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Storming Episode II: Dave Young

Sheets of rain pour down from the gloomy skies, buffeting a city built on stilts over a churning ocean. A distant cry of an aiwha is drowned out by the angry hiss of a lightsaber and the shrieking reports of blaster fire as a knockdown, drag-out fight occurs between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jango Fett.

The digital and miniature arts of Industrial Light & Magic extend the skies and landing platform, and the stunt work of Nick Gillard puts the players in motion. But to make the ceaseless wind and rain of this distant planet real, Episode II relied on Dave Young, Special Effects Supervisor on Attack of the Clones.

Though some use the term “special effects” as a catch-all for anything out of the ordinary in films, it does have a distinct definition separate from “visual effects.” In Episode II, visual effects are the domain of ILM. These are the effects that are put in after shooting — the miniature and digital creations. Young’s crew instead takes care of the effects that are on-stage, on-set, and captured by the camera as it happens. Also called practical effects, Young’s work involves wire-rigs to make characters fly, gimbal-mounted speeder props to simulate soaring and rocking motion in stationary vehicles, and things like rain, smoke and fire.

“We’ve had to do a lot of atmospherics,” describes Young. “We’ve had a lot of scenes with steaming, and that sort of stuff. We’ve done a lot of little fires and things.”

While visual effects have undergone a complete digital revolution in the past ten years, practical effects have also benefited from computer-controlled mechanics and planning. “I think practical effects will still have a role in films because with computer graphics, the actors don’t have anything to react to,” says Young. “I think practical effects will be around for a long time.”

Case in point, although ILM has mastered digital rain and water-spray effects, Young’s crew was still required to turn the inside of a studio into a tempest. “We had 32 rain-heads working indoors dropping seven-and-a-half tons of water a minute into Studio 1,” says Young. “Everything was on its own switch control, so we can turn everything off and on depending on what’s needed. We’re looking at 7,500 liters of water a minute.”

The fountainheads spray upwards, creating an umbrella of water that creates an even distribution of rain throughout the specially constructed set. “Amongst that, we had three large electric wind machines blowing the rain everywhere. Everything is kept off the ground, and completely contained. The electricity is all above us, and the rain-works are beneath that. There are circuit breakers on everything, because we operate on a 240-volt system that is more dangerous than the 110-volt system. ”

Such precautions are necessary since the safety of the crew and performers take precedent over all other concerns. Even the comfort of the stuntmen was a factor. “It did get cold, because it was the middle of winter in Australia [during the shoot.] The stuntmen were wearing wetsuits underneath the costumes.”

Before the complicated shoot, Young had little time to test the rain system to see how it would register on camera. “We tested for the quantity of rain that we wanted, and the size of the droplets. It’s important how much misting we get, because we could block out the bluescreens which are behind the rain. If our mist is too fine, then it will wash out the bluescreens,” says Young.

“It was a challenge sometimes. I hadn’t done a film that involved so much bluescreen before,” notes Young, a veteran of over 100 films including The Matrix and Mission: Impossible 2. “It’s a totally different kind of film. Often, from our perspective, it didn’t really change anything. We still have to do the effects, whatever they may call for. The only thing we had to watch that the atmospherics didn’t wipe out any of the bluescreens.”

Aside from the waterworks, Young and his crew helped animate stationary vehicle props through the use of articulated hydraulic gimbals. In addition to making Anakin’s hot rod speeder, Zam Wesell’s wickedly forked dragster and Owen Lars’ beat-up bike rock and sway appropriately, Young oversaw the creation of a number of bluescreen-skinned creature simulators.

“The animals are simulated,” explains Young. “They’re animals that John Knoll and Rob Coleman are going to lay over our blue stand-ins. We have scenes where Anakin is jumping onto an animal, and it takes off and bucks him off. We can do that on this machine. It does everything. The motions for that came from George Lucas. He told us exactly what he wanted.”