Tom has been with Lucas since 1982, when he came to work on Return of the Jedi as the mixing stage recordist.
Married with two children, Tom was born in Wilmington, Delaware and graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. in film. He has also worked at Zoetrope Studios, The Saul Zaentz Film Center and Pixar.
For the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition he was responsible for editing new scenes into the films and coordinating the overall restoration of the films and soundtracks, not an easy task!
The job as film editor had Tom meeting with George Lucas weekly, usually in a screening room or working on a AVID digital editing workstation. When George comes to a cutting room, he is prepared to work, and this caused Tom’s job to take many interesting turns. Tom remembers one example, in which George was at hand to listen to the final mix tracks of the last reel of Star Wars. Also in attendance were Rick McCallum, Ben Burtt, Gary Summers, and Ted Gagliano (of Fox). After reviewing the reel (which included the climatic space battle and the explosion of the Death Star) George turned to Tom and asked “Tom, wasn’t there a scene here in the script? Did we ever look into adding it back?” The simple question created a flurry of activity. Tom had to pull the dailies (film footage) of a scene that was scripted and shot, but deleted from the movie 20 years ago. Amazingly, two hours later, a scene in which Luke Skywalker meets his boyhood friend Biggs in the Rebel Base hangar was added to the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, complete with Foley and sound effects. Tom is most proud of the look, color balance and sound clarity of the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition.
Tom’s favorite Star Wars moment, the scene in which R2-D2 is captured by Jawas, has also been improved in the Special Edition. Tom loves the whimpering sound of R2-D2’s cries as he proceeds into the Jawas’ trap.
Tom was amazed by the number of people that it took to make Star Wars! Even though he first saw it in a small theater in New Hampshire, with a very noisy air conditioner, he was hooked, and still is.
Paul Huston
Senior Matte Artist on Star Wars Special Edition
Paul Huston’s most memorable experience with Star Wars was meeting George Lucas, Ralph McQuarrie, and Joe Johnston in a warehouse in Van Nuys in 1975. Twenty years and millions of Star Wars fans later, Huston is working on Star Wars yet again, and as he says, “I am always trying to meet the standards set by those three guys.”
The Star Wars movie that has had the most influence on Huston is, “The first one . . . here it is twenty years later and I’m still working on it! . . . The opening shot with the roll-up and the rebel blockade runner followed by the Star Destroyer always knocks me out.”
Huston has been working on the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition since January of 1994, creating new shots for scenes in Mos Eisley and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s house on the Dune Sea. Huston has painstakingly matched his Special Edition artwork with the original print of Star Wars to allow new CG creatures, characters, and vehicles to populate scenes in the way George Lucas originally intended. Huston’s biggest challenge is, as he describes: “Doing million dollar work on a shoestring budget.”
Lando’s Vibro-ax Electrified polearm used in Jabba’s Palace
Lando Calrissian went undercover as a guard in the palace of Jabba the Hutt, waiting in disguise for the right moment to rescue Han Solo. His weapon is a form of vibro-ax, a SoroSuub BD-1 Cutter. In such weapons an ultrasonic vibration generator makes the blade sing with a high-pitched whine, enabling it to lacerate with the merest touch.
Lightsaber Laser blade of the Jedi Knights
In essence a blade of pure energy capable of cutting through almost anything, the lightsaber is the noble yet powerful weapon which the Jedi Knights have masterfully wielded for thousands of years.
Although each lightsaber is unique, the weapon’s basic design remains the same. The handle, twenty-four to thirty centimeters long, holds a power cell as well as one or more crystals – seldom more than three – whose purpose is to focus the energy released by the power cell into a tight, blade-like beam. The blade’s color depends on the nature of the jewel it springs from, and while its length is fixed in the case of a single jewel lightsaber, lightsabers equipped with multiple crystals can have their length varied by rotating a knob which allows the focusing crystal activator to subtly modify the refraction pattern between the gems.
After losing the lightsaber that had been his father’s in a duel with Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, in accordance with tradition, builds his own lightsaber as one of the final steps of his Jedi training, before he confronts Jabba the Hutt in his palace on Tatooine.
Rebel Gun Turret Turret artillery emplaced on Hoth base
The DF.9 Anti-Infantry turret battery stands ready to defend Rebel troops on Hoth from invading forces. This model is designed to be effective against infantry and small vehicles such as speeder bikes and skirmishing or scout craft. The battery is no match for the full-strength Imperial battle armor cladding the AT-AT walkers, however, and the Rebels knew that at best they would fight a delaying action from the snow trenches.
While the turret gun incorporates a proton shield generator and laser armor, the heavy blast cannons of the Imperial walkers pack a devastating punch. As the Imperial Blizzard Force closed range on the Rebel snow trenches, the defensive emplacements and their crews inside were blasted and destroyed.
This schematic of one variant of the turret gun indicates its principal features.
Rick McCallum
Producer and Head of Production, Lucasfilm Ltd.
He has been with the Lucas Companies for six years, and has been working on the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition for two and a half years.
McCallum lived in Missouri until he was twelve, then in Europe. He went to school in France, Germany and England, and college in New York.
Films he has produced include Pennies From Heaven, Neil Simon’s I Ought To Be In Pictures, Dreamchild, Link, Castaway, Track 29, The Singing Detective, On Tidy Evenings, Strapless, Blackeyes, Heading Home, Radioland Murders, and 44 episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
For the work on the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, his mandate was simple. George had made many compromises during the original production because he didn’t have sufficient resources, technology, or support to make the film he had envisioned. McCallum’s job was to make sure that the film was restored properly and that all the things he had wanted in the original film were included in the restoration.
Of all the work on the Special Edition McCallum’s biggest challenge, and aspect of the work that made him most proud, was supervising the restoration process. It was an opportunity to work with a group of extraordinary people, all of whom worked incredibly hard to make this happen for George. These people include T.M. Christopher, restoration expert Leon Briggs, Ted Gagliano and Tom Sherak at Fox, Pete Comandini at YCM Labs, and Phil Feiner at Pac Title. Tom Kennedy, who was the visual effects producer, did an outstanding job on all three films as well as visual effects producers Alex Seiden, Dave Carson, Steve Williams, and everyone else at ILM who went beyond the call of duty to get the work done. It was truly great collaborative process, which McCallum enjoyed immensely.
Hobbies and interests:
“I love to travel and work in other countries. So far I have been lucky enough to film in over 30 countries around the world. This leaves little time for anything else except my one great passion when I am not working: seeing movies!”
The Star Wars movie that has had the most influence on McCallum is the first one. “Star Wars was the first movie that had ever come close to showing a real world outside of our own. To me, it was by far the most successful and believable work of science fiction that I had ever seen. The design and look of the film were so bold — everything looked dirty and used. The effects were so seamless — I bought into it completely. The moment the Millenium Falcon went into hyperspace everyone in the theater stood up and freaked. Thinking back on the experience I remember being amazed by the soundtrack, set design and special effects — they were all so perfect, so right, you felt as if you had been transported into a totally different sensory world. The effect it has had on his work today? “Simple. Virtually anything is possible.”
McCallum’s favorite Star Wars character is R2-D2. “Why? Because he is relentless — no matter what goal is set for him he achieves it.”
McCallum’s favorite Star Wars moment is the scene before Luke begins his journey. “Luke is anxious and restless, and he goes out of the crater and gazes up at the two suns above Tatooine. We see so clearly every young man’s yearnings: all of us at some point have experienced that moment.”
Blaster Pistol BlasTech DL-44 favored by many heroes of the Rebellion
Han Solo’s signature BlasTech DL-44 heavy blaster pistol benefits from a highly illegal military power cell and customized energizer circuitry for maximum blast impact. This heavy-duty performance is enough to tear huge chunks from the adobe walls of a desert planet docking bay, and more than enough to permanently discourage the average Rodian opponent.
After the Battle of Yavin, Solo had fitted his trusty DL-44 with an improved silver flash suppressor and a couple of other military components acquired from his new Rebel friends. Solo’s modified pistol is a formidable weapon, and his quick-draw skills are honed by long practice with remotes and against living opponents.
Shortly before the Rebels set up their base on the ice planet Hoth, Luke Skywalker began using a BlasTech DL-44 blaster pistol similar to that favored by his friend Han Solo.
Blaster Rifle Standard Stormtrooper sidearm
The standard Imperial sidearm is the BlasTech E-11 blaster rifle. This weapon has a three-position stock which allows for optimum bracing during use. Entrenched field troopers typically lock the stock in its fully open position for protracted firing on a constant target point. In full assault or unpredictable situations where agility is key, the stock is kept folded in its fully closed position, as seen here for the escort of a Rebel prisoner.
Imperial blasters are substantially more powerful than most civilian sidearms and can often penetrate the combat armor worn by stormtroopers. Captured weapons in the hands of Rebel elements can lend significant power to the opposition.
Chewbacca’s Bandolier Chewbacca’s ammunition belt
The giant Wookiee Chewbacca wears as his only article of clothing a bandolier pouch, which holds ammunition and the few personal articles he carries with him. The Wookiee’s heavy pelt allows him to brave cold temperatures without the need for protective clothing.
When Chewbacca pretended to be a prisoner on board the Death Star, he stubbornly refused to take the bandolier off. The spectacle of a seven-foot prisoner wearing a fully-loaded ammunition belt drew more attention than Luke and Han would have preferred, and made the cell block officer suspicious of the ruse as soon as they walked in.
When it came time to rescue Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, eyes once more turned to Chewbacca, who had made such a successful “prisoner” decoy on board the Death Star. He was only talked into performing the role again due to the extremity of the situation. And so he walked into Jabba’s palace in chains. But he still wouldn’t take off his ammo bandolier.
Introduced to George Lucas by Steven Spielberg, John Williams agreed to write the music for Star Wars without having any huge expectations for the project. “Along with others involved with the film, I was surprised at what a great success it was. I think we all expected a successful film. In my mind I was thinking of it as a kind of Saturday afternoon movie for kids really, a kind of popcorn, Buck Rogers show . . . never imagining that it would be this world-wide international success.” Williams didn’t see Star Wars until it was nearly finished because he prefers to avoid reading scripts before scoring a film, so as not to create any preconceived ideas about the film. “I remember seeing the film and reacting to its atmospheres and energies and rhythms. That for me is always the best way to pick up a film — from the visual image itself and without any preconceptions that might have been put there by the script.” Williams remembers his collaboration with George Lucas as a positive experience marked by communication and agreement about the music. “When he first heard the music he liked it very well. It was encouraging — I felt positive reinforcement always with George. A lot of people will say, ‘Don’t go in that direction’, it’s always ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that.’ With George, my experience with him was ‘That’s right, keep going.’ With that kind of collaboration, we get better results I think.”
Williams approached each film as a separate assignment, and was pleased and somewhat surprised with the unity of theme and sound of the three film scores. “I think if the score has an architectural unity, it’s the result of a happy accident. I approached each film as a separate entity. The first one completely out of the blue, but the second one of course connected to the first one; we referred back to characters and extended them and referred back to themes and extended and developed those.”
Much of the score is derived from Williams’ impression of characters in the films: “Darth Vader’s theme seemed to me to need to have, like all of the themes if possible, strong melodic identification, so that that when you heard if or part of the theme you would associate it with the character.” In Star Wars, Williams intended Leia’s theme to have strong romantic elements, while Luke’s theme has a different tonality. “Flourishing and upward reaching, idealistic and heroic . . . a very uplifted kind of heraldic quality. Larger than he is. His idealism is more the subject than the character itself I would say.” This concentration on the features of the characters in the films produced musical themes to enhance and accompany each character’s appearance in a scene.
In writing the main theme, Williams aimed for music that would match the visual impact of the first scene of the film, but would also be simple, strong, and direct. “I tried to construct something that again would have this idealistic, uplifting but military flare to it. . . . And try to get it so it’s set in the most brilliant register of the trumpets, horns and trombones so that we’d have a blazingly brilliant fanfare at the opening of the piece.” Finally, Williams wanted a theme that was ceremonial in tone, almost a march.
The music for the cantina scene, which is many fans’ favorite, came about at a stopping-point in Williams’ work on the score. When he saw shots of the alien band, he realized that the music could sound like anything, but he needed to decide the specific sound. When he asked George Lucas whether he had any ideas for the band’s sound, Lucas had an idea. He asked Williams to imagine what would happen if a member of the alien band lifted up a rock on some remote planet and came across sheet music from Benny Goodman’s swing band from 1930’s Earth. Williams liked the idea, and had fun composing a slightly off-tune variation on the swing sound, as played by aliens. He had musicians record the tune using Trinidad steel drums, reed instruments, and kazoos.
This seamless connection between Lucas’ cinematic vision and Williams’ musical one produced a film score that is the most popular ever, selling four million copies, more than any non-pop album in recording history. Williams credits the group effort for much of the success of the score: “I have to credit the film for a lot of this. If I had written the music without the film probably nobody ever would have heard of the music; it was the combination of things and the elusive, weird, unpredictable aspect of timing that none of us can quite get our hands around.”
John Williams was born in New York and moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1948. There he attended UCLA and studied compositions privately with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. After service in the Air Force, Mr. Williams returned to New York to attend the Juilliard School where he studied piano with Madame Rosina Lhevinne. While in New York he also worked as a jazz pianist in both clubs and on recordings. Again Mr. Williams moved to Los Angeles where he began his career in the film studios working with such composers as Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Newman, and Franz Waxman. He went on to write music for many television programs in the 1960s, winning two Emmys for his work. In January 1980, John Williams was named nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra since its founding in 1885. Mr. Williams assumed the title of Boston Pops Laureate Conductor following his retirement in December 1993.
Mr. Williams has led the Boston Pops on United States tours in 1985, 1989, and 1992, and on three tours of Japan in 1987, 1990, and 1993. Mr. Williams has also appeared as guest conductor with a number of major orchestras including the London Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Denver Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in many performances at the Hollywood Bowl. He holds honorary doctorate degrees from fourteen American Universities.
Many of Mr. Williams’ film scores have been recorded. His highly acclaimed albums with the Boston Pops Orchestra include Pops in Space, Pops on the March, Aisle Seat, Pops Out of This World, and Boston Pops on Stage, a collaboration with soprano Jessye Norman entitled With a Song in My Heart, a collection of favorite Americana entitled, America, the Dream Goes On, Bernstein by Boston Pops, Swing, Swing, Swing, Pops in Love, and By Request . . . Featuring the Music of John Williams, Holst’s The Planets, Digital Jukebox, Pops Britannia, featuring music of the British Isles, Salute to Hollywood, Pops a La Russe, an album of favorite Russian music, and an all-Gershwin album entitled Pops by George. The first recording by John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra on the Sony Classical label, Music of the Night, an album of contemporary and classic show tunes, was released in 1990. Also for Sony Classical, they have recorded a collection of favorite marches, entitled I Love A Parade, an album of John Williams’ music for the films of Steven Spielberg entitled the Spielburg/Williams Collaboration, the Green Album, which includes “This Land is Your Land,” “Simple Gifts,” and “Theme for Earth Day,” a Christmas album entitled Joy to the World, an album of music of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Jerome Kern, entitled Night and Day, a tribute to Frank Sinatra, entitled Unforgettable, and their latest release, Music for Stage and Screen, an album featuring music by John Williams and Aaron Copland, It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t got that Swing, with vocalist Nancy Wilson, and most recently Williams: The Classic Spielberg Scores.
