Welcome to the Homing Beacon Archives. The Official Newsletter of Star Wars.Com, no longer available. I have salvaged as much as I can but have only concentrated on the main part of the newsletter and not the peripheral stuff. I have used images where possible. Enjoy this blast from the past!
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Issue #81
Backbone of Reality
Since the beginning of the Star Wars saga, the Industrial Light & Magic model shop has been crafting vehicles and locales from a distant galaxy, continuing a decades-long tradition of miniature work standing in for things that would be impossible or impractical to create in real size.
Nowadays, the computer has taken over many visual effects disciplines, but there is still a need for the model shop, which has become increasingly high-tech alongside the digital innovations. Its task is similar, but with a new twist: the model shop is crafting practical miniature work for things that would be impossible or impractical to create in CG.
“Many times practical miniature effects have proven to be a very efficient solution to some challenging shots that film directors envision,” says Model Supervisor Steve Gawley. “We often use computer aided machines to fabricate true 3-dimensional parts that are derived from computer files we generate. We also use digital files from the CG group as well as providing 3-D maquettes from which digital animation elements are built.”
As a facility, ILM is involved in a dozen different projects at the same time, and Episode II had over 2,000 shots done over a two-year period, which is really aggressive,” explains Vice President of Creative Operations Jeff Mann. “As a company, you can only do so much in the digital pipeline. We have to make decisions about how to do all of that work at the same time, and you just can’t do it all in the digital world. The decision comes down to what would look the best and be the most cost effective. Miniatures and models play a key part in things like pyro effects, where you’re having to blow things up and controlthat kind of shot, or when you need realism in a 3-D landscape.”
“Sometimes, the model shop picks up shots near the end of that pipeline, if CG gets totally booked up,” explains Lorne Peterson, Model Supervisor. “Many times, we’ll be relatively free right near the end of production, so we can do a Geonosian ground plain for the last battle. Sometimes it’s money and time. Sometimes it’ll be more expensive to do things in CG than it does to do the model, so the model shop will get those shots.”
Once the decision has been made to create a miniature, the next step is to figure out how much of that miniature to build, and at what scale. Usually, digital animation and practical miniature effects are combined, as the models give a backbone of reality to shots, like the inner dome of the Kaminoan training facility, or the far wall of the Geonosian droid factory.
“After you get the design drawings, you have to go back to the storyboards or animatics, and decide what kind of model you need,” says Gawley. “Many times, you don’t build the whole thing. It’s through the vision of the director and what he wants to happen in a scene that we then give an estimate of what to build. If everybody agrees on what’s needed in the miniature world, we go from there.”
“There are times when we go outside to the parking lot and lay out with tape how big the different models will be,” says Peterson. “We ask, ‘do we want to pay for one that size or do we want to pay for one this size? Will that do for your shot or will this do for your shot?”
Large miniature sets are still photographed outside, in ILM’s parking lot, to take advantage of the California sun for lighting. This practice dates back to the original Star Wars, when Death Star surface segments were shout outside in a relatively low-tech fashion: a VistaVision camera mounted on the back of Steve Gawley’s pick-up truck drove past the miniature in the lot. “I think Steve told me that he was paid an extra \$50 to have his truck next to the explosions,” laughs Peterson
Thursday, April 03, 2003
Issue #82
Episode III: Early Editing
Not a single frame of Episode III’s opening sequence has been shot, and yet some of it is being edited. How is this possible? Thanks to animatics, the lines between pre-production, production and post-production are blurred. The video-resolution computer-animated action serves as a moving storyboard, establishing a template for live action and final animation to follow when assembling the finished movie.
Previsualization Supervisor Dan Gregoire leads the team of 11 computer artists envisioning and exploring Episode III in animatic form. A veteran of Episode II, Gregoire is applying the lessons learned from previsualizing such dynamic sequences as the Clone War and the droid factory in his approach to Episode III.
“We’re taking what we learned in terms of developing assets first and getting those loaded up and as well defined as we can early into the process. Then we go about animating the shots,” says Gregoire. “It lends a lot more continuity to the sequence, visually and creatively, and kind of streamlines the entire process.”
An asset in this case is any computer model or element that will be animated in the shot. This includes preliminary versions of characters, vehicles and props. This early stage is marked by broad experimentation, as nothing is yet locked. This means that not only can the sequence and length of shots be edited, but so too can the models used in a given shot.
