Hollywood Popular Artists

Oct 1st 2013, 13:46, by Kevin P. Sullivan

It was the joke that everyone was making once J.J. Abrams signed onto "Star Wars: Episode VII." "There are going to be so many lens flares on the Millennium Falcon." It was all very clever on everyone's part,* but there are two things you should know about J.J. Abrams.

1) The man obviously loves lens flares.
2) He's pretty self-aware.

In a recent interview with Crave Online (via io9), Abrams revealed that he also noticed the over-use of the aesthetic in "Star Trek Into Darkness."

Read what he had to say after the jump!

"I know I get a lot of grief for that. But I'll tell you, there are times when I'm working on a shot, I think, 'Oh this would be really cool... with a lens flare.' But I know it's too much, and I apologize," he said. "I'm so aware of it now. I was showing my wife an early cut of 'Star Trek Into Darkness' and there was this one scene where she was literally like, 'I just can't see what's going on. I don't understand what that is.' I was like, 'Yeah, I went too nuts on this.' "

How bad did Abrams' addiction to lens flares get? He had to have ILM remove some of them. "This is how stupid it was — I actually had to use ILM [Industrial Light & Magic] to remove lens flare in a couple of shots, which is, I know, moronic. But I think admitting you're an addict is the first step towards recovery."

Does this mean we might see Abrams rein in the lens flares for "Star Wars: Episode VII"? It's impossible to say at this point, but you can bet that every time he uses the technique from now on, he'll be a little self-conscious about it.

*Not really.

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