The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Enhanced Edition)

by Rinzler, J. W.

  Into this partial decay walked John May, who would write for the film’s Official Collector’s Edition magazine: “We climb six steps up and wander into the forest […] Behind one tree, a crew member sits reading Variety in a garishly striped deckchair. Behind another, steaming blocks of dry ice wait to be fed into the machine. Gradually, the set begins to resemble more an ordered operation as the principals begin appearing to begin a day’s work. Irvin Kershner huddles in his sheepskin jacket and consults with his crew, issuing his instructions in a dry husky voice. Kenny Baker, the smallest member of the crew, sits in the director’s chair with his feet off the ground and a big smile on his face.

  “Various groups of kids are led in for a quick peek. Mark Hamill puts his face about and quips, ‘I’m under contract and overexposed.’

  “In the lake, a crewman wearing waist-high waders and a cap at a jaunty angle, with a cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth, dips his brush into a small tin pot and flecks the X-wing with mud. A water spray is fixed over the top of the plane as Kersh consults with his photographer. ‘Put more mud on its head.’

  “The craft is fixed to a block-and-tackle arrangement so that two crewmen can pull it up slowly by rope. But before the take, the scene must be set. Giant searchlights, half submerged in the water, are switched on, giving the water a glow. The dry ice produces a mist which floats mysteriously on the lake’s surface. ‘Start the river,’ yells a voice, and an artificial river begins rippling through the glade.

  “They go for a take. The crewmen, mud-covered from head to foot, slowly haul the spacecraft upward and the cameras roll. As usual, it’s not right and they need to film it again. The problem seems to be that the water is not dripping off the craft properly as it’s hauled out. More instructions. ‘Stand by.’ ‘Once more.’ ‘Down to number one with the ship.’ ‘Keep the water going.’

  “It’s still not working. The intercom blares out, ‘Spare special effects man at the front.’ ‘More water off the nose.’ The extra hand focuses a high-pressure hose on the nose of the craft. This seems to be going on for hours, all for a sequence that might last a few seconds on the screen.”

  “I spent eight or nine hours on the bog planet one day, for six and a half seconds of film,” Kershner says, amazed. “Six and a half seconds took the whole day. That’s the nature of that particular place.”

  DEEP MINCH

  REPORT NOS. 134–144: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10–MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24: STAGE 4—EXT. EXHAUST PIPE DOORS; STAR WARS STAGE—BOG PLANET; INT. ICE CAVE, ETC.

  Kershner returned to the States on Sunday, September 9. “We saw as much as we had shot assembled on the day that Kersh left,” Kurtz says. “There are certain scenes that are still very rough without the miniatures, but the beginning of the picture is looking very good. Even the 27 weeks doesn’t really seem too bad, although it did increase the budget quite a bit.”

  “I think by the time I leave, I will have gotten all the little pieces that I consider of prime importance,” Kershner says. “Although every piece is important in this picture, so how can you say one thing is less important than anything else? The second-unit stuff has been quite important: close-ups of Artoo, a creature with its mouth open, a claw swishing through the air.”

  On Tuesday, September 11, Hamill completed his role after 103 days worked. His last scenes were bluescreen work and, on the bog planet, shooting “extra cover.” The Hamill family left for home on September 13. “By the time the picture was nearing completion, Mark was the last actor before the cameras,” says Kurtz. “Boy, was he glad to see this movie end.”

  Later that week, Kenny Baker was still on hand as they did R2-D2’s underwater effects work and pickups that continued with extras on the Command Center, Transport Bay, and other small partial sets. Baker completed his role on September 14 after 60 days worked.

  On September 17, second unit filmed more of the bog planet. For a few days, actor Deep Roy was filmed in the “Perspective Yoda” suit, walking on his knees, for long shots. Second unit also tried to get the ice creature right, redoing a shot on the studio back lot. Finally, the last day’s pickups were completed on Monday, September 24, with an insert of Luke on Hoth and coverage in the haunted tree, with Joe Gibson doubling for Hamill. Crew wrapped at 4:40 PM.

  “I met Irvin Kershner about a year before we started shooting and we immediately struck up a good relationship,” says Suschitzky. “I feel that we have kept that up throughout the production period—which, I must say, I feel very happy about. After about six months of shooting and a year and a half of preparation, to come out the other side and feel that we are still friends is very pleasing.”

  Production tricks help Kershner film Hamill standing on one hand.

  It took over six hours to film the X-wing being levitated out of the bog (final frames).

  “My favorite moments are always very esoteric,” Lucas says. “Artoo peeking through a window warms the cockles of my heart.” The idea was Kershner’s, who had them create a special rig and work all night so that R2 could get on his “tippy toes.” (ABOVE: Rehearsals for that moment.) “There’s also a point when Lando’s driving,” Lucas adds. “Something goes wrong with the ship, and Leia and Chewie turn and look at each other. It’s just a very funny little moment for me, between woman and Wookiee” (BELOW).

  Deep Roy puts on a Yoda costume.

