Anatomy of a Dewback

2nd October 2022

Welcome to a look inside The Holocron. A collection of articles from the archives of *starwars.com no longer directly available.

(*Archived here with Permission utilising The Internet Archive Wayback Machine)

Anatomy of a Dewback

The Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition originally was conceived as a way to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the release of Star Wars. But as the process of restoring the original film negative started, it turned into much more. For one thing, the new release gave creator George Lucas a chance to “pull the old thorns out of my side” by fixing some shots that he felt didn’t work, and by adding new sequences that just couldn’t be done twenty years ago. In addition, it would give Industrial Light and Magic, Lucas’ premier special effects house, a chance to stretch and to try out new techniques that would later be used in full force to make Episode I.

One scene that was revised to better meet Lucas’ expectations was the Tatooine Dunes sequence in Star Wars. It involves a detachment of stormtroopers searching for two missing droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO, who presumably have top-secret plans of the Death Star battle station. Lucas wanted an element of surprise, so he had the troopers ride giant lumbering beasts called Dewbacks instead of more advanced machinery. Due to budgetary and technical limitations, the original Dewbacks were little more than large, immovable rubber puppets. This five-part documentary, which will be released one episode per week over a five-week period, shows how the Dewbacks became the seemingly living, breathing creatures in the Star Wars Special Edition.

Transition Effects

Though much less technically complex than the special effects that have made Star Wars famous, transition effects are another way in which George Lucas made Star Wars visually distinctive. In his use of them he reached back into neglected dimensions of cinematic history, where they had been gathering dust. With transition effects, as with the sheer thrilling adventure feel of Star Wars, Lucas was reactivating aspects of film-making that had been fun in decades past, but which by the mid-1970’s had fallen into disuse.

A movie-maker’s traditional repertoire of ways to get from one shot to the next consists of cuts, dissolves, fades, and wipes. Cuts simply replace one shot with the next with no transition, and are used as the standard approach in film and video editing. The other forms of transition therefore stand out as unusual, and so they carry an additional visual statement, a form of ‘phrasing’ the way the screen story is being told. Dissolves gradually blend one shot into the next, making for a smoother transition, and can be used to show the passage of time or the shifting of the scene to another place. Fades are dissolves to a single color, normally black or white, which are used to punctuate end of a scene or make a statement of closure or finality. All three of these transitions were still part of the standard filmmaker’s tool kit when Lucas came to editing Star Wars in the mid-1970’s, but wipes were very rarely used anymore.

Wipes are a more showy way to go from one scene to the next, and if used improperly can draw too much attention to the editing of the film, getting in the way of the story. A standard side-to-side wipe brings in a new shot as if a page is being turned, with an invisible line crossing the screen to reveal the next image. For a moment, parts of both the old and the new shot are on the screen together. Many other forms of wipe are possible, and Lucas invoked a variety of creative types for the editing of Star Wars. These transition effects played into the grand showmanship of the film, contributing to its feel as an exciting story being told with flair. In another context they would seem out of place, and in the mostly gritty and ‘realistic’ world of 1970’s films like Dirty Harry, they were virtually never to be seen. But they were right at home in the more comic-book fun approach of Star Wars, and they once more linked the film to its inspiration origins in classic adventure serials like Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, which regularly employed creative wipes. Lucas was also influenced by the work of the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, who was himself known to use transition effects.

Star Wars employed a variety of transition effects. Among them, an ‘iris out’ reveals the middle of the new shot in the center of the picture and expands the borders of the shot in a widening circle. Vertical wipes reveal the new shot from bottom to top or vice-versa. Lucas even employed growing interlocked diamonds and other creative patterns, one of which was the ‘clockwise’ which made the invisible transition line follow the path of a clock’s hand around the screen. When the Special Edition of Star Wars was being put together, transition effects were just one of the ways in which the new footage had to blend with the old, as in the scene here with the Dewback patrol group, which is revealed by a clockwise wipe. The wipes were one more complexity to the editing, but one more aspect in which Star Wars was made a special form of visual storytelling.

The Missing Negative

To begin work improving and enhancing the original Star Wars saga, the first step was to make new copies of the film from the original negative. But early on, producers and special effects editors realized that this negative had suffered significant damage over the last 20 years. The film was alarmingly faded, scratched and coated with dirt. It was soon clear that a full-scale restoration of the original negative would be necessary before any new footage or digital effects could be added.