John Williams has composed the music and served as music director for more than seventy-five films including The Lost World, Rosewood, Sleepers, Sabrina, Nixon, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Home Alone 2, Far and Away, JFK, Hook, Home Alone, Presumed Innocent, Always, Born on the Fourth of July, Stanley and Iris, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Accidental Tourist, Empire of the Sun, The Witches of Eastwick, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Return of the Jedi, E.T. (The Extra-Terrestrial), Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Superman, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, Jaws and Goodbye, Mr. Chips. He has received thirty-four Academy Award nominations and has been awarded five Oscars, four British Academy Awards and sixteen Grammies as well as several gold and platinum records. Mr. Williams’ most recent Oscar was for Best Original Score for Schindler’s List. Most recently he received Academy Award nominations for his scores for Sydney Pollack’s remake of Sabrina, Oliver Stone’s Nixon and Barry Levinson’s Sleepers.
In addition to his film music, Mr. Williams has written many concert pieces including two symphonies, a bassoon concerto premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1995, a cello concerto premiered by Yo-Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1994, concertos for flute and violin recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra, and concertos for clarinet and tuba. His most recent work, a trumpet concerto, was premiered by the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra in 1996. In addition, Mr. Williams has composed the well-known NBC News Theme “The Mission”, “Liberty Fanfare,” composed for the rededication of the Statue of Liberty, “We’re Lookin’ Good!” composed for the Special Olympics in celebration of the 1987 International Summer Games, and the themes for the 1984, 1988, and 1996 Summer Olympic Game.
Ah, so glad to find this series after all this time. Welcome Ahmed Best in his On Location videos for Star Wars Episode II – Attack of the Clones
Join Ahmed Best in these quick soundbites from the Making of Attack of the Clones
Ahmed Best was given a mission… and he chose to accept it: infiltrating the bustling cubicles of the production offices of Episode II. This is the brain of the entire Episode II production, the command center where all activities are coordinated. The assistants and production people are so good at their jobs that not even an intrusive guerilla-style documentary can disrupt the workflow of this finely oiled machine
Join Ahmed Best in these quick soundbites from the Making of Attack of the Clones
Ahmed Best was given a mission… and he chose to accept it: infiltrating the bustling cubicles of the production offices of Episode II. This is the brain of the entire Episode II production, the command center where all activities are coordinated. The assistants and production people are so good at their jobs that not even an intrusive guerilla-style documentary can disrupt the workflow of this finely oiled machine
Skywalker Sound is George Lucas’s state of the art post production company located in Marin County, California. It is a part of Lucas Digital Ltd., a company that includes Industrial Light & Magic. The business of Lucas Digital Ltd. is to provide the ultimate in visual effects and movie sound design to the film industry.
Skywalker Sound began life as Sprockets Systems in 1980. Back then, it was the company responsible for creating the famous sound effects and soundtracks for the Star Wars movies. Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt’s soundtracks established a new level of sophistication. Knowing that sound is more integral to the movie experience, George Lucas wanted to create better and more involving soundtracks. He hired Tomlinson Holman to investigate the film post production process and to design new and better ways to create movie soundtracks. Tom’s investigation into movie sound and its quality took several years, and the end result was the Technical Building at Skywalker Ranch. A happy by-product was the THX Sound System for movie theatres. Tom found that one of the weakest links in the movie soundtrack chain was the quality of the acoustics and the sound system in the dubbing, stage where soundtracks are mixed. The same high performance design approach found in mixing theatres can be found in the over 1000 THX movie auditoriums world-wide. All of the mixing theatres and screening rooms at Skywalker Sound are THX approved.
To better understand the importance of sound (and a high-resolution sound system) to the movie experience, let’s take a look at how a movie soundtrack is put together:
Dialogue
Dialogue is, perhaps, the most important element of a movie soundtrack. It communicates key information on the plot and the characters, and it serves to tie the whole narrative structure of a movie together. After all, modern films were first called “talkies”.
Dialogue is typically recorded on the set while the movie is being filmed using a variety of equipment (microphones and tape recorders). If the film is being shot on a sound stage, there is a very good likelihood that the dialogue recorded will be useable in the final film mix. However, if the scene is shot on location (high background noise) or the sound stage contains mechanical special effects (wind machines, etc.), the dialogue may become contaminated. At this point, the director or sound designer may require that the actor “loop” their lines.
Looping or ADR (automated dialogue replacement) is the process whereby an actor enters a sound studio and repeats their lines of dialogue in synchronization with the film action. The individual scene is usually shown on a loop of film (hence the term “looping”) so it can be repeated over and over. Good ADR is truly an art form. It requires actors to repeat, not only their lines, but their emotions days or even weeks after the scene is shot. During looping, a director may even change lines of dialogue, usually during scenes where the actor’s mouth is not fully visible. Quite a bit of time is spent during dialogue pre-mixing to ensure that the tonal quality of the ADR matches the dialogue recorded on the set. Any change in dialogue character or quality could distract an audience.
Sound Effects
While Dialogue serves to make a movie understandable, the purpose of a sound effect is to draw us into the action and to make us believe that we are a part of the movie experience. Sound effects fall into four basic groups:
Foley Designed Sounds Creature Sounds Ambience
The First Rule of Sound Design: See a sound; hear a sound. Every time you see some action on the screen, your mind expects there to be a complimentary sound. The support of sound effects helps you “willingly suspend your disbelief” and become immersed in the movie experience. This rule is the basis for the first two sound groups: Foley and Designed Sounds.
Foley
The film term Foley pays tribute forever to Jack Foley a film sound pioneer from the earliest days of talking pictures. It was discovered that simply having people talk on a screen without any supporting sound effects came across as unnatural. When you see people walking, you expect to hear the sound of their footsteps. Now it’s rather difficult to pick up the sound of an actor’s footsteps on the set and still keep a microphone out of the picture. He created a unique environment now called a “Foley Stage”. In it, artists can duplicate the sound of footsteps, prop handling, or body movement in sync with the picture.
While originally designed to reproduce footsteps on a variety of surfaces, a Foley artist’s responsibility now extends to creating everything from the softest sounds of clothes rustling to dinosaur dung. The Foley Stage at Skywalker Sound is extremely quiet (below NC-0) to allow the softest sounds to be recorded. It is also extremely dead acoustically so that no acoustical character is imparted to the sound. That will be added later on in the Foley pre-mix.
Designed Sounds
Frequently the sound of something in the film doesn’t exist in real life. It could be an Imperial Walker or the sound of a laser pistol. Because seeing an action without an accompanying sound can cause “cognitive dissonance” (two sensory inputs in conflict with each other – sight & hearing), the audience can be pulled out of the movie’s action. Since the state of the art in visual effects keeps expanding to meet the director’s imagination, the art of sound design has to keep up. In many instances, great sound design can even make a marginal visual effect seem more realistic.
Many times these sound designs are several different sounds, individually modified, and layered to provide complexity. The sound of the Imperial Walkers, shown here from The Empire Strikes Back, were created by modifying the sound of a machinist’s punch press. Added to this for complexity, were the sounds of bicycle chains being dropped on concrete.
Here Ben Burtt is capturing the sound of a hammer on an antenna tower guy wire, which will become the familiar sound of laser blasts in the Star Wars movies.
Creature Sounds
In many instances, alien life forms and even dinosaurs have become a staple of the modern action film. Because many stories now revolve around animals or aliens, it is important that the audience have an emotional connection to these important characters. Under these circumstances, each animal must have an “emotional language”. The audience must know intuitively when the creatures are sad, happy, or angry. To do this, the sound designer will record the voices of many real animals, and (in a process similar to Designed Sounds) alter them individually and then layer them to create an entirely new, but believable, creature voice.
On the right, Ben is using the confusion of these walruses (their pool has been drained for cleaning, and they’re not happy about it) to expand Chewbacca’s vocabulary.
Ambience
This is the greatest gift that surround sound has brought the film audience. Ambience is the sound of the movie’s world. If the scene calls for a storm, you hear rain. If the scene is in a cathedral, you experience the echoes of the characters’ voices or the sounds of their action, all around. By recreating a scene’s acoustical environment in front of and all around you, the sound designer draws you into the movie, and makes you feel a part of the action.
Music
So, in the world of a movie soundtrack, Dialogue provides the content and Sound Effects provide the realism. The final anchoring point of a movie soundtrack is the Music. Music provides an emotional bedrock for a film. Even before sound was married to picture, cinemas across the world had pianists, organists, and sometimes orchestras to provide emotional enhancement for films. The greatest directors of the day even commissioned great composers to score their films. The sheet music would be shipped along with the print to major markets. While well recorded music can provide dramatic emphasis, it can also make an audience happy or sad. Musical cues can even terrify, to which anyone who has seen Psycho or Jaws can testify.
The Scoring Stage at Skywalker Ranch enables a composer to conduct a suitable instrumental ensemble while watching the film projected on a screen. As with everything in film sound, the music must match the picture.
The Skywalker Scoring Stage not only can accommodate a full symphony orchestra, its acoustics can also be varied by adjusting hidden acoustical panels. These panels can be activated to cover all room surfaces and can reduce the room’s reverberation characteristics dramatically. This allows for the recording engineer to achieve the greatest fidelity, without resorting to artificial reverberation. The 48 track digital facility is also in high demand for pop, jazz, and classical recording sessions.
Editing
Once all of the sound elements are assembled, they must be edited, cut and spliced into the correct order to match each scene. At Skywalker Sound, this editing process is done on digital audio workstations. The editing process can be very complicated. The “T-Rex smashes the Explorer” scene alone in Jurassic Park contained thousands of edits.
Pre-Mixing
Once all of the sounds are edited to match the scenes, they are pre-mixed. Since there can be many hundreds of individual sound elements in a scene, it is best to group them together by content and mix them into “stems”. These stems often follow the basic elements of film sound; Dialogue, Music, and Sound Effects. Frequently, because of their complexity, Sound Effects are not limited to only one pre-mix, but are spread out according to their content: Effects A, Effects B, Ambience A, Ambience B and Foley.
Of course the complexity of film soundtracks sometimes means that you need a very large number of audio tracks. Unfortunately, no one makes a 100+ track audio recorder, so many machines are linked together to provide this capability.
As many machines as are required can be linked together and controlled from the mixing room. All machines are locked to the film projector located in the mixing stage. Skywalker Sound even pioneered the use of tie lines between the Skywalker Ranch facility and remote locations.
Final Sound Mix
Once the sound has been designed, edited, and pre-mixed it is brought together in a movie theatre environment for the final mix. Here, the director, sound designer, dialogue mixer, and music mixer determine the overall quality, character, and placement of each sound element.
The final mix of a film can take two weeks or more, as each scene is replayed over and over again allowing for subtle changes to be noted and made. It is here that the locations of sounds are married to the picture. Sound movement, or panning, is determined here. The level and character of the ambiences is determined. Dialogue levels and locations are set amidst the competition from sound effects and music. Here it all comes together in a controlled environment.
Even though all movie theatres conform to the same standards, it’s known that not all movie theatres are perfect. The Mixing Theatres at Skywalker Sound can simulate everything from noisy air conditioning to clipping amplifiers.
Final Checks
Once the quality of the soundtrack is judged (and the computer automation has recorded every adjustment of each fader, each tone control, and the location of each pan), the print mastering begins.
Master tapes are made for each scene. One set of masters is the LT/RT (Left Total/Right Total) containing the 4 channel encoded surround signal. Most films require a 6 or 8 track print master used for 70mm, Dolby SR-D, DTS, or Sony SDDS release. Frequently, a 6 track transfer is made directly to the digital encoder for these systems. Once all of the masters are completed, they must be checked to ensure that the final soundtrack is perfect.
The Stag Theatre located in the Technical Building at Skywalker Ranch is where a mixer, sound designer, or director can experience the final fruits of their work. The Stag Theatre can accommodate all commercial film formats from 35mm flat to 70mm, and it can reproduce all audio formats from mono optical to the latest digital systems. The Stag Theatre (named for the two stainless steel art deco stags framing the entrance) seats several hundred people and conforms to the high standards set by THX. It is quiet, acoustically dead, and there truly is no “bad seat” in the house. It is the site, not only for print master quality control checks, but for Lucasfilm company screenings and the Home THX Dealer Training seminars.
Skywalker Sound: The Future
Films mixed at Skywalker Sound, and its predecessor Sprockets Systems, have won 11 Academy Awards for movie sound or sound effects editing. This is a testament, not only to the facility, but to the hundreds of dedicated artists, technicians, and craftsmen who work there. Winner of 3 TEC Awards and acclaimed by Mix Magazine as the best Post Production Facility for 1992, 1993 and 1994, Skywalker Sound is a place, like its companion Industrial Light & Magic, where technology doesn’t limit the imagination of the filmmaker.
Skywalker Sound Film Mixes
Sprocket Systems
Star Wars (2 Academy Awards)
The Empire Strikes Back (Academy Award)
Spaceballs
Return of the Jedi (Academy Award Nomination)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (2 Academy Awards)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Skywalker Sound
1988
Willow (Academy Award Nomination)
Tucker The Man and His Dream
Cocoon – the Return
Peggy Sue Got Married
Fletch II
Bridge to Silence
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Deadlock
Daredreamer
Chattahootche Legacy
1989
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Academy Award)
Always
Driving Miss Daisy
Romero
Short Cut
Neon Empire
Matinee
Take One
1990
Wild At Heart
Avalon
The Hot Spot
The Godfather – Part III
Henry and June
Defenseless
1991
Terminator 2 – Judgement Day (2 Academy Awards)
Backdraft (Academy Award Nomination)
Bugsy
Rush
Soapdish
Five Hearts
FX II
Brief History of Time
1992
Toys
A River Runs Through It
Saint of Fort Washington
Single White Female
House of Cards
1993
Jurassic Park (2 Academy Awards)
Rising Sun
The Meteor Man
Mrs. Doubtfire
1994
Quiz Show
Baby’s Day Out
Forrest Gump (Academy Award Nomination)
Miracle on 34th Street
Radioland Murders
Disclosure (pre-mixed in the THX dubbing stage at EFX, final mix at Skywalker Sound)
From early ideas for the Battle of Hoth to behind-the-scenes antics, four legends of Star Wars special effects get together to share memories from making Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. – Kristin Baver.
