In June of 2008, roofers accidentally started a fire on the backlot of NBC Universal Studios in Hollywood, CA. The resulting blaze gutted acres of sets and sound stages from numerous well known motion pictures. Just about all that remained standing that I recognized was the scorched facade of the clock tower from "Back to the Future". The rest was piles of twisted, charred debris.
About a week later I spoke with Jack G. Taylor Jr. Jack has been an Art Director on numerous award winning films and has worked with some of the finest directors in Hollywood (more info on Jack can be found here). Back in 2007, I was honored to present a session with him at Autodesk University entitled "Revit Architecture for Film and Stage". Jack deeply cares about his industry and believes that the use of BIM (and in particular Revit) can have a positive impact if well implemented by thought leaders that understand his profession.
Through our discussion, I learned that Jack and other industry veterans were being brought together to redesign the backlot; aka, Project Phoenix. And he wanted to know if we could discuss how they could approach the project using Revit. And it wouldn't be an all Revit project - because they needed to work quickly and with people that had decades of experience honing traditional design and industry methods.
The project would also be extremely complex. Encompassing more than 12 blocks (around 5 acres), each block would represent numerous architectural styles. Documentation would be an exacting assemblage of both traditional and digital techniques. For example, a detail callout in Revit might reference a full-size, beautifully hand-drawn Ionic column capital which would be scanned from a drawing that was so old and fragile that it was almost too delicate to touch.
Less than a year later, construction is now well underway (hopefully I'll post some images in the next few days) and the results are fantastic.
If you're interested in voting for the session it's here. Jack and I will be presenting the session together:
The Rise of the Phonix: The Design and Construction of NBC Universal Studios Backlot with Autodesk Revit.
I really hadn't considered presenting at AU this year. But Jack's manner and enthusiasm easily won me over. And seeing the photos of the re-construction rekindled an appreciation for architectural style, proportion and attention to detail that is so often missing. Kind of makes you wonder what really is facade and what is truly lasting. Or as the saying goes, "Film is Forever".
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