When creating Star Wars, George Lucas saved nearly every element associated with the making of the film: props, costumes, models, paintings and so on. The problem was that these pieces were stored at a number of different locales and much had been mis-filed over the years. A search was conducted using an incomplete editorial archive, which should have offered a guide to where each negative and element was stored. The editors carried the search from the archives of Skywalker Ranch to the warehouses of ILM, and even to a subterranean vault in the Midwest. With luck and perseverence they were able in the end to find all the necessary pieces.

The original footage for the Tatooine Dune sequence – “TD3” – was found by chance sitting on top of a cold storage vault. Special effects editors needed this footage because the original negative was not live action. The sequence had already been recomposited to add two effects. Original footage, effects elements, and the filming of new dune scenes were required to create the new scene with the digital dewbacks and extra storm troopers.

Concept Art

It was Terryl Whitlatch’s job to turn the rough dewbacks that appear in the original Star Wars into detailed and realistic creatures.

Terryl studied vertebrate zoology, the study of animals with backbones, at Sonoma State University. She later transferred to the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. Her biological training has been invaluable for creating amazing but plausible creatures. She said she uses animals that exist in nature as models and blueprints for evolving her own creations. She pays strict attention to skeletal details and chooses realistic skin textures and colors.

Terryl approached this particular challenge by asking herself questions about the dewbacks. What physical characteristics would this creature need to survive in the harsh Tatooine desert? Is it clumsy or graceful? What particular features make the dewback a convenient animal for the stormtroopers to use on their desert missions?

Terryl answered these questions graphically — giving the dewback a hump to store energy much like a camel. It has dark, rough skin with sparse hair. Her dewback doesn’t look very comfortable to ride but they work well for the stormtroopers because they’ve adapted well to life in the desert. The details in Terryl’s design make the dewback a creature that an audience would find plausible in the context of the movie.

Terryl used the example of a horse in a Western to illustrate what she tries to accomplish when designing creatures.

“If the horse just stood there not moving while the cowboys talked, no one would believe it was a real horse. The little movements like twitching ears, and a flipping tail are important details in making the animal seem real and alive.”

Terryl needed to create several sketches for the digital artists so they could build a properly proportioned computer model of her design. The full color sketch defines the dewback’s skin texture and color, its proportions and size. She drew the top view of the dewback to establish the dewback’s ribcage and pelvis size and length.

Not all the sketches were necessary for creating the enhanced Tatooine dune sequence, but they represent the amount of thought and care Terryl puts into each creature she designs. She says she develops a real affection for some of her creatures.

The Lucasfilm Archives

In the beginning there was chaos.

Piles of “stuff” in closets, warehouses, cubbyholes and corners. This “stuff” consisted of the thousands of props, miniatures, creatures, models, costumes and paintings used to film the Star Wars Trilogy.

After posing for a publicity shot surrounded on all sides with piles of these miniatures and props,[ Archive Photo ] George Lucas took a look around and realized just how much “stuff” there was. An archive was a necessity if all of these pieces were to be preserved.

So with the goal of preserving the art and artifacts with the same care as would a museum, the process of constructing the archive building began. Since 1992 the collection has been stored in a huge two-story environmentally controlled building on Skywalker Ranch.

Preserving and cataloging the collection is an ongoing process. The collection includes not only objects from the Star Wars Trilogy, but also from several other movies including the Indiana Jones trilogy, American Graffiti and Willow. The collection continues to grow with new artifacts such as models of the planet of Coruscant used in the celebration scenes of Return of the Jedi Special Edition.

Conserving the artifacts is difficult because they were not originally created to last and because they are made of many different types of materials. Latex, plastic, metal, fabrics, and fur all require special care. The archivists are always looking for new and better methods of storage to slow the deterioration of the artifacts.

The archive includes a “Hero” aisle, a space not only for storage but also for displaying some of the more fantastic articles from the collection. A model of the Death Star under construction from Return of the Jedi, the Imperial Star Destroyer, X-wings, Han Solo in carbonite, and the wampa snow creature puppet are all carefully stored, cataloged and displayed.