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In less than a month, select IMAX ® theaters across North America will play Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones in its largest format ever. This is not just a re-projection of the standard-sized 35-mm film print onto a larger screen; through the revolutionary IMAX DMR ™ process, the movie has been re-mastered and the image enlarged to occupy up to eight stories of screen and the sound enhanced to include 12,000 watts of uncompressed sound.
Imagine the blue-white shafts of laser energy spearing the immense Trade Federation core ship, and suddenly you’re engulfed in a cloud of dust as the fallen vessel strikes the Geonosian surface. Picture twisting and diving through the luminescent skylanes of Coruscant, as panicked commuters soar directly at you. Or imagine a forty-foot tall Yoda, using the Force to draw his lightsaber as he gets ready to square off against Count Dooku.
“The biggest thing when you get get that kind of sound and that size of image on the screen, is that it draws you into it. You’re part of the experience,” says Brian Bonnick, the Vice President of Technology for IMAX Corporation.
Up until the innovation of IMAX DMR technology, there was no way to project a standard-sized live action film to the scale of an IMAX movie and still maintain a quality performance. IMAX theaters were built for 70mm film format; smaller film formats are comprised of a fine grain structure that would be magnified and detract from the underlying picture, creating a soft, unfocused and poor image. IMAX DMR digitally removes the grain and preserves the quality of the image, allowing it to be projected onto IMAX screens.
The majority of Star Wars fans saw Episode II in a 35mm film format. This means that each film frame is 35 millimeters across. The film area is mostly square — a special lens on the projector spreads the image out to its rectangular proportions. If you were to look at a film frame from a reel of Episode II, the characters would look very tall and skinny (the Kaminoans even more so). The image is compressed into the frame and the projector lens decompresses it. On each side of the image, there are four sprocket holes or “perfs” (short for perforations), which the projector uses to tug long lengths of film through its inner mechanisms.
IMAX is a totally different picture. It’s 70 millimeters wide, and the image isn’t compressed. It’s about 10 times larger in area than 35mm film stock. It’s called 15/70mm format for the 15 perforations that run along the top and bottom of the frame. Regular movies spool into a projector vertically; IMAX projectors move film horizontally for reasons explained later on.
To get a movie projected to the IMAX scale requires a lot of image area within the film frame, and a lot of light shining through it. A 35mm film frame just doesn’t have the resolution to hold up to that scale, and a typical 35 mm projector just can’t crank out the kind of light an IMAX’s 15,000-watt xenon bulb can.
So IMAX DMR technology figured out a way to scan a 35mm film frame, enhance it, and enlarge it to 70mm without sacrificing image quality. “IMAX has been working on this innovative technology for the past five years to enhance the theatrical experience, offering movie-goers an all-encompassing experience which literally brings them into the story ,” says Bonnick.
The first feature film to undergo this process is the recently released Apollo 13: The IMAX Experience. The Ron Howard-directed film was shot in Super 35mm. That film was scanned and converted into a digital form at the highest possible resolution.
“We then apply our proprietary software and it mathematically analyzes and extracts the important image elements from each frame from the original grainy structure,” explains Bonnick. “It creates the most pristine form from the original photograph. It’s clearly the most complex step in the whole DMR process.”
The complex software algorithms makes images sharper and improves the contrast on a frame-by-frame basis. Colors are adjusted to the unique technical characteristics of the IMAX screen. If there are any scratches, blotches, or imperfections in the film image — known as artifacts — those are digitally removed by a special patent-pending process. “We clean the whole thing up from front to back end,” says Bonnick.
Once the entire film has been digitized and enhanced, it is then output back to film, but this time in 15/70mm stock. “This conversion from digital back to 15/70mm is accomplished by using our proprietary 15/70 laser film recorder. It was both designed and manufactured by IMAX. It is capable of providing greater dynamic color range than normal scanners on the market and it has capabilities of capturing resolutions up to 8,000 x 6,000.”
For Apollo 13, once the film was digitized, it comprised nearly 200,000 frames of data. “When we were finished the conversion process, we had over seven terabytes of data — that’s 12 zeroes. That’s equivalent to about 13,000 DVDs of data. Episode II is comparable in frame count. There’s a massive amount of information we’re working with,” says Bonnick.
“People tend to get mixed up thinking that DMR is just a piece of software,” he continues. “IMAX DMR is a total process that clearly involves some very complex software algorithms that process image data, but along with that comes the management of that information. You have to have an infrastructure capable of knowing where every frame is in the process to manage this much.”
Digital to IMAX
With Episode II, the DMR process was spared a step in that the image content already existed in a digital state; there would be no film to scan. But starting from an HD-source brought its own technical issues, as the algorithms set in place for handling a 35mm source wouldn’t entirely suffice for the re-mastering of Clones.
“In a digital film, it doesn’t obviously have grain that we’ve come to know in normal photography,” explains Bonnick. “But it does tend to carry ‘video noise’ artifacts. Two noticeable ones would be when pixels appear to be off-color relative to those in the surrounding area. You might get a flicker from frame to frame. Or when tighter clusters of pixels tend to slightly vary in color from frame to frame. That tends to happen in dark areas, and it looks a bit like a boiling effect. Now these are very, very subtle effects; in most cases I’d have to take you into a theater and describe to you what to look for and you would find it. Somebody who is very up on video would really pick these sort of things up; obviously, in our industry that’s part of our job.”
The DMR pipeline was customized to deal with these unique forms of artifacts. “We’ve designed it to be very open-ended. If we come across an artifact that we’ve never dealt with before, we’re in a position to very quickly write a new algorithm and incorporate it into the production engine in a short period of time.”
Though the software examined each and every frame of image, the re-mastering team broke the film down into shots as discreet units of work and focus. An individual shot (a sustained hold from a camera vantage point prior to it cutting to the next “shot”) is fairly uniform in its re-mastering requirements, though if there are specific artifact issues within a shot, the team then redirects their efforts to the more focused scale: individual frames.
The image re-mastering process took about 14 weeks of work, and was finished by the end of September 2002. “The process is scalable,” says Bonnick. “At the moment, we’ve got dozens and dozens of computers in our render farm. It’s all a factor of how many frames per day you want to process. If you want to process more frames per day in a given timeline under a tighter deadline, then you would scale up the numbers of computers in your system to give you greater throughput capacity.”
The IMAX Experience™ is more than just big picture. It also delivers six-channel uncompressed multi-speaker sound that further completes the audience’s total immersion into Episode II. “We use six completely discreet channels plus subwoofers on their own separate channels. We use ultra-low distortion amplifiers, capable of delivering up to 12,000 watts of power. We employ our own custom-designed speaker-set with over 44 speakers,” explains Bonnick. That sound system is carefully aligned by lasers to deliver proportional point source (PPS) quality.
“The non-technical definition of a PPS speaker is that we have designed it such that, rather than having the dead-center seat in the theater being the ‘sweet spot,’ these speakers are designed to enlarge the sweet spot quite a bit so that everybody in the theater is sitting in a good position to hear the sound as it was originally intended,” explains Bonnick.
The IMAX sound system will not only deliver huge events like the shattering of asteroids or the crash of a core ship, but also soft sounds like the distant birds of Naboo or the hum of background cloning machinery with crystal clarity. “The IMAX sound system has been designed with a very high dynamic range, unlike 35mm theaters. There, when you start to get anything with depth or volume to it, you tend to hear a lot of distortion.”
Those fortunate enough to have caught the original digital exhibition of Episode II in the spring are probably digital-converts, fully aware of the limitations of traditional film. IMAX film is a whole different set of variables, since the quality-assurance and technical advancements in projecting films of this size help overcome many of the limitations of 35mm exhibition.
“IMAX film lasts substantially longer than 35 mm film, because we use the rolling loop technology in our projectors,” explains Bonnick “The film is moved around the lens aperture in a wave motion. We’re not moving it constantly through sprockets that over time wear the film out and enlarge the perforations, which is when you start getting a jiggle in the film. Because of this fluid motion that the IMAX film goes through, we are being very gentle to it, ergo it lasts longer.”
An IMAX projector has a steadiness of .004 percentage change from frame-to-frame. A traditional 35mm film has a .12 steadiness in comparison. Even the heat of the projection bulb will cause a 35mm film to buckle, something that can’t happen in an IMAX projector thanks to a field flattener that holds the film steady and true.
Furthermore, the smaller number of IMAX screens makes quality assurance easier to manage. “The systems are constantly being tuned to ensure the films are running properly, that the steadiness is accurate, and the light intensity and distribution of it are all set adequately, that the screens are clean, that everything is at optimum performance levels.”
An IMAX projector is an immense machine, weighing in at over two tons. The huge platter that spins the oversized film has an upper limit of film length. Most films that play in IMAX theaters are documentaries that don’t clock in much over an hour in length. Feature films have to be cut to 120 minutes since that is the current maximum the platter can sustain. For number-minded trivia fans, the Episode II IMAX print is 58 inches in diameter and weighs 390 pounds! “It’s the limit now,” explains Bonnick. “We are actively developing a 150-minute solution that would be employed as an upgrade to the theaters in the future.”
I got the chance to ask Diego Luna a question about the upcoming series, Andor, which comes out in just under a month! I asked how he thinks Star Wars fans will look on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story with fresh eyes after Andor is complete. This is a full interview, including questions from several other Star Wars podcasters and YouTubers.
Tony Gilroy went “old school” for Star Wars: Andor, and by that he doesn’t mean no digital effects of course, he means they didn’t use the LED Stagecraft room technology known as “The Volume”, the first Star Wars live-action Disney Plus series to not use it. We discuss that debate over how these shows are made, and on Gilroy’s approach. We also discuss all the latest Star Wars news including Cameron Monaghan addressing the live-action Cal Kestis rumor, and the real life politics that shape stories in a galaxy far, far away. That and more including your submitted questions!
The Resistance base is open to all, so please spread the word about our Star Wars podcast and join us! Listen or watch below, and make sure to subscribe free to the show on your preferred platform!…
This week in Star Wars, we get a fresh look at Andor in the new trailer, slather on SPF for some fun in the sun with LEGO Star Wars Summer Vacation, and pull back the curtain on Industrial Light & Magic with the six-part documentary Light & Magic streaming exclusively on Disney+. Plus, the docuseries director and executive producer Lawrence Kasdan, whose writing credits include the scripts for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, stops by to talk about his latest project.
Working closely with the Costume and Make-up Departments, Chief Hairdresser Sue Love was responsible for one more of the crucial elements that work their magic to bring to life the characters of Episode I.
“I’ve always been a hairdresser, always wanted to be a hairdresser,” begins Love, whose career in the movies began around the time Star Wars opened. “I had done everything in the salon, had gone as far as I could. And in the 70’s, when blow drying came in, it all became very boring. So I made some contacts in the film business, and when I was given a chance, I took it.” Love has been at it ever since, weaving her hairdressing spell in such productions as Braveheart and The Fifth Element. “My very first project was a movie called Arabian Adventure,” she recalls. “I then worked on a British television series called The Professional, and I went on from there.” With her daughter Sarah in tow, Love was unwittingly planting the hairdressing bug in her family lineage. “I used to follow mom around,” says Sarah, “and I eventually ended up training as a hairdresser myself. I then worked in the theater industry for a couple of years before moving to films.” Over the years, mother and daughter collaborated on a few projects, including The Fifth Element. They were reunited once again when Producer Rick McCallum hired them to work on Episode I.
Sculpting hairstyles on the set requires a broader range of abilities than what might be expected in the salon, and proper training is key. “You just need to have an all-around knowledge of hair and hairdressing,” explains Sue Love. “I was fortunate in my training during the 60’s, because you got that, you did everything. Nowadays they just don’t do it anymore, they pretty much just do the cutting and the drying. But for all the period work, you have to know how to do the different hairstyles, you have to master the different techniques, the wigs and everything.” The approach to movie hairstyling can also be very different than standard hairdressing, both in terms of the techniques involved and the expected results. “First of all, there’s not as much worry about permanency,” says Sue Love. “You can sometimes use temporary techniques, because you know that hair only needs a lifespan of a few hours.” This allows hairdressers to create complex hairstyles that, if required to last for any significant period of time, would be impossible to achieve. “Then there is the fact that you know your work is going to end up onscreen,” Love continues, “and that your tiny mistake will be magnified and appear on a 40-foot wide head. So you’ve got to be extra careful.”
On Episode I, Sue and Sarah Love had one month to prepare before principal photography began. Armed with concept art and tapes of the original Trilogy, they started planning. “We spoke to George, and he gave us directions,” says Sue Love. “He’s very clear and definite in what he wants, but of course he leaves the methods of achieving those results to us. And he always listens when we tell him that something is impossible.” But the Loves were determined not to let this happen often, no matter how complex the designs of Concept Artist Iain McCaig proved to be. But concept art only covered hairdos for the main characters, and for all the others who wore hair, it was up to Sue and her daughter Sarah to give them convincing hairstyles. “We didn’t do all the rest,” points out Sue Love. “There are quite a lot of creatures in this movie, and we didn’t work on those for obvious reasons. And we didn’t work on the digital characters either.” That still leaves a large population that needs hair care. “In order to prepare for the job,” continues Love, “we watched all three original movies. We spent a whole day just watching the movies, rewinding scenes and watching them again, over and over again.” The Loves played the movies in chronological order, but also watched them in reverse, so that they could somehow “devolve” the hairstyles from Return of the Jedi to A New Hope, and all the way down to Episode I. “We had to grasp not only the differences between the people from Tatooine and the people from Naboo, but also the variations in the way they wear their hair from one timeframe to another,” says Sarah Love. “From one movie to another, the characters are all related in some way, and we wanted to preserve that continuity.”
For practical reasons, a movie is usually shot out of sequence, which means that hair management can become a complex puzzle at times. Unlike make-up artists, hairdressers can’t afford the luxury of erasing a mistake and starting over. Once the scissors have thinned or shortened an actor’s hair, there is no turning back. Wigs can help up to a certain point, but they remain far from being an ideal remedy. The character of Obi-Wan Kenobi, among others, required some wizardry on the part of the Loves. “We had to cut Ewan’s hair quite short and give him a braid on one side,” explains Sue Love. “But then George thought a pony tail at the back of the head would look good, which is of course we couldn’t do since the hair was gone! So we shuffled around, found some hair that matched Ewan’s, and attached it. And George was right: it worked beautifully.”
