rosawa that hea
Ku
f Star Wars...
the plot o

Hidden Fortress was an influence on
Star Wars right from the very beginning…
I was searching around for a story. I had
some scenes- the cantina scene and the
space battle scene—but I couldn’t think of a
basic plot. Originally, the film was a good
concept in search of a story. And then I
thought of Hidden Fortress, which I’d seen
again in 1972 or ’73, and so the first plots
were very much like it.
George Lucas

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
features the exploits of C-3PO and R2-
D2, whereas the plot of The Hidden
Fortress is told from the point of view of
two bickering peasants. The two
peasants, Tahei and Matashichi, are first
shown escaping a battle, while C-3PO
and R2-D2 are first shown fleeing an
attack in A New Hope. Additionally, both
films feature a battle-tested General --
Rokurota Makabe in The Hidden Fortress
and Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope --
who assist a rebellion led by a princess
and engage in a duel with a former rival
whom they fought years earlier.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_sources_and_analogues

“
The secret to creativity
is knowing how to hide
your sources.
Albert Einstein

Video Clip - Showing how ILM matched
frame-for-frame aerial dogfights from old
WW2 films that Lucas spliced together)

It’s okay to be ‘influenced
by...’ ‘intentionally reference,
or borrow/modify very specific
design elements.
It’s not okay to rip off
someone else’s work.

http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/000016.html
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/copy-great-designers-steal

Lesson VII:
CONFRONT YOUR WEAKNESSES

QUICK MINI-ASSIGNMENT:
What is something you
are weak at?
Challenge yourself. Turn
that into an assignment.

This is from 1975:
In film school, I tended away from
storytelling; I just didn’t like it… I thought
that maybe I hated it so much because I
couldn’t do it. This is one of the reasons
why with Star Wars I want to attempt a
storytelling film.
George Lucas

Lesson VIII:
EMBRACE CONSTRAINTS

constraints force you
to see things differently
(and often result in more creative solutions)

e!
e!
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this have
hat does
W
r Wars?
o with Sta
to d

“Graflex 3-Cell
Flashgun”
“Luke’s
Lightsaber”

“Denix C96 Mauser”
“Han Solo’s
Blaster”

(same hallway for many scenes!)

Instead of freaking out about
these constraints, embrace them.
Let them guide you. Constraints
drive innovation and force focus.
Instead of trying to remove them,
use them to your advantage...
Constraints are often advantages
in disguise. Forget about venture
capital, long release cycles, and
quick hires. Instead, work with
what you have.
http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch03_Embrace_Constraints.php

Man built most nobly when
limitations were at their
greatest.
Frank Lloyd Wright:

Lesson IX:
MAKE THE INVISIBLE, VISIBLE

It wasn’t until George acted it out or
told you what a Wookie was, and
what it was going to look like, that it
started to make sense. Because it was
really a universe that nobody could
understand from the scripts.
Willard Huyck (c. 1975)

I think they were done as a
substitute for arm waving and
verbal descriptions, and to start
budget talks.
Ralph McQuarrie
So the studio can get a picture
of what I’m talking about.
George Lucas

Prototypes get people
excited. And they clarify.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quadmod/523335664/

“The tools traditionally used to communicate
strategy— spreadsheets and powerpoint decks—
are woefully inadequate for the task...”
-Tim Brown, IDEO

“...because it’s pictorial, Design describes the world
in a way that is not open to many interpretations.
Designers, by making a film, scenario, or prototype,
can help people emotionally experience the thing
that the strategy seeks to describe.”
-Tim Brown, IDEO

e!
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The Falcon's design is inspired by...?

e!
e!
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p
The Falcon's design is inspired by...?
a hamburger, with the cockpit
being an olive on the side.

Lesson X:
BE PASSIONATE, BE PREPARED
TO GO AT IT ALONE, AND EXPECT
THINGS TO GO WRONG

Few people believed in the script
2nd day of shooting, the Sahara had the first
major rainfall in 50 years!
ILM ran behind schedule
Many technical problems with robots
Lucas had to go to the hospital at one point
Film came close to being shelved

“
It was very hard for us to wrap
our heads around the idea of a
golden robot and a little beer
can. We just didn’t know what it
meant. But George never gave
up and he worked and worked
and worked.
Hal Barwood

It was the first two weeks of shooting, we
had run into a lot of weather problems,
the sets had blown down, I didn’t get
everything shot. It was a disaster.
At that point, I was pretty depressed.
saying ‘Boy, I’ve gotten myself way in
over my head. I don’t know what I’m
going to do...’
George Lucas

...they [ILM] had pretty much spent half
their budget and only produced 4 shots,
none of which I would accept.
George Lucas

Video Clip - footage from ‘Empire of Dreams’
showing various struggles Lucas went through...