The archive houses: models — the spaceships, vehicles, miniatures of sets, and items used in special effects sequences; creatures — including hand puppets, masks, creatures in miniature scale for stop-motion photography; props — weapons, clothing, artifacts; costumes — uniforms, full-body suits, costumes of principal characters; paintings — matte paintings designed to create the illusion of a large set, and larger backdrop paintings; art work — the sketches, drawings, production paintings, storyboards, costume and set designs and set blueprints.

The archive was critical for adding new scenes and special effects to the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition. From the original dewback’s rubber head used in Terryl Whitlatch’s design, to stormtrooper costumes used in filming additions to the scene, the archive supplied the needed artifacts and reference material that made enhancing the Tatooine dunes sequence possible.

Pre-Visualizing the Scene

Storyboards are cartoon-like drawings that act as blueprints for the creation of a filmed scene. They let filmmakers consider the visual flow and feel of a shot in relation to other shots in a sequence without the expense of having to film it first. Changes can be made with a pencil and eraser rather than with expensive full production crews.
Storyboards were traditionally used primarily for animated movies due to the expense involved in creating every film frame by hand. In animation, it was not practical to try a scene several different ways. Storyboards came to be used in live action movies as well, particularly for special effects sequences, so that elements filmed separately could be created to work together properly for the final shot. Difficult action sequences were sometimes storyboarded as well, to assist in the efficient planning of such shots.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was almost completely storyboarded, which was an uncommon thing in 1980 for a live action movie. Storyboarding each scene let everyone know in advance exactly what the director had in mind, and kept the elaborate production on schedule and under budget.

Storyboarding has since become more common, especially in the effects-laden pictures of the modern era.

For the new Tatooine Dunes scenes in the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, storyboards were standard operating procedure, a tradition at Lucasfilm by this time. The storyboards let George Lucas and the production team communicate visually with each other about what the new shots could offer and how they would flow. Rough ideas could be sketched out quickly and considered, rearranged within the sequence, or modified. An idea that seemed to work would get refined in further sketches until the final storyboard was often a work of art.

In the collection of storyboards shown here, you can see several different approaches to the shots making up the new Tatooine Dunes sequence. Some of the ideas went on to be filmed, while others were discarded – the dispatch of probe pods by the landing craft, for example, and the early design of the lander. In many cases storyboards show a combination of elements, of which only some were retained for the final, actual shot. These storyboards let you see the range of possibilities for the Tatooine Dunes shots, and offer a glimpse into the creative process and into visions of Star Wars that almost were.

Continuity Report

Many factors affect the look of a particular shot in a film, including the angle and types of lighting, the type of lens in the camera, the type of film, and the use of filters over the lens. A journal of daily continuity reports is kept during the making of a movie to record all these factors, as well as to describe the action that took place in a shot and inventory any other aspects of it that may be useful later, such as the way in which characters move, wear their costumes, hold props, or interact with the set.

Continuity reports are important to maintain consistency throughout a sequence. It is sometimes necessary to go back and re-shoot a particular shot when it is later considered unsatisfactory. Occasionally an additional shot may be filmed for insertion in a previously filmed sequence. New and old shots, as well as shots originally filmed out of sequence, must blend together without any jarring changes. Was that character holding the prop in his left hand or his right hand? If the production sets up again tomorrow to continue filming the sequence, this kind of information must be absolutely correct. In the unusual case of the Tatooine Dunes sequence, the continuity information was just as important when the production set up again two decades later.

The new dewback scenes in the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition had to fit precisely into the look and feel of the shot seen in the original movie when the stormtrooper patrol has discovered the escape pod amongst the Tatooine dunes. Reference stills were only a small part of the information needed to blend new scenes with classic ones. Vital information regarding the photographic “stats” of the shot was necessary to ensure that the light quality, for example, and the nature of the sun glare was the same throughout the new combined sequence. And so the continuity reports from the original production, saved by George Lucas for over 20 years, were pulled from their files and consulted closely by the team filming the new Tatooine Dunes sequence.