Stunt doubles also carry with them their load of practical problems for hairdressers, because the transition from one performer to the other, on screen, must be accomplished seamlessly. “At first we tried dyeing the hair of Ewan’s stunt double, but it didn’t quite work,” Sue Love says. “So we had to use a wig. It worked well, but you still have to be extremely careful and really pay attention, because the better the match between actor and stunt double, the closer the camera can go on the double.” For obvious reasons, stunt doubles are often shot from a back angle; this makes hair is one of the main elements, along with the costume, that allow audiences to readily recognize the character. “So it should be really exact,” comments Sue Love.
As is the case for make-up artists, the job of the hairdressing team doesn’t stop once the actors leave their reclining chairs. On the set, and especially when shooting an action-packed movie like Episode I, Sue Love and her team have to stand ready to spring into some action of their own. “There’s always some piece of hair that has moved where it shouldn’t have, and you need to bring it back to where it was in the previous shot,” explains Sue Love. “So we work closely with the Continuity Supervisor, and it’s really helpful. On Episode I, Jayne-Ann Tenggren helped a lot in keeping all the tiny details straight.” There are never too many pairs of eyes paying attention to the subtleties of hair placement – or displacement, as it often happened during the action scenes of The Phantom Menace. The hairdresser is also required to be on set to perform the many transformations the actors’ hair might need during the day, as the characters move from one location to another, and emerge from one adventure only to plunge back into the next. “The hair’s got to be wet, dry, messy, tidy…and you need to keep track of it all,” laughs Sue Love. “We take a lot of reference pictures.” Rick McCallum felt confident that every single detail would be attended to with the utmost professionalism. “Sue did the most outstanding job during the production,” McCallum says. “It was a real pleasure to have her with us on this project.”
While a character’s hair obviously has to work with his or her make-up, the match between hair and costume is no less important. On Episode I, with elaborate costumes worn by Queen Amidala and other characters, the delicate fusion between the hair and the cloth required skill and imagination. “We usually like to see the costume first,” explains Sue Love, “and then do something, with the hair, that will fit that costume.” Governor Sio Bibble, played by Oliver Walpole, is a case in point. He wears the elegant garments of a Naboo politician, and needed a haircut to match. “With short hair it just didn’t look right.” says Sue Love. “So we opted for the period, longer hair, and it all came together.” In the case of hairstyles that had been previously designed, almost as part of the costume itself, by Iain McCaig, the Chief Hairdresser’s job didn’t lose any of its complexity: bringing a fantasy hairdo into the real world can be quite a challenge. Queen Amidala, in particular, proved to require special attention, and had the Loves use their full range of skills to create the intricate, royal hair designs. “It was indeed complicated,” says Sue Love, “but in the end it looked absolutely spectacular. So it was worth the effort, especially since Natalie Portman made it so easy for us. She never complained about the head pieces being too hot or too heavy – and some of them were hot and heavy. She was great.”
Hairstyles are one of the many elements that define the identity of the Star Wars saga. And like everything else, they have to be just right for their influence to blend perfectly with the tone created by the costumes, the make-ups, the props, the sets…. So how do you conjure up a Star Wars hairdo? Above the funky, otherworldly twists present in many of the coiffures of Star Wars characters, one quality reigns supreme: timelessness. To achieve this, George Lucas has relied on influences that are already considered classic and will therefore never feel outdated, no matter where in time – or in space – they end up being positioned. So the Loves have followed Lucas’ lead. “There is very little that’s futuristic in Episode I”, says Sarah Love. “Pretty much all the costumes and hairstyles are period, classic.”
And so the wheel keeps turning. By the time moviegoers witness the conclusion of Episode III, the various costume and hairstyle designs will have been brought to a point where they connect with what exists in the original Trilogy. Ironically, the influence will still be a classic one, because those Episode III designs will be tapping into material that appeared in Episodes IV, V and VI, and which was made classic by the equally timeless quality of the original Star Wars movies.
The entire process of making Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) are shown here in this documentary. From pre-production through post-production we get to see visual effects meetings, John Williams music sessions and even the storm that wiped out the pod-racers and props.
The Star Wars universe is filled with countless species, each with its own unique appearance. Several departments work together to create these otherworldly looks, and make-up is one of them. Chief Make-Up Artist on Episode I, Paul R. A. Engelen brings to life the faces of the heroes and villains of the new Star Wars movie.
“It goes back to 1970,” says Engelen, “when I first started in art school. I thought I would perhaps end up being a designer, but it turned out differently. A good friend of mine with whom I was in college persuaded me to go with him watch his father, who was doing the make-up on the play Oliver Twist. I ended up working myself, on the crowds, doing hair and things like that. Then Thomas Nick, another great make-up artist, asked me if I would like to assist him on a film shoot, and I jumped at it. So I did my apprenticeship when I started working,” says Engelen with a smile.
This unexpected debut was the beginning of a career that would allow Engelen, over the years, to explore different aspects of his art, from period work like Much Ado About Nothing and monstrous effects in Frankenstein, all the way to the action-packed adventures of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and the elegant simplicity of Seven Years in Tibet. “Producer Rick McCallum actually called while I was working on Seven Years in Tibet,” says Engelen. “Right out of the blue – it was my first contact with Lucasfilm. We discussed the upcoming movie, and I was brought on board.”
Episode I was an interesting mix of challenges for Engelen. The sheer number of characters demanded a wide variety of make-up designs, and the presence of alien creatures meant that unorthodox techniques would apply. “My background allows me to be comfortable with both bare skin and prosthetics,” says Engelen, “and I like to be involved in both sides of make-up. But when the prosthetics are done and the shooting begins, I prefer to concentrate on the actors. I love to be on the floor with them. Fortunately, there are those, like Nick Dudman, who are able to immerse themselves completely in the prosthetics side of it. We made a good team.” This type of collaboration would prove to be helpful in the realization of the many make-up designs produced by the art department. Some of those designs, very imaginative, required careful planning and creative thinking to be brought to life.
The make-up of Darth Maul was one of the more complex designs. “I have not seen anything that looks remotely like the Darth Maul character,” says Engelen. “And that’s fascinating.” Every day that Darth Maul was required on set, Engelen had to accurately reproduce Maul’s tattoo design on Ray Park’s face and head. He also had to make sure that it would withstand the intense activity the martial artist-actor would engage in. “I just had to make sure that somehow we could keep this design on,” Engelen says. “There was so much activity and fighting going on, that the heat was a constant threat. We tried different things, and I ended up using a paint mixed with a rubber solution, which adhered nicely to the skin. [A close-up on Darth Maul]It worked well, up to a point. As long as you didn’t push it too much, it didn’t run or bleed away like normal make-up would have done.” No matter how good the make-up held, it had to be removed each night and put back on the next morning, and Engelen needed to make sure that his markings would look exactly the same each time. “For the head, I used a stencil,” he says. “But for the face, it couldn’t be that easy. I had to note the marks on his face – a little mole here, a wrinkle there – and use these as sort of landmarks from which to draw the various shapes of the design.”
The various make-up designs for the Queen, although not destined to bear the pressure of lightsaber combat, were still very delicate to realize. “Many influences were combined for the overall look of the Queen,” says Engelen, “but I’d say that most of the time it’s an Eastern look. The costumes and the headdress designs were all very intricate and elaborate, creating strong images.” Engelen explains that while the make-up has to go in the same direction as the rest of the elements that compose the Queen’s look, it also needs to take away some of the heaviness of the whole design, and underline the features in a very light way, acting as a kind of counter weight. “It was an almost white base color, very oriental-looking,” Engelen continues. “An almost naïve kind of markings. Red dots on the cheek, a very accentuated red mouth, and some black eyes. I think it worked: it ‘pops’ the face amongst all of this incredible, ornate headdress and costume. It all seems to balance quite well.”
Engelen’s job goes beyond making up the actors every morning. Someone needs to remain on the set, brushes ready, and keep an eye out for any character that might require some touching-up — and Engelen loves to take care of that himself. “It’s basically a question of maintaining the actors’ looks from one shot to the next,” he says, “and making sure they look the same in the afternoon as they did in the morning.” However, to Engelen, being on the set serves another purpose as well. “I think seeing the actors work their characters out really helps me. It allows me to be conscious of the character’s personality as I make the actor up, and maybe change a few little things to better match that personality. They’re really small touches, and they don’t make a marked difference. But they’re important to me.”
Engelen’s mastery of various make-up techniques allowed him to meet the different challenges that awaited him on Episode I. However, a new technique is emerging: digital make-up. More and more, computer artists can re-create make-up effects with touch-less strokes from their virtual brushes. “The computer effects are much more acceptable and believable nowadays,” says Engelen. “The range of distortions and additions that they can do now with faces – with my area – is impressive. I have to admit it’s a bit alarming. But elaborate make-ups are inconveniences for the whole production, not least of which the actors.” While computers might solve certain problems and provide a few welcome short-cuts, nothing will quite be able to completely replace the touch of a human hand weaving a delicate tapestry on bare skin. “I think there will always be a place for people like myself,” concludes Engelen. And his work is an eloquent testimony to the fact that, indeed, there will always be a need for the human element.
Watto’s Character Development – From Concept to CG
Described as a cranky curmudgeon, a shyster, and a crooked salesman by his creators in the Lucasfilm Art Department and at ILM, Watto may not be the noblest character Episode I has to offer, but he certainly has a strong personality. Watto is a pudgy blue alien with a wide girth, elephantine snout, and hummingbird-like wings. His love of money is rivaled only by that of gambling. His short leathery wings propel him about his Mos Espa junk shop as he yells orders in Huttese to his slaves.
“George knew exactly what he wanted for this character,” said Design Director Doug Chiang. However, says Doug, the strange combination of physical traits that George requested threw them off for a time. They went through a few rounds of concept designs before getting Watto just right. The designers were used to George talking more in terms of concepts than specifics and he often gave the art department a lot of freedom in creating initial designs. So, thinking in these terms, Doug and artists Terryl Whitlatch and Iain McCaig came up with a several variations on the Watto theme. Terryl’s interpretation of Watto was of a very pudgy parrot with full wings and an impressive waistline. Iain’s rendition was a hefty four-armed beast puffing a cigar.
When these concepts did not earn George’s stamp of approval, Doug decided to give him quite literally what he asked for. “I took a head from a previous creature design that George liked, put it on this funky body and gave it hummingbird wings and George came in and said, that’s it!” Watto’s costume came easily says Doug, who dressed him in a vest and toolbelt loaded with gadgets. George approved the design and requested only that Watto be given webbed feet and a pair of pants. “Watto was this conglomeration of odd things that really didn’t fit, but that in the end gave him a very unique and powerful personality,” says Doug.
When Watto moved from concept art to ILM’s CG modelers, a whole set of new issues arose. It was their job to realize Watto as a fully CG character. Modeling Supervisor Geoff Campell said that at first he was a bit skeptical. “It just didn’t seem logical that this old chubby alien was going to be propelled by wings.” But viewing Watto by our principles of physics just wasn’t going to work. So, they thought in terms of Watto’s alien environment and imagined him filled with a kind of gas. His wings became a means to propel him versus supporting his weight.
Watto was modeled by Modeler Steve Aplin, who spent about four weeks creating a library of his movements and facial expressions. “We had Steve use a variety of sources to create speech patterns for the bilingual alien,” said Geoff. Steve had video footage of Watto’s voice actor speaking, photos of ILM animator Rob Coleman doing his impersonation of Watto, and he also used a mirror to examine how his own face moved while speaking Watto’s lines.
The biggest problem, though, were Watto’s large tusks which gave him personality but prevented the alien from completely closing his mouth. For speaking the letters ‘B’ and ‘M’, for example, the modelers couldn’t achieve proper lip movement and they played with the idea of reducing or doing away with Watto’s teeth altogether.
A few other bits and pieces of Watto had already been lost in the modeling process because of complications, like a hat that would have kept Watto’s face in perpetual shadow, and a nose ring which created skin stretching problems.
But, Doug refused to back down on Watto’s teeth. “I felt very strongly that we needed those teeth because they really added to his personality. His other attributes that were lost weren’t critical to his character.” The end result was to actually add more than they took away. “As a compromise, I suggested that we break one tooth which would allow him to close one side of his mouth to give him an asymmetrical way of talking,” says Doug. In the end, Watto was given a war wound and a speech impediment which added to his mean-old-curmudgeon persona.
One by one, ILM is completing the Episode I final effects shots, and some of those shots had their genesis in the work of a teenager. Ryan Tudhope is a member of David Dozoretz’s animatics team, which works hard at Skywalker Ranch to provide computer-generated (CG) “pre-visualizations” for most of the shots in Episode I. Brought on to the team in 1997 at age 18 with his friend Kevin Baillie, Ryan enjoyed the unusual experience of walking from high school right into the production team of a Star Wars movie. Producer Rick McCallum had spotted Ryan and Kevin’s high school CG experiments in a documentary, and McCallum kept an eye on the two for the next year. Ryan and his colleague Kevin “worked liked crazy” developing ever-more-sophisticated shots on the computers at their school, sending periodic updates to McCallum and David Dozoretz at the Ranch. Eventually they proved their skill with the Force, and two new Jedi initiates were summoned to Lucas’ headquarters in Northern California.
Ryan wasn’t sure what to expect from his new job. “I figured that David would have us doing only the boring stuff in support of the ‘real’ animatics team. I was all set for that-I would gladly do anything to work on a Star Wars movie!” But it didn’t work out that way. “We were hardly settled into our desks when David had us working on real shots that Martin Smith and George Lucas needed downstairs in the editing suites. I couldn’t believe that we were actually handing our own work straight to the editors. It turned out that we were on the real animatics team.”
“I’d seen their earlier projects,” says animatics leader David Dozoretz, “and when they joined the team we had a ton of shots to produce, ASAP. I didn’t have time for them to mess around. I knew they were capable of really helping and contributing. Rick and I wouldn’t have brought them on board otherwise. I had them doing real shots almost immediately. Once they were settled in with the new software, I threw them into the ‘sink or swim’ production environment. From there on, it was up to them to prove themselves.”
Was it intimidating at first? “Well, yes!” admits Ryan. “It was such a huge responsibility, and there was so much work to do so quickly. But then I learned that David wanted many of the shots in fairly low detail, and I thought, ‘that will save us.’ At least they didn’t have to be perfect. Making them perfect would be handled by ILM.” Actually, the animatics team ended up doing a great many shots with strikingly high detail in the end. On a small monitor you could mistake some of them for the final film-out effects. But thinking in terms of approximations helped Ryan get through the initial shock.
The wonder of it all didn’t wear off so quickly. “It hit me every day straight in the face, for a long time, what I was actually doing. Working at Skywalker Ranch, being part of such a fantastic team, learning so much and contributing to Episode I in a direct way. Sure, we still have a lot of support work to do, it’s part of the job. But it is the most amazing thing I have ever done.”
