This is about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanimate" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanimate</a> an analog video synth.<p>I had hoped that it was about a mechanical optical printer that could composite and project multiple film images.<p>The closest thing I can think of was a multihead, aerial-image optical printer built by Ub Iwerks for Disney.<p>If anyone has knowledge of such devices I love to hear it. Apparently it could composite text, animation and live images.<p><a href="http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/2015/10/optical-effects-magical-moments.html" rel="nofollow">http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.com/2015/10/optical-effects...</a>
When he says the Scanimate had a scene in the first Star Wars, he most certainly means the Death Star plans animation shown during the briefing before the Trench Run. Nothing else in Star Wars looks like what this crazy machine outputs.<p>I knew that the plans show an equatorial "cannon" because the scene used an earlier design of the Death Star, but I didn’t know it used an analog machine to make them. I wrongly assumed it was made by a digital computer.
Probably worth pointing at Dave Sieg's own YouTube channel: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHjkMThH0aE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHjkMThH0aE</a>
Someone should show this guy blender's (or similar software's) node based shader and now geometry pipelines. I bet he'd love how you can similarly play with "dials" and sliders to view realtime changes in visuals and shapes.<p>What a beautiful machine.
Anyone else notice the Bob Dobbs, Church of the SubGenius logo, on the monitor behind Dave Sieg's head in several of the shots? So rare, the logo's placement in this documentary piece is them being cheeky.