  Deep Roy performs on his knees for several second unit shots of the diminutive Jedi Master walking or standing in the open.

  “One thing I liked about this particular picture was that it was a happy crew, certainly a very good crew,” says Watts. “I think everybody, when they were leaving, was saying how happy they were working on the show. But I think, more important than anything else, it wasn’t a political picture. Very often you find on a film that two camps form, wherever they may be, and politics emerge.”

  “Robert Watts was a wonderful, wonderful man,” says Kershner. “Whenever he had a problem he came to me. He knew what he was doing and we had a lot of problems and he just sat there quietly and solved them. I loved him. In fact, I wanted to use him on films that followed and he was never available.”

  “Movies are by their very nature temporary,” says Lucas. “You work on a production and then you move on. Sometimes you form great relationships and stick with the same group, but the norm is not that. The norm is that you walk off—everybody. In this particular case, I knew I was doing more than one movie, but that doesn’t happen very often.”

  “Physically, it was very difficult,” says Kershner. “But you know what? The actors were fantastic. Mark was a gem. Harrison was terrific. He always wanted to talk about ideas on the script and he was wonderful. Everybody was just great. Everybody was trying their best to please me and to make the picture good.”

  “Our postproduction time has been getting squeezed,” says Kurtz. “But we’re way ahead on the miniatures. Two major sequences are already completed and that’s a big help. But in the optical composite work, that’s where you need the time. You have to have the time to do it over and over again. So we probably will be doing things right up until the deadline.”

  “We have a storage facility which we had built to store set pieces, machinery, props, wardrobe, and special effects items for the shooting of the next film,” says Watts. “We’ve obviously got the Millennium Falcon, which was constructed to break down into sections, and the X-wing fighters. It’s anticipated that we’ll certainly maintain two of the offices at the end of the corridor until it’s time for the next one.”

  “I understand that we have today printed about 400,000 feet of film and film runs at the rate of 5,400 feet per hour,” says Hirsch. “So that would be about 80 hours of film. Since we’ll end up with about two hours ultimately, we’re shooting 40 hours of film for every hour used, a ratio of 40 to 1.”

  With 21 extra scenes filmed and an average of 11 setups and 55.5 seconds of screen time per day, principal photography, in all its forms, was over. The footage expos
ed actually measured 541,584 feet with 274 sound rolls used—yet 204 scenes remained to be completed by ILM.

  “With Empire, since I am a step away from it, I didn’t expect as much, yet it’s turning out much more like I imagined than the first one,” says Lucas. “I had much higher expectations of the first film and we were working under much greater duress. This one turned out to be a real collaborative endeavor between Kersh and I where he had a lot of freedom to direct the film in terms of what he felt it should be and I tried to support him.”

  Audio element not supported.

  Kershner on how editorial will unfold in post, as dictated by what he shot, interviewed on set by Arnold toward the end of the shoot (circa September 3, 1979).

  (1:01)

  SETUPS: 1,571; SCS. COMP: 264/468; SCREEN TIME: 132M 57S/130M.

  Lucas and Hamill.

  Vader (Prowse) and Kershner.

  First assistant director David Tomblin flanked by his second assistant directors, Roy Button (LEFT) and (RIGHT) Steve Lanning.

  Editor Paul Hirsch flanked by editorial trainee Paul Tomlinson, Duwayne Dunham, and assistant editor Phil Sanderson.

  Hamill looks at a book signed by many of the cast and crew, including Lucas and Kurtz. .

  Fisher is interviewed by the French documentary team (on the right is director Michel Parbot) in Kurtz’s office at Elstree, which was entirely filled with Star Wars products: cookie jars, lunch pails, action figures, and newspaper comic book strips on the wall.

  Ford on set.

  A PR photo of Williams.

  Lucas.

  Daniels with the C-3PO costume.

  Hamill at EMI Elstree Studios, where two Star Wars films had been photographed, as of September 1979.

  “There is video content at this location that is not currently supported for your eReading device. The caption for this content is displayed below.”

  Fisher, interviewed by behind-the-scenes director Michel Parbot, discusses acting in Empire, at Elstree Studios.

  (1:48)

  FILM DANCE

  SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER 1979

  CHAPTER NINE

  “When Empire was heading back from England, the editing was gonna be done in San Anselmo,” says Steve Starkey. “Duwayne and I had become fairly close and he was jockeying to have me on as the first apprentice editor. Simultaneously, Sprocket Systems was growing as a division of the company and they had asked me if I wanted to run this division and build a huge sound facility down at Kerner, with editing rooms and equipment. I was really in a quandary, so I took a drive with Hal Barwood and he said, ‘You’re making this more complicated than it is. Just ask yourself a simple question: Do you wanna work on movies or do you wanna work for a company that supplies stuff to people who make movies?’ I said, ‘Well, I want to work on movies.’ He said, ‘Case closed. Boom!’ ”

  “One of the things Lucasfilm does ultimately is mentor a lot of young people and move them into the film business in all aspects,” says Lucas. “We can’t finance everybody’s movies, but we can train them in a way that allows them to go off and make their own movies and exist in the real world of the film industry.”