The pressure has remained high, to produce a lot, to produce it well. “Learning new software is always a little scary. But being part of a team like this helped me get up to speed quickly and learn what I needed to.” But much of what Ryan had to learn was not about technology, but about the art of filmmaking. “I had worked so hard learning CG techniques in high school,” he recalls. “But when I came to work for Lucasfilm I learned how to use those tools in the service of film. It turned out to be about art even more than technique. We were asked to create shots that were not just slick or sophisticated, they had to work in the context of the film and specifically help to tell the story. That is probably the biggest thing I have learned here. Crafting shots for a film is about telling a story, and that is an art more than a science.”
Ryan was also involved in work for the Episode I teaser trailer recently. He was called upon “in a rush, of course,” to work out various color and flare treatments for the logo that appears out of the flames at the end. In three hours, he, like everyone else on the animatics team, had five different treatments to show. The version seen in the trailer is a composite of team efforts. What kind of storytelling went into that? “Well,” Ryan says, “sometimes it is just about making things look cool.”
During the lead-up to Star Wars – Episode II : Attack of the Clones, the folks over at starwars.com created a fantastic in universe web site called Holonet News in which we got all kinds of news on the goings-on in the Star Wars universe and on Coruscant.
Here’s my attempt to archive some of the articles posted, including some hilarious ad banners.
Enjoy & Welcome to Holonet News
Mass Aqualish Exodus Expected
WESTPORT, CORUSCANT — Freespan Starlanes Transport has announced plans to double the number of scheduled liner departures for Ando, predicting increased travel from Andoan expatriates wishing to return. Other major starlines, including Romodi Interstellar and Galaxy Tours are expected to announce similar increases.
Already, within hours of the secession, over 500 Aqualish have booked passage off Coruscant. Westport, which handles the bulk of Coruscant’s emigrant departures, has experienced a 6,000 percent increase in traffic since the separatist crisis began.
“It’s clear where home is now,” said a harried Unga Torr, an Aqualish formerly employed as a Senate clerk. He and his family are just one of hundreds at the Westport ticketing stations today.
According to official census records, there are an estimated 145 million Aqualish living on Coruscant right now, most in the Taung Heights region of the city. The local Heights economy, much of it run by — or catering to — Aqualish, is expected to crumble.
Similar repercussions aren’t likely to be as hard-hitting in the Sy Myrthian population, which also declared secession today. There are only an estimated 15 million Sy Myrthians, widely distributed among the various municipalities of Coruscant.
While Westport deals with a mass Aqualish exodus, Eastport continues to take in a non-stop flood of refugees from seceded worlds. “You think this is bad now, wait until those Aqualish who still want to be part of the Republic start spilling in,” said an Eastport security officer who did not want to be identified.
Stark Veterans Blast Amidala
PHELAR, ERIADU — The Stark Veteran Assembly has publicly criticized Naboo Senator Padmé Amidala for statements attributed to her during a Peace Rally on Commenor. SVA Spokesbeing Laslo Dorits called Amidala’s statements “disgraceful, stupid and typical,” during a live interview on the Eriadu talk show, Essence, last night.
“Soldiers are expendable tools for politicians like her, who don’t like to muddy or bloody their hands with the defense of the Republic,” Dorits told host AndroosinLiann. “Yet it was soldiers who liberated her world a decade ago, and now she’s calling us cowards.”
The statement Dorits refers to is one Amidala made to a gathering of University of Commenor students during her planet-hopping Campaign against Republic Militarization. “Warfare is the product of cowardice; it takes bravery to forego easy answers and find peaceful resolutions,” the Senator said.
Amidala, who concludes her series of speeches on Chommel Minor next week, declined comment, but posted the following at the Naboo message exchange on the HoloNet.
“I have a great respect for the men and women tasked to protect their native soil. I too have lived with the specter of war, and will never forget it. What I don’t have respect for is needless warmongering of the type being conducted by alarmist elements in the Senate.”
Nikto Cultists Plague Sisar Run
DNALVEC, SRILUUR – The Bureau of Ships and Services has announced an advisory for travelers near the Sisar Run area of the Periphery, due to increased acts of violence from the Nikto Cult of M’dweshuu.The violent “blood cult” of Nikto followers have found their way off their homeworld of Kintan, and are in the midst of a campaign of scattered violence up and down the Sisar Run. The Cult — believed to be under 100 individuals — has killed 27 travelers in occult mutilations, the latest last week at Nwarcol Point.
The Nikto cult predates the Republic and has been put down by the ruling Hutts on numerous occasions, each time supposedly being wiped out. The Cult once ruled the planet Kintan, necessitating the brutal Hutt annexation of the planet centuries ago.
Local businesses and planetary governments have issued open bounties on free Nikto in the Periphery. Many of these bounties offer rewards of 1,000-5,000 credits “dead or alive.” As such, free Nikto (those not in the employ of Hutts or Hutt enterprises) are strongly advised from travel in the Periphery.
Dorosii the Hutt, Appointed Intermediate to the Senate, has assured Republic officials that they can resolve the cult violence without government intervention. Nonetheless, the Jedi Council is reportedly examining the situation and is likely to dispatch a taskforce.
Datanet Propaganda the Real Deal?
IBC ARCOLOGY, CORUSCANT — The most skilled slicers from MerenData are still puzzled how an IBC data-server was compromised for the spreading of separatist propaganda last week, even after having examined and purged the system.
IBC clients using the bank clan’s datacom-net would have received messages urging secession and Senate reform, with what looked to be a signature from Count Dooku. The Senate Bureau of Intelligence is dismissing the propaganda missives as hoaxes, but MerenData officials don’t readily concur.
“Ordinarily, we’d attribute this kind of vandalism to independent slicers looking to make a name for themselves,” said MerenData’s Security Administrator Gray Tucker. “But to cut into the banking clan’s network suggests that these people had impressive backing.”
IBC officials continue to tell investors that their systems are secure, and point to the fact that only their message-exchange systems were compromised, and not their more tightly guarded transaction channels. “The safety of our clients investment is always our paramount concern,” says IBC Chairman San Hill in a message that accompanies all account statements dispatched to investors this month.
RM&S; Debates Calendar Reform
MENNAA, MRLSST – The Republic Measures & Standards Bureau is debating the issue of calendar reform, prompted by an independent report citing “an impending bureaucratic crisis of disparate timekeeping” in official records. According to the report, there are over 20 different dating schemes in use in various government offices throughout the Republic, all of them “official” in some capacity. “The use of multiple timekeeping schemes was originally to accommodate different cultural backgrounds,” said RM&S; Chair Keelen Ma, “but now it’s just a tangled mess of confusion. We’ve got the Judiciary using the 10-month standard calendar, archivists using the Alderaanian 11-month notation, and infrastructure using a hexidecimal-based system. Researchers are getting tired of needing calendar converters in their pads.” The current debate stems over which zero-point year-notation system is the best, with the Great ReSynchronization of 13 years ago and the Ruusan Reformation of a millennium ago being popular contenders.
Rep. Binks Destroys Ice Statue at Gala Fundraiser
JRADE PLAZA, CORUSCANT — He did it again; Representative Jar Jar Binks (Naboo) accidentally destroyed an elaborate ice statue at a gala fundraiser in Coruscant’s posh Jrade-district last night. The notoriously maladroit Binks apparently had tucked the tablecloth upon which rested the statue into his cummerbund, and he pulled down the intricately-crafted Kime Enanrum-original when he attempted to catch tumbling canapés he had knocked from a passing waiter. This incident echoes a similar one two months ago, when Binks accidentally deactivated the sky dome at the opening of the Endangered Shreebird Aviary. “I knew he was invited to attend,” said a crestfallen Enanrum, “I don’t know what I was thinking even bringing it here.”
Ando, Sy Myrth Secede
QUANTILL CITY, ANDO – Less than two standard hours after this morning’s secession of Ando and Sy Myrth was made official, jubilant anti-Republic protestors filled the streets of Quantill City’s busy Raquish Thoroughfare, celebrating the separation.This morning’s Senate session saw the formal departure of Ando and Sy Myrth from the Republic. The world’s representatives, Senators Po Nudo and Toonbuck Toora, respectively, did not appear in Senate, and instead tendered their resignations via droid proxy.
Aqualish from scattered territories and backgrounds converged in the city square, holding placards denouncing the Republic and celebrating their beloved Senator. At least several Republic Senate Guards were burned in effigy.
“Ando will now determine her own future,” said a proud First Minister Daragi Hoba via hologram to the Andoan revelers. “It is meant to be, given the rampant hypocrisy of Palpatine’s Republic. The current dispute over the creation of a Republic army is just another in a long line of insults to the Aqualish people.”
Hoba was referencing the long history of Republic instituted demilitarization of the Andoan people, which often led to bloody conflicts like the Battle of Raquish, and the Horos Spine Incident.
Senator Nudo was not seen on Ando during the celebration, and is likely in-transit, returning from Coruscant.
The secession of Sy Myrth comes as little surprise to Coruscant insiders. Senator Toora had been absent from duty for over a standard month, and Republic transports destined for Sy Myrth have been declined passage for the past 25 days.
Senator Toora has long been a political opponent to Palpatine. A decade ago, she sided with Trade Federation representatives during the Naboo incident, and she has been a vocal critic of the Republic’s efforts to regulate Commerce Guild operations in the Outer Rim.
“Since Sy Myrth is largely self-sufficient and quite wealthy, I think the only thing the planet will ‘suffer’ is being released from the burden of Republic taxation,” said Sy Myrthian com-host and political commentator Brookish Boon during his morning broadcast.
The Chancellor’s Office was unavailable for comment, though these latest losses will most likely be addressed during tomorrow’s Senate session.
HoloNet News is Back and Secure
Following the unfortunate slicer attacks of 2:25, the free edition of HoloNet News is now back online and more secure than ever. Our networks now employ MerenData’s latest socketguards and a state-of-the-art Mandalmatrix system security administrator. We will spare no cost in providing you, the readers of the Republic, a fast, accurate and above-all, secure news experience.
We would like to remind readers that only the free-access version of the HoloNet News was affected. The full-subscription edition, available for only 45 credits and filled with up-to-the-minute updates from throughout the regions of the galaxy, was in no way disturbed. Remember, a HoloNet News full subscription makes a great gift!
We have been assured that the Judiciary is investigating the slicing matter. Our recovery applications are busily piecing together or former archives, and we ask for your patience while we recover our previous issues.
– The Editorial Staff of HoloNet News
IA Pulls R5’s Plug
RORDIS CITY, NUBIA — After a year of disappointing sales, Industrial Automaton president Julynn Kentas confirmed that the droid manufacturing giant is canceling production on their R5-series of astromech droids. The droid was originally marketed as an affordable alternative to the higher priced R2. However, cost-cutting measures led to compromises, or what Mechtech Illustrated called “a meter-tall stack of the worst business decisions you could possibly want.” IA hopes to recoup losses by reusing existing R5 shells in their moderately successful line of R2-AG and R4 agromech droids. The highly popular R2, R3 and R4 units will continue to see production.
Duros Dispute Encyclopedia
JYVUS SPACE CITY, DURO — Duros Chief Representative Officer Hoolidan Keggle formally criticized Triplanetary Press, the publishers of Encyclopedia Galactica during his State of the Union address. Calling their work “sloppy and insensitive,” Keggle took offense to the Neimoidian entry, which currently reads “See: Duros.” Said Keggle, “While we do recognize a distant, distant common ancestry, we have since gone very different ways. We simply do not understand how any could confuse our peoples with theirs.”
Podracing Banned on Caprioril
DOOLIS, CAPRIORIL — The efforts of the Ratts Tyerell Foundation have yielded the banning of Podracing on the planet Caprioril. Proconsul Shren Whist announced the closing down the Doolis Podrace Arena, which will be transformed into another facility whose function is yet to be determined. “We don’t want to see any more families torn apart by this unreasonably violent so-called sport,” said the victorious Pabs Tyerell, Foundation spokesbeing and son of the late Podracing champion Ratts, who died a decade ago in competition.
Less Hawk-bats Means Early Summer
WEATHERNET NODE, CORUSCANT — The Coruscant Weather Control Network (WeatherNet) will be switching to summer early this year at the request of the Wildlife Commission. In response to decreasing hawk-bat populations, the Wildlife Commission hopes to extend the hawk-bat mating cycle by making the summer longer for the indigenous birds. Summer temperatures and hours will begin on the 23rd. Autumn’s start date is not affected.
No Frills, No Thrills: The Mobquet A-1 Deluxe
By Clegg Holdfast
It’s hard to tell just what the “Deluxe” in the Mobquet A-1 Deluxe refers to. In an industry where the luxury slice of the consumer pie is quickly being gobbled by SoroSuub, Incom and zZip Motor Concepts, Mobquet Swoops and Speeders have decided to think cheap. The results are, well, on-target.
The Deluxe won’t be winning any awards for performance. Or appearance. Or just about anything else. But, to be fair, what can one expect for 6,500 credits standard?
The Mobquet A-1’s cost: 6,500 credits. Its worth? Well…
It’s a capsule-shaped craft, with pilot and passenger sitting in single file. This, to some, at least suggests the appearance of speed or invokes images of cloud car or suborbital hoppers. But opening the engines all out will only deliver about 160 kilometers per hour of raw speed – hardly the stuff records are made of.
Though not powerful, the engines are sturdy and reliable, the six RS-J24 thruster modules are well-crafted pieces, and the Mobquet A-1 shows ‘em off. In fact, it sacrifices logical ergonomics to do so – to crawl out of the craft, pilot and passenger must show faith in the cooling shrouds, lest they get burned by the exposed engines they have to crawl over!
And speaking of cooling, that’s the Deluxe’s other great flaw. A series of inlet ports on the speeder’s nose draws in air to cool the engine banks. The air channels bracket the engine compartment, but their insulation leaves much to be desired. Not only is noise contamination a problem, exterior odors pour into the cabin as well, making travel on polluted worlds a choking pain.
Mobquet’s Deluxe-1 campaign stresses affordability, but ask yourself – is that all you deserve? A functional speeder at a low cost? The standard model lacks any sort of amenities, including autopilot, entertainment module, and navigation beacon. Sure, they can be purchased as add-ons, but why bother? In its current configuration, the A-1 can only achieve an altitude of about two meters. Mobquet does offer an altitude sled package, but at nearly half the cost of the speeder it clearly isn’t worth it.
I suppose the A-1 is good for Outer Rim and frontier worlds. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I’m stuck on the frontier, I sure don’t want to look the part. At the very least, it’s a good starter kit for the customizing craze that’s sweeping the Core’s youthful speeder crowd.