“When you start to see the assets come together in proximity and scale, decisions get made, and occasionally things change,” says Gregoire. “We’ve sometimes had to redevelop some assets, or at least edit the way they are being displayed and animated, and of course define more specifically how these shots are put together,” says Gregoire.
Some of the shots being developed are also first explored by Ben Burtt, who at this early stage is acting as an editor without any footage. Burtt is assembling the Art Department’s storyboards into a rough sequence. “He’s cutting those together with pans and motion and turns, and whatever else he can do in the Avid in terms of translating them and timing them out,” says Gregoire.
“He’s even putting in his own dialogue, reading it himself in the sequence, and cutting in temporary music and some basic sound effects to get a base underlying soundtrack,” explains Gregoire. “As the shots progress, the animatics artists have a tremendous amount of control over what they put into it, as long as they stick with the essential essence of what is supposed to be happening.”
An interview with Dan Gregoire, entitled “Beyond the Storyboard,” will be available in Star Wars Insider #68, shipping to subscribers on May 16, and hitting newsstands on June 3.
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Issue #83
Episode III: Countdown to Summer
“We get our preliminary first draft of the script next week, which we’re very excited about,” says Producer Rick McCallum, who is currently overseeing the preparation of Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia. In just over two months, the stages of the motion picture facility will be the used for shooting Episode III.
“We’re currently on schedule to begin on or around June 30, finishing some time in September,” says McCallum. Already, the crew down under has enough information from George Lucas to begin construction of environments, props and costumes.
“After that George will be rewriting to a more formal first draft and will keep revising right up until the start of shooting,” adds McCallum. “The story he wants to tell is firmly in his head. All the details are stored away in there, without a lot of influence from anyone else. He’s been talking a lot about how this movie fits with Episode IV in some very cool and unexpected ways.”
It won’t be until the summer (or technically, the southern hemisphere’s winter) that the actors arrive in Australia, but already Stunt Coordinator Nick Gillard has met briefly with both Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor in the US. “Hayden is coming shortly to begin massive rehearsals, stunt rehearsals. We expect Ewan in the next 4-5 weeks. He’s starting to work on all the fight sequences in the movie which I think will be extraordinary,” he said.
Thursday, April 29, 2003
Issue #84
Gee, Your CG Hair Looks Terrific
It wasn’t entirely by accident that most of the computer-generated characters from Episode I had smooth amphibious skin or hard metal finishes. When it comes to unmanageable hair, the digital variety has the most kinks to work out. The workload of Episode I favored hairless subjects, as did Episode II, though the digital creations in Attack of the Clones did feature a few exceptions: Yoda had a hazy crown of wispy white hair, and the digital doubles of the main characters had to be as stylishly coiffed as the actors who played them.
“With the digital doubles, you have less hair than you would a furry creature, but it has to be specific hair,” says Steve Sullivan, Research and Development Director from ILM. “You’re actually trying to match a given actor, so the artist needs to be very precise in the parameters.”
Some of the Industrial Light & Magic’s early experimentations with digital hair were with creatures in Jumanji and The Flintstones. Just getting a computer to recreate the thousands of individual strands was a milestone, but teaching it how to move was a different challenge altogether.
“For the lion in Jumanji, it was very complicated to have something as dense as a mane. There is no way an individual artist could control all the hairs directly, so they went with an approach with ‘hero hairs’ or ‘guide hairs.’ An artist would animate those and place them carefully, and then the computer would generate all the stuff in between. So, the hair colors, densities, lengths and so on were generated by the computer, but very much controlled by the person. These hairs didn’t react at all to the environment or the motion of the lion, so somebody had to animate them by hand,” says Sullivan.
The proper interaction of the hair with the underlying digital model is now handled by dynamic physics simulation, the same complex computations used to properly recreate the folds and drape of digital clothing and the hundreds of fragments of crashing Podracers. Now, the digital hair reacts as it would to real wind, gravity, and motion, without having to be continually managed by an animator. Still, the task is not that easy.
“The current approach is like this: say you wantedto comb your hair,” explains Sullivan. “You’d look in the mirror, turn off the light, try and comb it, wait a few hours, turn on the light again, and see how it looks. It’s very indirect and very painful, and that’s what the artists who do this kind of work have to deal with. We have a long way to go still, and our mission is to try and make it as simple as possible. You can imagine what a hair system should be like. It should be easy. Your mom should be able to use one of these systems, but it’s going to be years till we get to that stage.”
