One story that comes to a close around this time concerns ILM and the union. About three-quarters of the way through production a number of “established” industry people developed a renewed interest in what ILM was doing. Word was circulating about some of their more unique approaches to special effects. “It finally came down to a meeting,” Tom Pollock says. “Jerry Smith and Joe Berna came down to the facility, and ILM put on a rather brilliant performance.”
“When the union boys came in to look us over, I had a program in the camera,” Richard Edlund says. “I pushed a button, and the camera went through its gyrations, down the track with no one touching anything, with the lights flashing and the counters buzzing—and stopped right in front of them. They were kinda taken aback because they had never seen anything like this. They knew that we had brought home the bacon. So they said, ‘Okay we’ll take you guys in.’ ”
MOTION OUT OF MODELS
Two key individuals in the race to complete the film were Edlund and Muren, who were alternately using the main camera, each with his crew, literally night and day. “We split the shots up pretty much however we felt like it, and that worked out pretty well,” Edlund says. “We got along quite well, and there weren’t a lot of egos involved. Everybody knew what the project was and were giving their input because everybody had this common cause.”
“The Rebel blockade runner was almost the last ship finished,” says Joe Johnston. “On the first pirate ship, there wasn’t really enough detail on it; it didn’t look like it was done by real movie model builders, and the paint job was amateurish. The second version was real nicely done. We’d had the chance to do all those other models in between and then go back to the blockade runner. It really showed what everyone had learned about model building. It was supposed to look like a ship that had been assembled from other ships. George said he wanted something that looked like a fish head, after we’d taken the original cockpit and put it on the Millennium Falcon. I think he finally did me a little sketch of this hammerhead thing, and that’s what it ended up like.”
The ship sits on a table in the model shop with Dave Beasley, David Jones, and Paul Huston working on another ship.
Model builder Lorne Peterson.
The two special effects photographers divided up the work along the following lines (though sometimes a shot would have several parts that would be subdivided):
Richard Edlund: “The opening shot, most of the pirate ship shots, most of the bigger ships I did; and I did the trench itself.” “Richard liked the dogfights,” Muren says, “where there’s one ship pursuing another and two ships racing along the trench. He also shot the training remote.”
Dennis Muren: “The multiple ship shots, like the Y-wings diving down together and going into battle, that’s the stuff that I did. I did most of the shots with the ships flying through the trench, the ship elements, although Richard shot the trench element; and I did all the shots of the ships flying toward and away from the Death Star.” “Dennis did a lot of the X-wing stuff,” Edlund says. “He did the armada scene and the approach to the Death Star, and the peel-off shot.”
As Edlund and Muren appraised certain shots and sequences, they had to always maintain an equilibrium between technology versus artistry versus necessity. They thus made “maps of the galaxy” to show where the sun would be at any time, “but it really worked out best when the shot dictated how it was lit,” Edlund says. While Lucas hadn’t been enthralled by the lighting in earlier shots, the later ones were much improved by his increased communication with Edlund. Muren had his own learning curve. “I was very skeptical of the Dykstraflex at first,” he explains. “It was used for a lot of shots—dogfights and ships moving quickly—that it didn’t need to be used for. I think those elements could’ve been shot at high speed with wires or poles against blue. But everything was set up for this system.”
The more Muren worked within that system, however, the more he came to realize its advantages. In fact, the experimental attempts made at Nine-Ten, using more low-tech approaches to fly ships, ultimately were not compatible with the high level of work that began to come out of ILM. “You’re working in a very slow-motion situation,” Muren says. “And a lot of ideas come just as you are doing the work; you have an idea on how to make something better just as you see it happening. If you were trying to do something with ships on wires and you got an idea to change a motion, it would be a big deal: You’d have ten people who would have to do the work, and they would start grumbling because they don’t want to do it, and the producer would be pacing back and forth. But out here nobody has to know about that but me. I can just reprogram a shot. It takes me only two minutes to change the entire direction of the ship by just running a motor [in the Dykstraflex] to the left instead of to the right. That’s one of the neatest things about it. You can get very spectacular-looking shots done by an individual instead of a group. It’s the neatest tool that’s probably been made to do aerial footage.”
But even with the innovative equipment, the poetry of the flying ships had to be implemented by humans. “What is more interesting is getting into the pantomiming of the ships, the motions of the ships,” Muren says, “which are completely created by Richard and me. That was really difficult! To make these ships look like they’re flying, like they’ve got weight, because you’re creating motion out of nothing.”
Lucas’s ongoing corrections to the final script make plain the decision to change the “Blue” Rebel pilots to “Red,” though in the final film at least one pilot still wears a helmet with a blue insignia.
Grant McCune looks through a storyboard binder.
“No matter how sophisticated your equipment is, no matter how neat it all is,” Edlund adds, “whenever you get into production, you invariably wind up making do with what’s at hand. You’ve got a little bit of light flare coming from sunlight, so you tear off a piece of cardboard and tape it on—and it looks quite amazing and that’s real professionalism.”