Data at a Glance Manufacturer: Mobquet Swoops & Speeders Model: A-1 Deluxe floater Type: Landspeeder Length: 7.1 meters Crew: 1 Passengers: 1 Maximum Speed: 160 kilometers per hour Maximum Altitude: 2 meters
Virgillian Jedi Envoy Declared Lost
VIRGILLIAN NODE – The Jedi diplomatic envoy dispatched to broker peace talks in the Virgillian Civil War has been declared lost after having been missing for three standard weeks. Four Jedi — Masters Ludwin Katarkus and Everen Ettene plus their Padawans Danyawarra and Halagad Ventor — left Coruscant last month to try to settle the two-year old conflict between the Virgillian Free Alignment and the Aristocracy. Upon arrival, their transport was attacked and destroyed. The Jedi Temple will be holding services for the fallen protectors tomorrow.
Muja Attacks Junior League Xenoadmissions
ORONT, ELOM – Colorful smashball analyst Kav Muja blasted Elomin junior league officials during the second recess of the Ranphyx’s 4-2 loss to the Corellian Dreadnaughts.”Why are we losing to the worst team in the league?” shouted Muja. “It’s because we trained their best players. The galaxy sends their kids to our smashball schools, so the league turns around and says, `Sorry little Timi Elomin, you can’t learn to play smashball” Nari Naboo took your spot.’ You can’t fly a freighter when you’re chasing a cherfer. It’s a disgrace!”Muja’s tirade unexpectedly turned to interplanetary politics. “I’ve got a message for you planets talking about separating from the Republic. Just leave or don’t, but shut up about it. It’s been years of `we’re leaving” we mean it, we’re gunna go’. Listen! We don’t care, but don’t come back. I don’t want to see you at the Senate door next year.”
Priole Danna Festival Still a Go
GRYLE CITY, LAMUIR IV — Despite increasing tensions throughout the Republic, Lamuirian officials insist that the annual Priole Danna Festival will continue as scheduled.
The 2,345th festival is renowned as an energetic celebration of revelry, parades and dramatic reenactments on an otherwise placid planet, Lamuir IV. The most popular attraction is the Anapolla Musical Splash, which features famous recording artists and talented up-and-comers.
The Festival was in question following statements by last year’s master-of-ceremonies, Diva Arroquitas, to the effect that she refuses to travel during the current separatist crisis.
“Now more than ever people need to concentrate on life, music and love, and that’s exactly what the Priole Danna is all about,” assures Festival Director Eizzam Stachrini. The Festival is scheduled for to start on 13:6:12.
Michael Caine stars as Jack Carter, a tough, ruthless London mob enforcer. His only sentiment is for his timid brother, Frank, who works as a bartender in Newcastle and makes a point of staying out of trouble. When his brother dies in an accident, Carter goes to the funeral hoping to make amends for past mistakes by reconnecting with what’s left of his family. But after learning that his brother was murdered, Jack single-mindedly metes out his own brutal brand of justice. But the closer Jack gets to achieving his goal, the more he questions his very actions.
Warner Bros. – #Carter #Original #Theatrical #Trailer
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Welcome to the Ask the Lucasfilm Jedi Council Archives. A feature of Star Wars. Com, no longer active. This is not a complete archive but have salvaged what I can.
January 2003
Q : Who will be joining the cast for Episode III?
Rick McCallum: Look for most of the actors from Episode II to return with the story focusing on the characters played by Hayden Christensen (Anakin), Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan), Natalie Portman (Padmé) and Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine).
Basically everything’s been cast except for incidental characters. That obviously won’t begin until we’re further along on the script.
Q : Who is the cloaked character sitting in the back of the Naboo Senate box in Episode I that seems to look like Darth Sidious?
Jocasta Nu: Look closer, young Padawan. It is actually Queen Amidala’s handmaidens, Eirtaé and Rabé, who accompany her to the Senate hall wearing those dark cloaks.
February 2003
Q : In Episode VI, while on Dagobah, Ben told Luke that when he first met Anakin, he was already a star-pilot. I thought Anakin was 9 when they first met in Episode I.
Jocasta Nu: Actually, Obi-Wan said Anakin was “already a great pilot” when they met, which he was as witnessed in the Boonta Eve Podrace. It was on Tatooine that Obi-Wan told Luke that Anakin was “the best star-pilot in the galaxy,” a trait that Anakin would develop sometime after his meeting with Kenobi.
Q : At the beginning of A New Hope, Threepio knows about the Princess. Then when he is on Tatooine and Luke asks who she is, Threepio doesn’t know. Did he do this on purpose?
Jocasta Nu: C-3PO was prevaricating as he was programmed to do so. This is elaborated upon in the radio dramatization, in a scene prior to the attack on the Tantive IV. Threepio’s master, Captain Antilles, enacts a voice override command protocol, allowing Threepio to disregard some of his ethical programming to carry out important tasks. Here’s what Antilles says to both C-3PO and R2-D2:
“This is a command/control instruction. Both of you will restrict and protect all references to Leia Organa’s identity and presence inboard this vessel. She is designated a command/control voice.”
Princess Leia also commanded R2-D2 under this protocol to deliver the Death Star plans to Obi-Wan Kenobi at all costs.
March 2003
Q : Coleman Trebor or Sar Labooda? Which of these “dinosaur-headed” Jedi is the character we’ve seen in Episode II? I’ve seen both names used to describe this Jedi.
Jocasta Nu: Coleman Trebor is a Vurk. Sar Labooda is a humanoid female with dark hair. She does not have a “dinosaur head” and never did. It would seem your data is in error.
Q : In the book Rogue Planet, the description of the Far Outsiders sounds like a description of Yuuzhan Vong. Are they the same?
Jocasta Nu: Yes, the Far Outsiders were indeed an advance party of Yuuzhan Vong invaders.
Q : Why haven’t we seen the stars stretch into lines when a ship jumps to hyperspace in the prequel trilogy?
Steve Sansweet: For the definitive answer, we turn to none other than George Lucas himself. Here’s what he had to say:
“I think of the series as one movie. In order to keep the impact of the hyperspace jump in Episode IV, I have decided not to use it in the first three films. If you’re watching them from one to six, you’ll get the same thrill.”
Q : How are the locations for the Star Wars Celebrations chosen? How can I get my city on the “list?”
Steve Sansweet: We take a giant wall map of the U.S. and its territories, put on a blindfold, get spun around by the Force, and then pin the ronto’s tail on the winning city. But seriously folks, we spent a lot of time and looked at a lot of cities before we picked Indianapolis for last year’s Celebration II. (Celebration I was held in Denver, because it was the home town at the time of the fan club, which put on the event.)
We look for a city with a large and convenient convention center or similar facility, reasonably-priced hotels nearby, as centrally located or as easily reachable by air and car as possible, used to entertaining big crowds (we topped out at around 27,000 people last year), and friendly. We’ve been approached with a lot of suggestions for Star Wars Celebration III, and we hope to be able to settle on a location no later than this summer. You’ll read the first official word here at starwars.com.
Q : When does ILM start its work on Episode III, or has it already?
Rob Coleman’s Answer: I have already begun working part-time on the film. Right now, we are in the pre-production planning phase. Myself and visual effects supervisors John Knoll, Pablo Helman and Ben Snow have been shown the amazing artwork and designs coming out of the Art Department. We have started to discuss how we are going to approach the visual effects and animation work. Just this week, I was looking at which character models we could start building.
Q : Since Episode III is the last episode, what happens to all the sets once you’re finished?
Gavin Bocquet: Most of the large set pieces will be destroyed, as they have been on Episode I and on Episode II, and as they are on all other films. Most film sets are not built to last more than a couple of months, as this would add a great deal to the budget, so there would be no point in keeping them.
However, Star Wars is a little different than other films and certain pieces from the shoot are kept and stored at the archive at Lucasfilm. Usually this will include any smaller and interesting set pieces, usually things like speeders or starfighters, if they are not too big. If they can fit into a shipping container then Rick McCallum and George Lucas will discuss whether a certain piece is worth keeping. But in general most ‘sets’ are not kept.
The largest pieces we have kept so far are a full-size Naboo starfighter from Episode I, and a full-size Jedi starfighter from Episode II.
A lot more of the props and set dressing will be kept, as well as the costumes, since they are smaller in volume and therefore much more easy to store and transport.
Q : Did Vader make a cameo appearance in Episode II? As Count Dooku is leaving the hangar, we see in the lower left corner a silhouette of what appears to Darth Vader! Helmet and all!
Jocasta Nu: Your eyes are deceiving you, young Padawan. The figure in question is clearly part of the Neimoidian ground crew, and in no way connected to the future Dark Lord.
Q : The Return of the Jedi credits list a character named Nicki. Who is Nicki?
Steve Sansweet: Nicki was an Ewok played by young Nicholas — or Nicky — Read (yes, it was misspelled in the credits). Nicky tells Eric Moro in Issue #67 of Star Wars Insider (celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Jedi) that he wore a gray Ewok costume and can be spotted as the Ewok who does a cartwheel at the end ceremony scene. For more on what Nicky did and is up to today, along with a number of other members of that wild and woolly tribe, read the article “Beyond the Valley of the Ewoks.”
April 2003
Q : Since you started way back in Episode I, have there been any new building materials or processes developed that makes your job easier?
Gavin Bocquet: Over the past 10 years there haven’t been any great leaps in the technology of building materials and processes, although each year there are small improvements and advances in all areas. This can range from materials themselves, like improved casting materials, or larger sheets of MDF (medium density fiberboard), to basic improvements in tools and machine technology.
The film business is, by its nature, a low-volume production business, and therefore we are not able to make use of techniques normally used in industry. If we were making 1,000 of the same object, then we could use these pieces of equipment, but we are more craft-orientated than mass production-orientated, with the need to make only small numbers of any given object.
The world of CAD drawing in the Art Department had seen a big advancement over the last 10 years, and this has a direct input into the Construction Department, as we can often feed the CAD information directly into various machine tools, like the router, or 5-axis cutter, which will cut shapes and elements straight from the digital information out of a variety of materials.
Q : Are there any plans for adapting Episodes I and/or II into radio plays? I quite enjoyed the adaptations of the original trilogy.
Steve Sansweet: So did all of us. The Star Wars movies are particularly well-suited to the theater of the mind’s eye. The radio dramatizations allow for more story points and action to be included, while sticking to the main points of the movies. The radio dramas for the classic trilogy were superbly written by the late Brian Daley and first aired on National Public Radio stations. Some members of the original cast were used, with such unusual additional casting as veteran actor Ed Asner as Jabba the Hutt. All three series were later released on tape and CD.
As for adapting, airing, and making available dramatizations of the Star Wars prequels, that is something that Lucasfilm has looked into over the past few years. But it is a very complicated business, creative and personnel process to get all of the planets to line up just right. So while it is accurate to say we remain interested in such a project, there is nothing currently on the schedule or close to happening. If that changes, you’ll get the news here first.
Q : Who’s voice was used for Darth Vader in the Special Edition of The Empire Strikes Back? I’m talking about the part when he says “Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival.”
Ben Burtt: That was James Earl Jones. The line was recorded for A New Hope but never used.
Q : Is there any chance that you or Mr. Lucas will make a cameo appearance in Episode III?
Rick McCallum: No… George won’t let me.
Besides, it might ruin the continuity of my masterful Episode I performance.
George isn’t interested in being in front of the camera, but you never know.
Q : What do I do with the Jedi Master Points on toy packaging?
Steve Sansweet: Add flour and water and turn them into a papier-mâché dewback? String them end to end and use them to trim your next Christmas tree? When it gets really cold, use them as kindling for the fireplace? Send thousands of them to Hasbro corporate headquarters and let them figure out what to do with them?
Actually, the question of what to do with these little rectangles on the back of Hasbro’s figures and other Star Wars toy packaging is probably the single most-asked question sent to Star Wars Insider‘s “Scouting the Galaxy” column — and also to Hasbro. And the answer is that Hasbro, after working through many business and legal issues, has made much progress in coming up with a cool answer of what to do with Jedi Master Points.
“It has taken longer than we would have liked,” notes Jeff Popper, Hasbro’s director of marketing for Star Wars. Hasbro is hoping to be able to announce its plans in the not too-distant future, once every element is worked out. My advice: round up as many of those ubiquitous Points as you can, and stay tuned!
Q : How did you decide to give Zam Wesell’s speeder that howl? Is it based on its look? Where did that sound come from?
Ben Burtt: The howl of Zam’s speeder was produced with an old electric guitar. I play drums in a church band and I asked guitarist Dave Weaver to make the sounds for me one day after practice. I chopped the sound up with a synthesizer program and ran it through an old time spring reverb system. The idea was to produce a sound as if Zam’s speeder were not rocket-powered, but ran on some sort of magnetism, perhaps in a field produced by the automatic Coruscant traffic control.
Q : How big (file size and pixel dimensions) was the biggest matte painting done for Episode I or II?
Jonathan Harb’s answer: The largest matte painting (this one happened to be a 3-D matte painting) for Episodes I or II was the background of the elevator shot of Obi-Wan and Anakin at the beginning of Episode II. Since this show was an HD show, the final resolution of the 2:35 comp was 1920 x 817; and that comp ran for around 850 frames, or 35 seconds of screen time. Each frame takes up around 2.3 megs of space, so the comp of the background took up 2 gigs or so.
The real space-consuming part of the shot came from the source files used to model and render the comp. Including scene files, models, textures, render passes, and final comp, this shot probably consumed 80-90 gigabytes of space until the shot was a final.
Q : Will virtual sets ever put Production Designers out of work?
Gavin Bocquet: In theory no, as whether a set is ‘virtual’ or ‘real’, it will still need to be designed. Most films do not have Concept Designers, and all the design work is done by the Production Designer, so all the sets that might now be virtual, would still need to be designed in the same way as they have been for the last 60 years. Maybe there will be fewer carpenters and construction crew on the film, and more digital modelers, but thankfully the Production Designer’s job will still be the same.
Welcome to the Ask the Lucasfilm Jedi Council Archives. A feature of Star Wars. Com, no longer active. This is not a complete archive but have salvaged what I can.
January 2002
Q : Why were prints of the “Forbidden Love” trailer labelled “Black Eyes”?
Rick McCallum: You’re very lucky. You must have gone up to the projection room.
It’s very simple. It’s a code-name based on a television program I did in 1990 that was so obscure that no one ever saw it. I figured it would be a way to ship film under the radar. While we try to avoid it, there’s a lot of theft and a lot of crime going on these days no matter what we do.
Q : Now that everything is digital, why do you still talk about editing and completing specific reels of the movie?