  “When I first came here, Lucasfilm had a real small company atmosphere to it,” says Jim Kessler, who started in September as head of Sprocket Systems. “It was like you worked for some mom-and-pop shop. George was very generous to everybody; there was always food in the refrigerator and always something to drink. I had never worked for anybody like that. I mean, it was so humbling, because he was so nice to everybody and it was real casual. Everybody seemed to have a tight connection. All these people formed a very committed workforce and worked really hard; there were some very creative things going on and it was kind of carefree.”

  “I would say within two weeks of the end of shooting, we will be able to have a rough-cut screening,” says Hirsch. “George draws a parallel between making a film and building a house: The screenplay is the blueprint; the shooting is the assembling of the raw materials; but the editing is the actual construction of the house.”

  “My job was to set up editing and sound editing rooms for the people that were working on postproduction,” says Kessler. “I was told to set up all the benches and everything in the big basement of Park House, the company’s main facility.”

  “I have to go over all the rushes with Paul Hirsch and pick the good takes and then transfer to him all my notes that I’ve been making since he’s been gone,” says Kershner. “In other words, I have a pattern, which changes once we cut it, but at least this is the pattern that I shot to as if it were going to be cut in that particular way. Now, when we get to cut it, sometimes we do it exactly the way I want, though most of the time it changes, but at least there’s a pattern.”

  “The film came back from England and we had to deal with making a transition from an English system into an American system and put the film together,” says Starkey. “Paul Hirsh was the editor and he had an assistant, and George was editing with his assistant, Duwayne. I was kind of assisting both of them.”

  “Editing is perhaps the only one of the film arts that has no historical antecedents,” says Hirsch. “Editing is the choice of the images, their succession, and their duration. An editor is dealing with time, which is more of a concern in the musical arts. Only film and music require that an audience comprehend the details of a work of art over a given period of time. You can read a novel in one sitting or you can take six months to read it. You can look at the edges or at the center of a painting; you’re not compelled to experience it in any order.”

  “Paul was on from the very beginning,” Kurtz says. “So we had a rough cut of the picture, of all the elements that we had shot in England anyway, about a week after we had finished shooting.”

  “This was the first time I attended a rough-cut screening,” says Starkey. “I watched this movie at Park House and I came out and I was confused. ‘What is this? It’s a mess!’ The fights in space and stuff were just little black-and-white scratchy things representing gunfire and planes flying. It was hard to even make sense of it, let alone emotionally know if the edit was correct and we should move forward on this huge movie. I remember walking home with Ben Burtt—we were walking off our steam ’cause we had been working night and day to make this screening deadline date—and he just said, ‘Look, Steve, I was there on Star Wars and it’s probably feeling really rough to you, but I promise you this has got all the goods. This movie is working.’ ”

  At ILM, assistant effects editor Howard Stein surrounded by celluloid.

  Lucas sits in his San Anselmo Avenue editing suite.

  Lucas’s San Anselmo Avenue editing suite is where Kershner examined edited footage of the rough cut on a KEM with Marcia Lucas. It was here, with a team of assistants, that Lucas, Hirsch, and Kershner would add ILM’s shots and edit the film.

  Steve Starkey in ILM’s editing room where reels and reels and reels of visual effects footage were stored.

  LOS ANGELES EXPLOSION

  “I think the city got enough complaints from the neighbors to file a petition to say basically that this is a residential area and you can’t run a business here,” Kessler says of editorial’s exile from Park House. “So the city threw us out and we had to go find another place to set up business, which was a building at 321 San Anselmo Avenue where George had his office; Duwayne Dunham and Steve Starkey moved over, and Ben Burtt and Gary Summers were in that same building.”

  “I remember setting up the editing rooms on San Anselmo Avenue,” Starkey says. “This was under the direction of Duwayne Dunham, because I didn’t know the first thing about editing equipment. You know, ‘Put the bench there. This needs a splicer and a synchronizer.’ ”

  “Downstairs was the sound department, the sound editing facilities, library, and a little mixing room,” says Burtt. “And upstairs was the picture editing department.”

  A reporter would describe the two-story converted apartment in downtown San Anselmo as being “
decorated in white and buff with a dark green carpet. Upstairs are small editing rooms, dominated by a clock the size of a coffee table, a fireplace with a blazing log, a TV set above it, a Betamax in the corner, and several houseplants. In the bathroom were white towels imprinted with Artoo-Detoo.”

  “We spend a couple of million dollars a year in Marin County,” Lucas says. “I look at my main community effort as my films, which I feel are a social responsibility.”

  Lucas also expanded his facilities in Los Angeles, opening the Egg Company building for business that fall. “The Egg Company went through a very extensive remodeling program,” says Richard Tong. “I think it originally was budgeted for around $200,000 and the ultimate bill came to over $2 million. I remember going to a meeting with Charlie in his office; he had a nice fireplace and a really nice executive suite, very comfortable and luxurious. Because George was involved, everything was done first-class. It was beautiful.”