EDITING, THE SPIRIT OF ’76
Following the first cut, there was a new temp cut every couple of weeks, which only the same small group would review. After the first major structural changes, other adjustments were made to the successive cuts: for example, to the opening shootout. “There were two shots of actual humans getting hit, with big explosions on their chests,” Lucas says. “But I cut those out after I saw it; it was a little too extreme. I did have big blasts on the stormtroopers, but I avoided them on humans.”
The scene in Obi-Wan’s house was rethought, too. As originally scripted and shot, Luke and Ben watched the hologram, discussed the Force, and then decided to save the Princess—which, upon viewing, seemed a bit heartless because of the lag between her plea for help and their decision to fly to her rescue. The scene was re-edited to start as if they’d already begun talking about the Force—then, as soon as they see the hologram, Ben decides to travel to Alderaan. To smooth over the edit, a brief shot of R2-D2 beeping impatiently to play them the hologram was inserted, culled from other footage of the robot.
In the hangar, lines were shortened and dialogue about Luke’s father being a great pilot was cut. But it was the end battle, by far the most complicated part of the story, that required the most editing work. One of the first changes was to clarify the number and characters of the supporting pilots, some of whom were cut. “That decision was really made in terms of what would be easily identifiable,” Lucas says. “We had a Blue crew but we couldn’t use blue because of the bluescreen [parts of their ships would’ve disappeared]. So we were left with Gold Leader and Red Leader.”
The end battle was also running too long, so Luke’s two trench runs were combined into one. This created tighter storytelling, but also several editorial challenges. Within one trench run, the following would now have to be conveyed either visually or verbally: Luke’s initial intention to use the computer, Ben’s dialogue, Vader’s actions, R2-D2’s drama, Han’s arrival, the fate of the other pilots, Leia’s feelings
—all within the believable length of physical space along the trench. To draw out the suspense, Lucas had decided to shoot second-unit footage at ILM of the Death Star preparing to fire, some of which would be added to this sequence, along with coverage taken of Peter Cushing, stolen from an earlier scene that had been shortened. “It was all editorially manufactured,” says Marcia Lucas, who, just after Thanksgiving, left the picture to help Martin Scorsese on New York, New York.
SOUND EDITING
Just before Christmas, another cut was ready. “For the second screening we hadn’t tried to keep Ben’s tracks in sync,” Hirsch explains, “so we looked at the picture with just the work track. There were no sound effects, and everyone thought it was a disastrous screening except me. I believe it’s good to look at something with no sound effects and no music, because they can mask your understanding of what’s happening editorially.”
From that point on, however, Burtt’s sound effects work more consistently dovetailed with what was being done in editorial. As soon as they finished a reel, he would mix in the sound and give it back to them so they could hear as well as see how it played—an unorthodox but effective methodology. Usually, sound work would have come as the last step before the film’s release, with someone given a final cut of the film and asked to simply fill in the sound holes.
“The editor would cut a reel and a week later he’d see the mixed version of it,” Burtt explains. “I would add all the sounds—lasers, spaceships, Jawas, Sand People. The editors would eventually work with nothing but mixed tracks. In fact, they began to depend more on the fact that Artoo could talk and they would cut to him much more often—because they knew he could talk. They would say, ‘Why don’t we bounce to Artoo and get a reaction?’ That would not have happened had they not known they could get the sound in. So it was a really unique experience in that respect.”
“As Ben evolved the Jawa language, it integrated so well,” Chew says. “Each cut that we saw not only showed us the effects of structural and dramatic changes, but we also heard the evolution of what new things Ben and George had come up with.”
To create the Jawa language Burtt had studied several African dialects; next he recorded other employees at Park Way speaking and yelling the words, which were then sped up or altered before being mixed into the film. “They cut the Jawa sequence originally with just the cute guys running in and picking Artoo up,” Burtt says. “And then I took that reel and added the Jawa voices. When we showed it, one of the editors was just rolling on the floor laughing. The Jawas talking made so much difference, because it created a feeling that there were little beings in those costumes.”
