The National Association of Broadcaster's convention in Las Vegas got off to a show-stopping start when director George Lucas declared that he would never again shoot a feature film on 35mm film.

Lucas, who has been shooting his latest opus Star Wars: Episode II using six CineAlta HDCAM cameras, put to rest any doubts the industry may have had about his commitment to end to end digital production.

"I think I can safely say I'll never ever shoot another film on film," he said. "The same goes for digital editing. I've been editing digitally for over 15 years and I won't go back to a linear way of working."

Lucas has been pushing toward a complete digital transformation of the filmmaking process for over twenty years ever since he and his special effects team - that eventually became ILM - broke new ground developing technology such as motion-control photography and go-motion animation on the original Star Wars trilogy.

He had already used the Sony developed 24P HD technology to shoot some fifteen scenes inserted into the mostly 35mm acquired 'Episode 1: The Phantom Menace', challenging critics to spot the difference. For the second prequel he gave his production staff a mandate to shoot the entire project in the digital format.

"At this point we've not used any film elements at all including those for the model shots we are completing now," he said. "For years we've been trying to push the industry in this direction but I've always found myself up against technology which says you can't do that here or do that there. Sony however has been a leader in the field. Right from the beginning of our relationship we've conducted tests. We've gone over the entire process with a lot of key scenes. We've looked at it on film, we've looked at it with digital projection. I think 'Episode II' will look better in terms of the technical quality of the image than 'Episode I' which I think looked as good if not better than anything I've ever done before. The results are overwhelmingly positive."

And Lucas continued: "Digital filmmaking is inevitable. I'm not trying to convert people. I'm simply using the system and letting people know how it worked for me. The film industry is only now catching up with the digital revolution that has been happening in the broadcast environment for a long, long time now."

Lucas also said: "We shot 'Episode I' with exact same number of crew and exact number of days as 'Episode II' but we were able to go from 26 to 37 set ups a day and shave three days off the scheduled shoot largely by not having to spend an extra hour watchong the dailies and not having to reload each time film runs out. It really does speed up the process.”