It was discovered in these reports that the harsh glare of the hot desert sun was enhanced in the original film by the use of pantyhose stretched over the camera lens (indicated by the notation “net” on the continuity report) which gave the scene a less sharp, hotter and more hazy look as well as making characteristic four-sided flares at bright sun reflection points (for example, on the troopers’ helmets). The report also carefully records the camera and lens in use, the camera movement, and the details of the action taking place in the scene. When continuity is kept, the average viewer is not even aware of such subtleties, but when continuity is violated, errors become noticeable. Accordingly, the team creating the new shots for the Special Edition consulted every resource to ensure that the new would blend in every way with the old.

Plate Shots and Other Ancient Traditions

Film terms often have roots in very early technology, and remain meaningful long after the original method of achieving them has changed.

When the production team went to the desert to film the new live-action scenes of the stormtroopers, they were “shooting plates,” as you will hear several people call the shots in the documentary. This term dates back to the earliest days of cinema, when actors in studios were sometimes filmed in front of projected slides of landscapes or other backgrounds. This was done to give scenes greater apparent scope without the expense of sending crews and casts out on location. The background stills, shot with large-format cameras, were called “plates,” because the traditional photographic technique involved large plates of glass on which the emulsion was laid for the negative.

The term “plate” came to refer to other background or scenery shots as well, even when these were cut into a film without any additions and used as establishing or atmosphere shots. A team might be instructed to go get some plates of mountains and some plates of sky to give a scene shot in the studio a greater sense of setting and atmosphere.

Front-projected background “plates” were even used in such cinematically advanced films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, in scenes such as the Dawn of Man. Plates of African scenery were front-projected on screens behind the foreground sets of rocks and man-apes to make it look like the film was actually shot on an African location.

Special effects techniques combine plates with foreground elements, most often using optical compositing rather than front-projection. In the original Star Wars, an example of this is the shot where the landspeeder zooms overhead on its way into Mos Eisley – a static background “plate” was composited with a model shot of the landspeeder, as well as a shadow to go with it.

The term “plate” survives today, even when the plate shot involves camera movement and includes foreground actors like stormtroopers searching the Tatooine Dunes for missing droids. All this live action is called a plate, because it will later be combined with additional elements like Dewbacks and an Imperial lander. The computer-animated elements must be painstakingly “tracked” to the movement of the real camera, to look like they were shot at the same time – a process of “fixing” the virtual, invisible computer background to the real one that has been filmed. The technology has advanced miraculously since the days of King Kong standing in front of a projected slide, but the basic aims of creating entertainment and cinema magic remain the same.

The Virtual Model Shop

ILM artists employ a variety of off-the-shelf and proprietary software programs to build models, sculpt them, give them texture, paint, and even light them – all on a computer. Terms developed for the creation and photography of traditional models are now used to describe what is happening in the “virtual model shop” since the objective is to create computer-generated images that mimic reality as closely as possible. The artists ask themselves how the X-wing or Dewback they are developing would look in real life and they use that as their goal in creating realistic effects.

Accordingly, you will hear computer artists referring to “painting their computer model,” and “lighting it,” actions which all take place via keyboards and mice on the computer screen. Textures can be added to models (or “mapped on”) as part of the program, either giving the model actual texture, or imitating the look of texture. By covering a wireframe model with a kind of wrapping painted to look like various textures – hair, skin, fur, paint, metal – the artists give objects realistic appearances.

Maquettes (small sculptures or models) and traditional paintings and sketches still play a vital role in guiding the work of the computer artists as they create their extraordinary images. But a whole new kind of art now takes place aided by microchips, described in metaphorical terms borrowed from the traditional artists’ studios. The computer artists are exploring new ways of creating, and while their techniques may be “virtual,” the dazzling effects of their art are real.

The People Behind the Pixels

A variety of positions contribute to making a computer model

Star Wars computer-generated (CG) creatures begin their lives in the Art Department. Here among traditional artists working in a wide variety of media, sketched concepts get refined to approved drawings, and rough sculptures become final maquettes. All these works are eventually transferred to the people at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) for the creation of the computerized version of the creature. Everything from designs of the skeletal structure to skin texture is important reference for the CG people, and all of it is used in translating the artist’s vision to the world of computer modeling.