Some time before Marcia left, the editors also started building a temporary music track. “Dvorak’s The Planets was used at the beginning,” Chew says. “And Liszt preludes over the breaking into the jail sequence. George was having a lot of fun. He would bring in a record whenever he got back from LA. He would have a new idea for the temp track, which was the best way for him to convey to Johnny Williams what he wanted. But I didn’t know which way he wanted to go with the music at first. The first time we talked about it was when I was editing that cantina sequence, so I said to him, ‘Hey, George, have you ever heard Tibetan music, because I think the chanting and the animal-bone instruments might really be appropriate.’ And he said, ‘No, I’m going to use Benny Goodman.’ And I went, ‘What?!’ And he said, ‘Yeah, they’re gonna play swing, man!’ ”
Sound Origins by Ben Burtt
“TIE fighters flying by was an elephant howling slowed down and stretched out electronically … I went back east for a short vacation and recorded the subways in Philadelphia, while riding to both ends and getting various air doors and mechanical noises. Those were used for all the doors in the spaceships. A lot of the clatter of the trains was used for the sandcrawler and its basic motor sound … I went on a hike in the Poconos of northern Pennsylvania, which has a huge radio tower on the top of the mountain. The wind is very strong there, which makes for a very eerie singing in the wires, almost a minor key sustained note. It was hard to record but ultimately it was used for the sound of the Y-wings and the howling sound they had … When I came back to Los Angeles, I went to all the different radio towers in the area, up on Mount Wilson, and struck the wires with a hammer. They’re all different pitches and tones, so I collected a whole orchestra of that particular material. It’s a very high-pitched twang, but very explosive. I mixed that in with a bazooka sound, and that became the basis for the lasers…
“I have a lot of favorite sounds effects from old movies. Some of these I sought out and used. One is the Fox thunderclap; it’s probably a combination of actual thunder and someone striking a sheet of metal, but that explosion was used several times in Star Wars—it’s part of the explosion of the main hatch blowing up on the blockade runner; I also used it at the end in the battle over the Death Star anytime there were full-frame flashes. In the shot when the spaceships dive into the trench, there’s a number of full-frame explosions and at that point, you hear a sweetened-up version of the Fox thunderclap … Another very esoteric sound effect is what I call a ‘Wilhelm.’ This is a man screaming on a recording that has been used exclusively by Warner Bros. for about twenty-five years. It’s been used in many Westerns and horror films. I call it a Wilhelm because one of the first films it was used in was a Western called Charge at Feather River [1953], where a cavalry private named Wilhelm gets an arrow in the leg and screams—this particular scream was dubbed in for his voice although he didn’t really make the sound. I had an idea that perhaps the first time the scream was used was in a film called Distant Drums, in 1951, with Gary Cooper, for a guy being eaten by an alligator. So I asked the Warner library if they would send me a sound of a man being eaten by an alligator—they actually had a card in their library with that designation on it—and lo and behold, it turned out to be the scream that I was looking for! So that’s in the film. It’s the sound of the stormtrooper who gets shot by Luke and falls into the power trench. It’s a great scream … I had the satisfaction of making use of some of the legacy left over from the great days of sound in Hollywood.”
Not only did Peter Diamond play the main Tusken Raider and the stormtrooper who is shot off the ledge, he appeared, by his count, more than fifteen times in the film. In fact, Diamond and his two stuntmen, Reg Harding and Colin Skeaping, did so many falls that they became known as the “The Three Star Wars Stooges.”
* * *
BLAZING TRAILERS
In addition to overseeing the film’s special effects, editing, and sound effects, Lucas was also very much involved in its marketing. Charles Lippincott had been trying to energize the burgeoning science-fiction and comicbook convention circuit, and word of mouth was beginning. The novelization had just been published, and a Marvel comicbook adaptation was well under way—but one of the biggest draws to any “coming soon” film is its trailer. Plans for the preview had begun in the fall of 1976 and crystallized in November. But the reality, given the few special effects completed, was that the best production could hope for was a short, powerful burst that would alert audiences to the upcoming movie.
Presumably because the pressure was so great to tightly control costs, assistant optical editor Bruce Green kept a day-by-day itinerary of his time and travel while he acted as go-between on last-minute adjustments to the trailer, uniting its disparate elements and troubleshooting. The following is his (abridged) saga:
Ben Burtt in his basement editing suite at Park Way.
Ben Burtt petting Indiana, Lucas’s dog and inspiration for Chewbacca.
Ben Burtt playing bocce ball with Walter Murch.
“November 26: I drove to the editor’s cutting room in Hollywood and met with him, Gary Kurtz, Charlie Lippincott, Adam Beckett, and three people from the ad agency. We discussed the storyboard, the animation and opticals, the time factor, and other related materials. (3 hrs.)
November 29: We saw the rough cut [same place and people, m
inus Beckett] of the trailer and discussed what shot could not be used because of problems with the effects. We talked about the music. (3 hrs., 18 min.)
November 30: Phone calls to editor and optical to coordinate effects for trailer. (2 hrs.)
December 1: Editors meeting; prepared fx budget. (3 hrs., 18 min.)
December 2: I drove to Tech 20 to pick up negative; talked with negative cutter about problems he was having finding certain scenes and his stolen dog, and how to find that, too. (1 hr., 13 min.) Bring neg to MFE [Modern Film Effects] and explain to lineup person the order to assemble the IPs and the time element. (2 hrs., 7 min)
December 6: Drove to ILM to view trailer work for any possible last-minute changes. (37 min.)
December 7: Drove to MFE to discover a matte for the exploding title had not been made. Had animator reshoot matte and had this developed at MFE and cut in. Made last check at optical house of all elements and went over all effects with the printer operator before actual printing began. (6 hrs.)
The Making of Star Wars (Enhanced Edition) Page 40