Thursday, July 03, 2003
Issue #85
In His Own Words
One of the most enigmatic characters to arise in Episode II was Count Dooku, a fallen Jedi and the latest Sith Lord revealed in the saga. Through Dooku, important concepts are introduced to the growing story: that a Jedi could indeed fall from the light, and that a Jedi Knight could take up arms against his former master. For all his impact, the character is still shrouded in mystery. The actor who played Dooku, the legendary Christopher Lee, offers his insights.
“He’s very aloof, very self-contained, obviously completely fearless,” describes Lee. “He is extremely intelligent, perhaps more so than almost anyone else. He’s obviously a man of immense power. I don’t suppose that the question of moral values enter into his head. He’s not immoral — he’s amoral. Morality is a word that doesn’t figure in his vocabulary at all. It’s power. Which is something that exists very much in our world today.”
But was Dooku always like this? New fiction from the Expanded Universe will soon shed light on Dooku’s younger days. The forthcoming Star Wars: Legacy of the Jedi, by Jude Watson and Scholastic Inc., tells a tale when Dooku was a noble Jedi Knight. Like his pupil, Qui-Gon Jinn, he will be headstrong and unorthodox for a Jedi Knight.
“Maybe at one time when he was younger, when he became a Jedi, I’m sure he did behave in a totally moral and correct way,” speculates Lee. “Probably like the old Knights Templar when they started in the 12th century, they started as very good people to protect all the pilgrims on the Crusades. But gradually over the years they disintegrated morally, spiritually and in every way. I know that because I played the Grand Master of the Templars in a film. Eventually, their whole order disintegrated. Who’s to say that this isn’t going to happen in the third Episode?”
Thursday, May 29, 2003
Issue #86
They Grow Up So Fast
As an artist and director, Iain McCaig keeps a busy schedule with his own creative projects. When Episode II entered pre-production, there was some question as to whether or not he’d return to the Art Department team that helped envision George Lucas’ growing Star Wars universe. McCaig did indeed come back, but the same question arose when Episode III started down the conceptual development path. Once again, McCaig found that he couldn’t resist the call to return to the galaxy far, far away.
“It’s an artist thing,” laughs McCaig. “Whatever you make — it’s corny to say — but they actually are your children in some ways. Helping create Anakin and Padmé in Episode I, I couldn’t abandon them after that. I needed to know what happened and see them through to their final moments. You want to accompany your kids as far as you can go.”
Episode III is the final chapter detailing what fans already know is a bleak resolution for Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala. The Chosen One succumbs to the call of the dark side, with disastrous consequences for those he loves. McCaig notes satisfaction with the way this transformation currently exists, as words on the script pages and accompanying artwork.
“In Episode I, when we saw Jake Lloyd, we wondered where’s the dark side? Why isn’t this kid creepy?” recounts McCaig. “And then, in Episode II, Hayden Christensen came across as a justifiably angry teenager more than a kid who crosses over to the true dark side. Killing the Sand People… they killed his mom! I could go mad and do something like that. So, I kept waiting for the dark side to take hold. In this film, you realize, it’s more about Anakin making the wrong choices. He’s given a glorious moment by George — I’m so happy with the part of the script — where he truly has to make a choice. In the end, I think that’s a smarter way to go than a slow transformation. It’s more tragic this way.”
Tragedy follows the beautiful Amidala as well. Since Episode I, McCaig has helped develop Padmé’s intricate costumes, which often serve as reflections of her political position, and where she is in her life. “What are we wearing this year in Star Wars?” smiles McCaig. “In Episode I, she was the Queen, and she was wearing disguises. I once said she should be able to slip out of the back of the costume, and you’d never know she was gone. Ironically, in this one, she’s back to wearing disguises. As well as now hiding this marriage to a Jedi, which is not allowed, she has to hide the fact that she’s going to have babies. All of the costumes had to disguise these facts.”
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Issue #87
Carson on More Mundi
Like Mace Windu, Jedi KnightKi-Adi-Mundi appeared in Episode I primarily as a chair-dweller in the Jedi Council. While Mace broke out in Episode II to show why he’s the second-best (outdone only by Yoda) swordsman in the Jedi Order, Ki-Adi-Mundi’s heroics remained generally unseen at Geonosis.