Ben Burtt: It is hard to let go of some traditions.
However, for organization reasons, we still break the movie into segments, or reels, because most storage systems, even digital ones, would be sorely taxed by having to hold all the picture and sound data for a two hour movie at one time and still run quickly and smoothly.
In addition, the film will still be printed in the lab in reels and shipped to the theater in reels. Film rolls, or reels, cannot be made spliceless in sizes much greater than 20 minutes in running time. The theater recieves the individual reels and the projectionist still splices them together into one big platter.
Q : Will there be any appearances in Episode III by classic trilogy characters like Chewbacca or Tarkin or Mon Mothma?
Rick McCallum: No, I don’t think we’ll see any beyond the characters in Episode II, like Artoo and Threepio.
Q : What kinds of things are the art department still working on for Episode II?
Doug Chiang: The emphases of the work is now mostly on creating new or modifying existing designs that arise from changes in the edit. On occasion this includes new set designs for newly written scenes. Primarily though, the art department is currently focused on providing ILM with all the necessary art support needed to complete the film. This work ranges from providing detailed painted storyboards to model color reference to matte painting designs.
Q : If it is forbidden for the Jedi to marry, then how does one explain Nomi Sunrider?
Jocasta Nu: Nomi Sunrider is a Jedi of old, predating the current Jedi Code. Back then, thousands of years ago, one can find examples of Jedi behavior that would be forbidden in modern times. The great Master Arca Jeth trained no less than three Padawans – Ulic Qel-Droma, Cay Qel-Droma and Tott Doneeta. The current Code did away with multiple apprentices to better guide a young Padawan’s path in the Force.
The Code has again changed to adapt to necessity. The new Jedi order started up by Luke Skywalker has done away with certain restrictions of previous generations.
Q : Will we hear Australian accents in Episode II?
Ben Burtt: Yes, unless George [Lucas] changes his mind about dialog during the final mix.
Nothing is really certain until we hear all the dialog, music, and effects together during the final mix. Several supporting characters have what I would describe as mild accents. The intention right now is to keep them… but I know from experience that we might replace some voices once we hear the soundtrack in its final phases.
Q : Is Obi-Wan Kenobi the brother of Owen Lars?
Jocasta Nu: No. The two are from separate families with no connection through blood. Although a number of spin-off materials were published in 1983 and in subsequent years stating that the two characters were related, those materials were based on outdated and eventually discarded information.
Owen Lars is the son of Cliegg Lars. Obi-Wan’s parents are unknown, and he has little to no connection to them having grown up in the Jedi Temple. He is aware of having a brother, but very little information about that sibling has ever been published.
February 2002
Q : Does Mr. Lucas prefer his concepts be done by hand or on computer?
Doug Chiang: There is no preference. Our main objective is the idea and concept and the technique we use to draw them is secondary. While most of the artists in the art department use traditional techniques, about 30% use strictly digital. All the artists are equally deft in using both digital and traditional techniques and it’s really a matter of personal preference.
Furthermore, different stages of the production sometimes dictates the techniques we use. For example, digital work is most effective during post production since we can digitally alter photographed plates into highly accurate paintings.
Q : Will there be Podracing in Episode II?
Jocasta Nu: Yes.
Q : My wife is due with our first baby on the Episode II release date. What should I do?
Rick McCallum: I used dill pickles with my wife – she hated them, but they stopped her from going into labor. For the birth of my second daughter, I was going to be on location when she was due and there was only one flight out a week and I had to be there to film. Finally she ate a gallon of chocolate ice cream and boom – she gave birth.
So, you’ve got to time it… dill pickles to delay and chocolate ice cream to speed it up.
Make sure she sees the movie at midnight, then at 2:30 she can break water and you’ll both have a doubly good day.
Q : How is working on Star Wars production design different than any other movie? How different is Episode II than the other Star Wars movies?
Gavin Bocquet: The move from Episode I to Episode II was a very smooth move from one environment to another. If you took out the year and a half gap in between them, for me, it would have just melted together very easily. From that point of view, it’s been a sort of a straightforward move.
The difference between Star Wars and other films is immense, if only for the sheer volume of visualizations that need to come out and be produced for the backgrounds. I don’t think any other film probably would demand that much creativity coming from different people in different departments — set design, Art Department, costumes etc. The more creative people you can get in the process, the better.
It would be very arrogant for one person to think that you could create five worlds of architecture, of furnishings, of spacecraft, of whatever, by yourself. It needs to come from as many different people, channeled through the department heads and through George Lucas.
Q : Han claims that the Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs — but a parsec is a unit of distance, not time. What’s the deal?
Jocasta Nu: While Captain Solo is known to make boastful claims that seem to defy the basic laws of space-time physics, in this particular case, an understanding of the mechanics of the Kessel Run illuminates this statistic.
The Kessel Run is a contest of speed and endurance for smugglers. Those who undertake it must deliver specified cargos (usually illicit in nature) to a series of divergently moving transport vessels. The smuggler must deliver the cargo before the transports wander out of the free trade lanes into restricted Imperial space.
Solo’s record is impressive, since the transport vessels covered less than 12 parsecs of distance during his hurried run between them, a testament to his piloting and the speed of the Millennium Falcon.
There is more than one way to smuggle spice out of Kessel. According to one tale, Solo left out the middleman and ferried the stolen goods himself, skirting dangerously close to the Maw Cluster, a baffling congregation of black holes. In doing so, he shortened the distance for the run, achieving an impressive record of under 12 parsecs.
Using either methodology allows Solo’s claim to stand, but there are many, including the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, who felt that the Corellian captain was just blowing hot air.
Q : Is anything happening right now on concept work for Episode III?
Doug Chiang: No work is currently being done in the art department for Episode III. Although during the concept phase of Episode II we designed some environments that may be used for Episode III.
Q : What is that thing around Yoda’s neck?
Jocasta Nu: Yoda wears a blissl around his neck, which is similar to a pan flute.
March 2002
Q : I loved your Star Wars language book. Do you think that you’d like to pursue writing in the future?
Ben Burtt: I love to write. If I was able to earn a steady income as a writer (I have two children in college) I would do it. I have several script and novel ideas I would love to pursue. I would really like to write a book on the history of sound effects in motion pictures, with the emphasis on the aesthetics and language of film sound, and a detailed account of my adventures in sound design over the past 25 years.
Q : What is the symbol on the Jedi Starfighter, you know, the one that looks strikingly similar to the Galactic Empire’s symbol?
Doug Chiang: I’m glad you noticed! The symbol on the Jedi fighter is derived from the Galactic Empire symbol. The reason why will be revealed later.
Q : Have the tasks of Sound and Editing enabled you to overlap skills and concepts?
Ben Burtt: Filmmaking is the blend of many skills and processes. I started out with an interest in writing, directing, music, special effects, sound, and editing. All of these tasks overlap and interrelate. I learned over many years of sound how to enhance drama with layers of sound. Now as a picture editor, I am asked to enhance drama with layers of images. The process of building up a complete dramatic sensation with sound is the same one I apply to picture editing. The key element in filmmaking is the juxtaposition of sound and picture elements to produce a desired emotional response in the audience.
I am really fortunate that Star Wars offers me the chance to straddle both disciplines. It is not the norm.
Q : Is there any difficulty in translating something the Art Department has drawn into what your department actually builds? Where does their work end and your work begin?
Gavin Bocquet: Obviously on something like Star Wars it’s a huge collaboration with Doug Chiang and the concept team back at the Ranch. Over the two films, we’ve made that work very smoothly.
It’s been fairly straightforward right from the start, and there’s a slight separation in what they provide there and what we take and use here on set.
I think looking back on the first film, we sort of felt that 30% of the environments were maybe created purely by our side: the Art Department in the UK. Another 30% was mainly things that we’d interpret directly from the concept group’s work. Then the other 40% was sort of a complete mixture between the two of us passing things back and forth.
April 2002
Q : Darth Sidious’ holograms have different distortion sounds from the rest. Do holograms have personality, just like different Podracers? How was this created?
Ben Burtt: I tried to make the hologram sounds relate to the character they depicted.
The Sith hologram tonality is partly made on an electronic synthesizer. Two low frequency sine waves of nearly the same frequency are played at the same time. The slight difference in frequency produces a phenomena called beats (you learn about this in Physics class). The result is a wavering up and down in pitch of the sound. I also mixed in some short wave radio sounds that you can hear between broadcasting stations. This is one of my favorite sources of sound. Finally I added a very very slowed down sound of a jet plane firing a Vulcan Cannon, an electronically driven machine gun that fires 100 bullets per second.
May 2002
Q : You said Episode II would have Podracing. Definitely no complaint about the movie, but it did not have Podracing. How were you mistaken?
Jocasta Nu: Our archives are complete and our information correct, young Padawan. Take a closer look the next time you see it. To the left of a nunaball game and odupiendo-racing, you’ll find your missing sport.
Q : According to the databank Adi Gallia does not appear in Episode II, but I swear I saw her, when Mace Windu said he would take the remaining Jedi. Was she in it?
Jocasta Nu: That was not Adi Gallia, but rather Stass Allie. However, Adi Gallia is present during the Jedi Council scenes, and the databanks have recently and quietly been updated to reflect that.
Q : In Episode II there appears to be troopers with a color-coding on their armor. Does this indicate rank and if so what color equates to what rank?
Jocasta Nu: It is indeed an indication of rank. Yellow markings indicate a commander. Red clone troopers are captains, blue are lieutenants and green are sergeants.
Q : What are parsecs?
Jocasta Nu: A parsec is a unit of measurement, approximately 3.26 light years in length
June 2002
Q : If Owen Lars in Episode II is Anakin’s half-brother, surely he should be about 10 years old, right?
Jocasta Nu: Owen is Anakin’s stepbrother. He is not Shmi’s child. He is Cliegg’s child from a previous union.
Q : Why was Obi-Wan always referred to as ‘Master Kenobi’ in Episode II? Doesn’t he have only Jedi Knight status?
Jocasta Nu: The term “Master” is occasionally used as an honorific to a teaching Knight — especially by non-Jedi — even if he has not yet achieved the status of Jedi Master. As of the start of the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi had not yet achieved the formal rank of Jedi Master.
Q : In the databank, the Character and Starship sections, the insignia is often wrong. I see Admiral Ackbar with the Galactic Empire icon, and Admiral Daala with Rebel icon, and the B-wing is seen with an Imperial one. Is something wrong?
Jocasta Nu: The symbols found in the databank entries denote the era of influence of the particular subject matter, and not allegiance. The circular sigil of the ancient Sith, found on entries for Yavin 4 and the Massassi temples, for example, indicate an era thousands of years before the birth of Luke Skywalker.
The Republic crest, found on the Supreme Chancellor’s podium, denotes elements from the final days of the Republic (see the Galactic Senate entry, for example). The Galactic Empire sigil denotes the timeframe dominated by the Galactic Civil War (see Luke Skywalker). The symbol on Admiral Daala’s denotes her prominence in the New Republic era, while elements from The New Jedi Order-era are denoted with their own particular symbol (see the Yuuzhan Vong entry).
Q : Does George Lucas make a cameo in the Senate scene in Episode II? I’m sure I saw him.
Rick McCallum: No. Absolutely not.
However, one of my body parts is in the film somewhere.
Q : The sound produced by the seismic charges were simply awesome. How did you get that “twang” sound?
Ben Burtt: I prefer not to discuss in detail this sound at this time. After all, can’t I keep a few secrets?
I will say that this is something I’ve wanted to do since A New Hope, we just never had a sequence which allowed the explosion to be featured in a way that I could exploit the idea of delayed sound in space… what I call an “audio black hole”, an explosion so cosmic that the energy of the sound is unable to escape at the time of ignition, but is released a moment later.
I originally made a variety of similar noises for what I called “Space Ether Explosions” for A New Hope. I used them as experiments, especially for exploding TIE fighters in the scene when Han and Luke are in the gun turrets. They were mixed into a scratch mix for the sequence, but George Lucas did not like them so I halted research.
Now, many years later I revived the idea using some new material and it seems to have found its place.
Q : I am not certain if this was intentional, but I noticed in the digital version Anakin’s metal hand reaches and holds Padmé’s hand. In the 35mm version, Anakin’s metal hand is just shown hanging at his side which then cuts to them kissing. If this was an error, I would just like to know. I feel like I’m the only one around here who caught the difference.
Rick McCallum: Yes, you’ve noticed a difference between the film print version of Episode II and the version that is being shown digitally. (We call it D-cinema.)
Naturally, the process of making the thousands of physical film prints of the movie takes time, so we had to lock down that version in April. However, we had some extra time for the D-cinema distribution, so George [Lucas] had a few more days to make some final tweaks to the finished product.
At the last minute, George felt the wedding scene needed the affection of Padmé taking Anakin’s mechanical hand, so just a few days before Celebration II in Indianapolis we shot it and inserted it in time for the D-cinema version.
That addition is by far the most noticeable change, but we actually made over 70 enhancements for D-cinema. Most involved sharpening, tweaking wipes and color adjustments. However, there are a handful that are definite visual effects changes. I’d be curious to hear if any fans have found any of the other changes.
Q : The clone air transport reminded me of the Warhammer 40K Thunderhawk Gunships. What were the influences on this design?
Doug Chiang: The Republic gunships were influenced by helicopter gunships. The script called for highly maneuverable vehicles that could hover and carry troops. The obvious analogy was helicopters so we used that as the foundation to base the design. The twin cockpit is in tribute to the Hind 24 Soviet attack helicopter.
Q : Any chance the two Ewok movies or the Ewoks and Droids cartoon series will be released on DVD?
Rick McCallum: I hope so. Definitely.
At some point after we’re finished with Episode III, we’d really like to make all of that material available to our fans on DVD.
Unfortunately, we won’t be even thinking of making any firm plans until we’re finished with this trilogy.
July 2002
Q : Do I hear the voice of Qui-Gon Jinn shouting, “Anakin, Anakin… No!”, in Yoda’s apartment after Anakin attacks the Tusken Raiders?
Ben Burtt: Yes indeed, the voice that Yoda hears is that of Qui-Gon Jinn.
Q : I was disappointed that Clones didn’t answer the question why some Jedi disappear when they die and some don’t. Will this ever be answered?
Rick McCallum: That’s a good question. A really good question.
Only George [Lucas] knows that answer for real. Hopefully it will be illuminated in Episode III. I’ve asked him a dozen times and he always looks at me like, “What? Are you a fan?”
Q : Any chance we’ll see a grand, epic, three-hour-plus Episode III?
Rick McCallum: Right now George is thinking it will be the traditional Star Wars length of two hours.
Q : There was 10 years between Episodes I and II. How much time will pass between Episodes II and III?