Within the mysterious hallways of ILM, powerful computers hum and process millions of calculations at the direction of the small army of technicians assembled for the work. Outside documentaries often give one the impression that these people create a CG dewback by “hitting the dewback button” on their keyboard. The fact is that a variety of distinct types of artists contribute to the creation of the fantastically complex mathematical model that results in the illusion of a moving, living creature. Many of them use metaphorical terminology, making use of descriptive phrases from the artist’s studio or the film editor’s room – so we still speak of sculpting, or compositing images together, knowing that it’s all taking place in the computer and on the screen.

Typically, a CG creature is made to be combined with a live-action shot, which will include an environment (like sand dunes) and characters (like stormtroopers). Creating a CG creature is only part of the job – the creature must be made to walk in a way that matches the live-action plate shot, and then combined with the plate in a seamless fashion.

The CG Modelers build three-dimensional wire-frame models in the computer. These models include hard-surface models (industrial and architectural design), digital sets and CG creatures. In many cases the modelers must build several versions of an object or creature to achieve different desired effects. In the case of creatures, modelers must build multiple facial shapes, often up to 40 or 60 different facial expressions for any given character, especially if it talks. After a model is built, the modeler will continue to work closely with the animators to make modifications due to the complexity and varying demands of any given shot.

A Match Mover makes sure that the virtual environment in the computer matches the real environment filmed for a scene. They also make sure that any camera moves (like pans or zooms) in a live action shoot are carefully matched by the computer’s virtual camera. The lead match mover usually goes on location with a Plate Shot crew to get the necessary information for reconstructing the 3-D environment in the computer. A match mover might use reference points specially placed in a scene for reference and alignment in the creation of the CG environment – for the dewback scene, tennis balls in the sand, laid out in a regular grid, provided secure reference points for the match movers.

When a CG creature or element is added to a the live-action plate, it is placed on top of the existing image, which will make it appear to be in front of everything else unless special steps are taken. Digital Rotoscope Artists make sure that a CG lizard in the background doesn’t overlap a stormtrooper in the foreground. They do this by outlining foreground objects (like stormtroopers) in the live-action film, creating an articulate matte. This moving silhouette of the stormtrooper keeps the computer from generating CG objects in that area, making the dewback appear to walk behind the human figure. The Rotoscope artists are also the people who “perform background repair” and conveniently erase things like tennis balls in the sand.

Viewpaint Artists, meanwhile, are enhancing the creature model by giving it colors and textures. They take a complex but colorless form from the modelers and transform it from something that appears like plastic to something that may appear wrinkled, hairy, or in the case of a dewback, scaly. Their work, based on color paintings from the Art Department artists, will make the CG creature sport a rich variety of hues. Combined with the textures, the realistic colors turn the CG model into a convincing imitation of reality.

The creature may look great now, but he’s still got to move. That requires a whole additional set of skills. A Character Animator takes the CG creature model and gives it motion using a combination of complex commercially-available software and ILM’s proprietary software. Convincing, life-like motion cannot be generated by a computer alone, however, and giving the creature realistic movement takes the artistry of a human animator. These people often come from a background in traditional hand-drawn “cell” (or cartoon) animation, where they learned the subtleties of creating the illusion of living movement. The same expertise is applied to the CG creature using the tools of the movement software. Effects Animators work on the less-complex motion of objects that are not living creatures, such as vehicles or Imperial landing craft.

The creature’s moving, and he’s got a place to fit in the film, but without virtual lighting he’ll never look right. A Technical Director is responsible for the look and lighting of computer generated objects. Light quality and light direction, diffusion, and other factors must be involved to match the CG creature to the live-action environment. A dewback far away on the horizon would look completely wrong if it were as sharp and bright as a Dewback in the foreground. Atmospheric haze and the effects of sunlight and ambient light are all taken into account to blend the computer model into the filmed environment of the real world.

The technical director also keeps track of all the separate elements that are created to build a final shot, coordinating the work of the people creating those individual elements. This workwith be linked together with mattes, paintings, and particular effects created or designed by the technical director.

Supervising the overall production is, finally, the CG Supervisor. This person assists with any problems that come up anywhere in the sequence, and provides feedback on the success and development of each stage.

So…when you see a creature like a dewback lumbering across the sand, you see the results of a complex process, the painstaking construction of a virtual reality. Rather than a single powerful button on some sophisticated computer keyboard, it is a team of professionals doing a whole variety of jobs that makes this leap of imagination possible.