“
“It is amazing what you can do when
you have a vision, when you have an
ambition, and when you can bend
other people’s will to your desire.
And the thing that kept it focused
towards the ambitions was George’s
vision and his passion for the ideas.”
Harisson Ford

Lesson XI:
Lesson Two:
LET THE VISION DRIVE THE
LORUM IPSUM
TECHNOLOGY

Three letters: ILM

“
Don’t worry about how we’re
going to do it, we just want to
see an impression of what these
scenes are going to look like on
the screen...
George Lucas,
speaking to
Ralph McQuarrie
about concept
paintings for
Star Wars

We started out with almost no
experience in building models in
this quantity or this type...
Grant McCune

We took the concept of motion
control... and we made it production
savvy, by tying it into a computer,
which at that point was custom built
microprocessors. There were no PCs...
We built them from scratch.
John Dykstra

Focus on people and interactions. Not interfaces.

Design first. Build later.

“How do people think?
Technology should map to that.
—Rashmi Sinha

How applications are traditionally designed:
User Interface
Logic
Data
(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

How applications are traditionally designed:
User Interface
Logic
Data
(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

How customers view an application
User Interface
Magic!
(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

How modern applications are designed:
User Interface
Logic
Data
(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

How modern applications are designed:
User Interface
Logic
Data
(Visual explanation from Adaptive Path)

Lesson XII:
GET THE DETAILS RIGHT / KNOW
WHEN TO LET GO

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hese two fonts.
ame either of t
N

e!
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hese two fonts.
ame either of t
N
A: Trade Gothic (top), Franklin Gothic
(bottom)

“The details are not the details. They make the design.”
-Charles Eames

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http://www.jasonsantamaria.com/archive/2006/01/05/under_the_loupe_1_white_space.php

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/the_long_road_to_simple_creating_debating_and_iterating_add_an_event.php

I’m realistic enough to know
you have to make compromises
when filmmaking, but if I can
avoid them, I will.
George Lucas

Lesson XIII:
FOCUS ON HOW, NOT JUST WHAT

What’s the difference?

Video Clip - Showing the radical
difference between the first and final
edits of Star Wars footage

Before:
After:
(No change in logic or data)

Obsess about
customer needs
Experience
Solution: “Experience-Based Differentiation”
Based
Differentiation
Treat UX as Reinforce brand
a competence with every
interaction

Obsess about customer needs, not
product features. Rather than racing
to bring new product features to
market, companies need to refocus
on the needs of their customers —
who might even want fewer features.
-Forrester Research

Lesson XIV:
Lesson Two:
DONT GET ATTACHED TO
LORUM IPSUM
YOUR FIRST IDEA

Iterate! Iterate! Iterate!

e! g the script for
e! Prior to writin
re George Lucas
fz Star Wars,
to make a film
i iginally wanted
r or
lar sci-fi series?
p of what popu

e! g the script for
e! Prior to writin
re George Lucas
fz Star Wars,
to make a film
i iginally wanted
r or
lar sci-fi series?
p of what popu

I wrote four entirely different
screenplays for Star Wars,
searching for just the right
ingredients, characters and
storyline.
George Lucas

Darth Vader originally wore a mask to
allow him to breath while space walking!
Star Wars was originally set in the 33rd
century
Original script starts with Annikin
Starkiller spotting a spacecraft orbiting
the fourth moon of Utapau, where he is
hiding with Kane, his father, and Deak,
his ten-year-old brother.
In the second draft, it is a Deak
Starkiller-- not princess Leia-- that is
captured and help captive by Lord Vader

In the rough and first drafts, General
Luke Skywalker is described as a large
man “apparently in his early sixties but
actually much older”
It was during filming that Lucas decided
to kill off the Obi Wan Kenobi
character...!
At one one point, Han Solo had green
skin and gills
In the 2nd draft, Luke was a girl
In early concepts, Stormtroopers carried
lightsabers!

I remember thinking that the
first script he showed me was
really good and I was sort of
curious as to why he was, you
know, dumping that.
Francis Ford Coppola

http://garrettdimon.com/archives/2007/9/23/webmaster_jam_session_2007_again/

The iPhone developed the way a lot of
cool things do: with a false start. A few
years ago Jobs noticed how many
development dollars were being spent...
on tablet PCs.
...so he had Apple engineers noodle
around with a tablet PC. When they
showed him the touchscreen they came up
with, he got excited. So excited he forgot
all about tablet computers.
“The Apple Of Your Ear,” TIME Magazine, January 12, 2007

Lesson XV:
EMBRACE YOUR COMMUNITY

Friends:
Francis Ford Coppola
Brian De Palma
Steven Spielberg
John Milius
Hal Barwood
Haskell Wexler
Francis Ford Coppola
Phil Kaufman
etc.

I usually help them with their
editing and they help me in my
scriptwriting. They give me all their
ideas and comments and whatnot,
then I go back and try to deal with
it. All of us have crossover
relationships, and we are constantly
showing each other what we are
doing and trying to help each other.
George Lucas

Dallas Ruby Brigade

Thanks!

ME MY PERSONAL SITE
THE BEST WAY TO REACH ME
Stephen P. Anderson / www.poetpainter.com