Rick McCallum: Right now, it looks like around 2 to 3 years.
Q : What is the significance of Count Dooku’s curved lightsaber handle?
Doug Chiang: We wanted to create something unique for Dooku and thought that a curved lightsaber would reflect an earlier time, as if Count Dooku was from the “old school” of training and thought. The curved handle reflected that sensibility and also set him apart from the other Jedi.
Q : I’m just graduating high school. What should I do if I want to become a movie producer?
Rick McCallum: Make movies.
Go out and buy an Apple iMac. Get Final Cut Pro and a video camera. Get every friend who’s ever written… or learn how to write. Try to make your own movies to learn how bad you really are. The more you learn about how bad you are, the more you’ll be able to help a director. And just get your friends and start your own little company and start making movies.
Don’t fall in to the trap of working on a film, because that’s not going to help you become a better producer. Making films makes you a better producer.
Q : Why was Plo Koon and Ki-Adi-Mundi’s commando raid on the Droid Control Ship cut from the final edit of Attack of the Clones?
Ben Burtt: The attack on the Droid Control Ship was filmed and edited together, but never completed with final special effects. A Jedi attack force battled its way up the ship’s ramp, through doorways, down halls, and into the bridge of the ship. The scene was filled with much swordplay and stunts.
The sequence was dropped from the cut because it added another story to be intercut with what already was becoming too complicated and time consuming for the climax of the movie. Including the sequence also meant time needed to set it up and resolve it while the arena battle and the Clone War land battle proceeded simultaneously.
There was lots and lots of material in each one of these sequences that needed to be trimmed. There was lots of Jedi action in the arena fight dropped, more Jango and Mace, and even at one point a battle in space with the Droid Control Ships.
All of these would have been great to see, but choices have to be made for the priorities of the storyline.
Q : Any chance we will see some familiar planets in Episode III like Alderaan or Corellia or Kessel?
Rick McCallum: One of those, we may see.
August 2002
Q : Will Hugh Jackman be in Episode III?
Rick McCallum: No, we haven’t spoken to him.
I’ve heard the recordings on the net of a fan asking me that question at Celebration II in Indianapolis. What happened was that I couldn’t hear the question, even when he repeated it, and the moderator said to me, “I think he’s asking about Sio Bibble (Oliver Ford Davies),” so I replied, “Yes, as of now” or something like that.
I didn’t realize he was asking about Hugh Jackman. That’s a question I misunderstood.
Q : One of Yoda’s younglings is clearly a Noghri. What is his name?
Jocasta Nu: Your definition of “clearly” needs reexamination, young one. The non-human members of the mighty Bear Clan include a young Togruta girl named Ashla, a Nikto boy named Chian, and a Whiphid boy named Jempa.
Q : What is the purpose of the large sails on Count Dooku’s ship? There’s no wind in space.
Doug Chiang: They are solar sails. NASA has been experimenting with this idea for decades. It’s a concept based on real science. The idea is that the solar wind energy from a star could be caught by large sails to push spacecraft through interstellar space
.Q : When you’re editing and things are cut and moved around, is it difficult to get the pre-recorded music to sync up?
Ben Burtt: The picture cut of the movie is always changing sync until the very last moment before release. Most often, the music is written and recorded for an earlier version of a scene than what appears in the final cut. Ken Wannberg, John Williams’ music editor, has the difficult task of recutting the music to refit the new sync. This can be an extremely difficult job. He is the one solely responsible for making it fit after the fact.
Q : Why didn’t Jango Fett’s head fall out of the helmet when young Boba picked it up?
Jocasta Nu: If you look closer, you’ll see that the head falls out of the helmet before the helmet even hits the ground. An examination of the shadows shows two separate objects fly from Jango’s corpse.
Q : Has Steven Spielberg ever helped on the Star Wars movies?
Rick McCallum: No, he’s a friend of George Lucas and he always sees the film. He’s the first one we show the films to. We bring him up to give us some notes, but on Episode I and II he didn’t give us any!
Q : The Kamino remind me of some other famous movie aliens. Was this an homage?
Doug Chiang: The Kamino were the synthesis of all the “classical” UFO aliens from the 1950’s. We wanted to create the ultimate “UFO” alien.
Q : Would George Lucas ever consider doing a Star Wars TV series, kind of like he did with Young Indiana Jones?
Rick McCallum: Well, George won’t share all of his future plans with me. I’ve learned never to say never.
September 2002
Q : Which Jedi are seen surrounded by the battle droids at the end of the arena battle in Episode II?
Jocasta Nu: The following Jedi are in the ring of survivors by battle’s end:
Obi-Wan Kenobi (human)
Mace Windu (human)
Padmé Amidala (human — not a Jedi, but present nonetheless)
Anakin Skywalker (human)
Shaak Ti (Togruta)
Agen Kolar (Zabrak)
Luminara Unduli (Mirialan)
Stass Allie (human)
Bultar Swan (human)
Roth-Del Masona (human)
Sora Bulq (Weequay)
Saesee Tiin (Iktotchi)
Tarados Gon (Klatooinian)
Kit Fisto (Nautolan)
Ki-Adi-Mundi (Cerean), Plo Koon (Kel Dor) and Aayla Secura (Twi’lek) are marched into the arena afterwards. Joclad Danva (human) is also seen alive, standing near Padmé and Anakin.
These do not represent all the survivors of Geonosis arena battle, as some of the Jedi that fell in the arena did not die from their wounds.
Q : I’ve heard rumors that Natalie Portman has shot scenes that will be inserted in to some future release of Return of the Jedi. Is this true?
Rick McCallum: What planet are you from? No. There would be no reason to do that unless maybe we could find that metal bikini! 😉
Q : Does Barriss Offee survive the arena battle?
Jocasta Nu: Yes, Barriss Offee did indeed survive, though she is not part of the circle of survivors seen at the end.
Q : Will Yoda be computer generated again in Episode III, or will you go back to the puppet? Will we see him fight again?
Rick McCallum: I can’t tell you about the fight scene, yet. He’ll definitely be CG. We’re not sure if he’ll fight, but we’ll do anything to challenge Rob Coleman (Animation Supervisor, ILM) and his team to go to the next level.
Q : I’ve heard that THX-1138 is in every Star Wars movie, but I can’t find it in Return of the Jedi. Is it there?
Steve Sansweet: Well, we assumed so. But frankly, we can’t find it. And we’ve asked some of the crew on Jedi, who should know. It might be written small on some model, but as far as an obvious reference, we’re stumped. That goes for Episode II too… unless someone is holding back on us for the ultimate Easter egg!
Q : Will there be any Episode III teasers on the Clones DVD?
Rick McCallum: I would give anything to have something on there, but we just didn’t have anything for you yet. I believe George [Lucas] drops a few hints about the rest of the story during the audio commentary.
Q : Are there any clone trooper helmets I can buy?
Steve Sansweet: Absolutely. Rubie’s, Lucasfilm’s costume licensee worldwide, has a spiffy new clone trooper helmet that should fit the bill. Kellogg’s Canada also came out with an inexpensive two-piece helmet joined by Velcro strips as part of a send-away and in-pack promotion when Episode II first launched. There are lots of them still available from sellers on eBay at very reasonable prices.
It was one of the Kellogg’s helmets that an eBay seller claimed was an “authentic prop” used in the making of Attack of the Clones. Only one problem: every single clone trooper was digital!
Q : When Zam Wesell falls prey to Jango’s dart, she utters words in her native language which sound suspiciously like Sebulba’s word for “slimeball”. Do my ears deceive me?Ben Burtt: Zam speaks Huttese at this point and the word “Slimeball” is indeed correct. For a full translation of the line see my book Star Wars Galactic Phrase Book and Travel Guide.
October 2002
Q : Is the pilot of the air taxi in The Phantom Menace a Bothan?
Jocasta Nu: No. Bothans do not have horns.
Q : I noticed that Mr. Lucas is credited as “Executive Producer” of the Star Wars movies. What’s the difference between an executive producer and a regular producer?
Rick McCallum: Unfortunately right now, there isn’t a uniform standard of how producers are credited in the film industry.
For Star Wars, George Lucas is the Executive Producer because he finances the movie and is also the overall architect of the picture. He’s the one we work for. Whereas I’m in the traditional producer role of coordinating the thousands of tiny details that need to come together to get a picture made.
That’s the way it should be. On other movies, however, those titles may mean other things.
One reason why a lot of movies are bad is that they have 8-12 producers. Sometimes it will be as arbitrary as an agent of one of the actors, who then wants some level of control because he doesn’t want to be known just as the agent anymore. The Producers’ Guild is being run by Kathleen Kennedy now and she’s doing a great job to try to stop that kind of crediting because it devalues the contributions of the actual producers.
Q : Where did Star Wars open on May 25, 1977?
Steve Sansweet: Although it was quick to become a worldwide phenomenon, Star Wars only opened in 32 theaters on Wednesday, May 25, 1977. It wasn’t until a month later that it crossed the 100-theater mark. And unlike today’s theater business where multiplexes might play a hit movie on four or five screens at once, in 1977 one theater almost always meant one screen. No wonder Star Wars was still playing at some theaters on May 25, 1978.
Here’s a list of those original theaters. We wonder how many have survived.
East
New York, NY: Astor Plaza
New York, NY: Orpheum
Hicksville, NY: Twin
Paramus, NJ: RKO
Pennsauken, NJ: Eric I
Lawrenceville, NJ: Eric II
Boston, MA: Charles
Philadelphia, PA: Eric’s Place
Fairless Hills, PA: Eric II
Pittsburgh, PA: Showcase
Claymont, DE: Eric I
Washington DC: Uptown
West
Menlo Park, CA: Cinema
Hollywood, CA: Chinese
Los Angeles, CA: Avco I
Greater Orange County, CA: City Center I
San Diego, CA: Valley Circle
San Francisco, CA: Coronet
Sacramento, CA: Century 25
San Jose, CA: Century 22A
Seattle, WA: UA 150
Portland, OR: Westgate I
Midwest
St. Paul, MN: Roseville 4
Minneapolis, MN: St. Louis Park
Detroit, MI: Americana
Rock Island-Milan, IL: Cinema 3
Indianapolis, IN: Eastwood
Cincinnati, OH: Showcase Cin I
Louisville, KY: Cinema I
Southwest
Denver, CO: Cooper
Phoenix, AZ: Cine Capri
Salt Lake City, UT: Centre
Q : The new Endor Rebel Soldier action figure looks a lot like John Knoll. Did Hasbro base this figure on his likeness?
Steve Sansweet: No, but there’s a long-time Kenner and now Hasbro toy designer who bears an amazingly resemblance to the bearded Endor soldier. However, the likeable and highly talented Mark Boudreaux says, “Who me?”
Q : When can we expect to see the first trailer for Episode III?
Rick McCallum: Trailer? I don’t have a script yet!
Timing from the last two films would suggest maybe around Thanksgiving of 2004, with the movie coming in the summer of 2005.
Q : A friend and I have had a long-standing argument over when the opening crawl of the first Star Wars movie was changed to add “Episode IV: A New Hope.” He says it was 1978, but I think it was a couple of years later.
Steve Sansweet: You win. But the mind does play tricks, and this wasn’t as easy to answer as you might think. Soon after the unexpected huge success of Star Wars, George Lucas announced that it was only one part in a multi-chapter saga, and almost immediately started production on the next part, The Empire Strikes Back. But there was also a pre-story that might get made someday, he said. The first movie really started “in the middle” of the story.
Star Wars was still playing in numerous theaters a year after its opening on May 25, 1977. It was re-released in 1979, 1981 and 1982. But when was the change made? For the indisputable answer, we went to Lucasfilm’s film archivist, Sterling Hedgpeth. Here’s what he says:
“I found a box with all the positive elements for the ‘revised’ opening crawl, and the assorted trim boxes are dated from October through December 1980. This, then, is consistent with the view that Episode IV: A New Hope was added for the first time to the opening crawl for the April 10, 1981 re-release.”
November 2002
Q : You fail to mention the frog-like creature outside of Jabba’s palace in Episode VI. He isn’t in your creature database! What is he? I hope not an ordinary frog!
Jocasta Nu: That creature is a worrt. It has just been added into the databank in response to this query.
Q : I noticed that the Slave I sounds different in Clones and in Empire. There was an overlapping low whine that wasn’t present in Clones. Is there a reason for this?
Ben Burtt: I expanded the library of sound for Slave I in Clones because the ship did a lot of new things. I used the sounds from Empire as a foundation, and made new sounds that would connect with the old.
I think the whine you refer to was a sound I made on a trumpet for Slave I taking off in Empire. That sound, also combined with a Doppler pass-by of the horn from my old ’71 Dodge Duster was not used prominently in Clones and you probably missed it.
I certainly tried to tie both old and new all together.
Q : Can you send me a checklist for all the action figures?
Steve Sansweet: No. Not to be mean, but actually I’d like one myself.
I’m only half-kidding. The problem is that there are so many different ways that collectors collect, that it’s impossible to come up with one list format that satisfies everyone. Do you want just every different figure that’s ever been released? Do you want to know every card that each figure has been on? Do you want to know about major or minor variations on figures or their cards? Do you want the list in alphabetical order, or would you rather have it in order of release, or “waves”? What we all need is a fantastic database with every figure on every card with every variation that would let us enter the variables and the order in which we’d like to see the final list. It would comprise thousands and thousands of entries–many more if you include all of the foreign-carded variations.
Until then, there are some very good Internet assets such as our own Cargo Bay, the list at hasbro.com, and many others. For regular pricing updates you can try Toyfare or Lee’s Toy Review, two magazines I wouldn’t be without.
Q : Could you please tell me what an E-wing looks like? I have heard them mentioned in novels but have never seen a picture!
Jocasta Nu: The E-wing fighter has been added to the databank in response to this query.
December 2002
Q : Did George Lucas intend for Boba Fett to die in the sarlacc, despite what others may say or print?
Steve Sansweet: Yes, in George’s view — as far as the films go — the baddest bounty hunter in the Galaxy met his match in the Great Pit of Carkoon where –unfortunately for Mr. Fett — the ghastly sarlacc made its home.
However, Lucas also approved Fett’s comeback in the expanded universe. And of course, by going back in time with the prequels, the Star Wars creator has brought Boba Fett back to life himself, albeit at a much younger age.
Q : During the meeting with the separatists, Wat Tambor fiddles with one of his dials and makes a noise that sounds like it’s from the Q*Bert arcade game. Is this an inside joke, or mere coincidence?
Ben Burtt: This sound must be a mere coincidence. I made it using a vowel generator in a synthesizer device called the Kyma.
Q : Can the clones procreate without scientific intervention?
Jocasta Nu: Yes, clones are fully capable of biological reproduction