As many Star Wars fans know, physical action for the Cerean was scripted and filmed in a sequence where Ki-Adi-Mundi led a group of Jedi on a parallel mission inside a FederationDroid Control Ship. That storyline was abandoned so early, there wasn’t even enough material to craft it to finished form for the Episode II DVD… and so the mystique grew.
For starwars.com Hyperspace members, that long-anticipated lost footage made its debut this week. (If you haven’t already, Hyperspace members click here to see it. Or become a member to see what the excitement is about.)
For Silas Carson, the actor who played Ki-Adi-Mundi, the release of the sequence is welcome validation amidst doubting associates. “So many people have asked if I gotto do any fighting, and I’d tell them, ‘Yeah, I did quite a few days of filming and breaking a sweat.’ But when we went to see the movie, I saw that they cut that part out. The arena rescue was a packed sequence anyways.”
In the video, fans may want to make note of Ki-Adi-Mundi’s unique fighting style. “Because my background is mostly theater,” explains Carson, “I’ve done some sword fighting. Everybody always used their lightsaber double-handed, and I told [Stunt Coordinator] Nick Gillard that I’d really prefer to use mine single-handed. I’m the only Jedi who fights that way.”
Still, Carson takes the edit in stride. “You have to ask yourself, ‘Does it tell the story?’ Films can get very, very long if you put everything in there. I would imagine there’s a huge amount of footage that George hasn’t used.”
Like the fans themselves, Carson was counting the days when starwars.com spoke with him last week. “I can’t wait to see it!”
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Issue #88
Back for Moore
By Pablo Hidalgo
Sly Moore doesn’t say much, nor does she have to. She stands at Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s side, her ghostly pallor and piercing eyes alone leaving an unforgettable impression. In contrast to her cold, expressionless alter ego, actress Sandi Finlay is warm and energetic, particularly when talking about her return for Episode III.
“I’m very thrilled,” she grins. “I was panicking a bit thinking that she may not be back this film.” About 90 minutes of makeup transforms Finlay into Moore, with a set of uncomfortable and vision-reducing contact lenses completing the look. “They’re like glass in your eyes,” she groans, “but I love dressing up. I think all actors are big kids that just like to dress up. It’s a lot of fun.”
The makeup and eyes may be Moore, but the shaved head is all Finlay. “I’ve been bald for about nine years now. I love it. You can be beautiful with hair, but you have to be damn gorgeous without it!” she laughs.
Her return to Star Wars will reunite her with her on-screen boss, the man who runs the galaxy, Chancellor Palpatine. “I’m very much looking forward to working with Ian McDiarmid again,” she says. “He’s great. He said to me, ‘if you’re ever in London come to my theater and stay at my house.’ I found the Star Wars family really, really bonding. Even if you’re involved with them just a little bit; they’re just so cool.”
A founding member of this family joining Episode III is Peter Mayhew, the mighty Chewbacca. Finlay has met Mayhew during her convention appearances. “Oh, I love him,” she laughs. “When I first met him a couple of years ago, I walked to him in the green room and I just said, ‘Can I cuddle with you? I love Chewie! I love Chewbacca!’ And we had this great big cuddle, and Angie, Peter’s wife, joined in and welcomed me to the Star Wars family. There were just tears everywhere. We went out to dinner, and I hung out with him quite a bit actually. He’s a beautiful, beautiful man.”
Now having appeared at several conventions, Finlay continues to be amazed by the passion of Star Wars fans, particularly when it comes to her character. “I’ve had a big response from the fans about Sly Moore, which has been really cool,” she says. “I have fans telling me all about Sly Moore and where she’s from, and my powers, and they go right into my history. It’s pretty wild, actually. I’ve been in so many different movies, and I’ve never had this response. This is just outrageous.”
Thursday, July 10, 2003
Issue #89
Bruce Spence: Capping Trilogies
Though Bruce Spence knows only the basic details of his character in Episode III, he does consider himself fortunate to be invited into the Star Wars saga.
“It was just fortuitous that the offer came up,” says Spence. “Being that it’s a small role, I often don’t do them. But having finished my work on Peter Pan, I was available, and I could fit it in. I’m only too happy to be involved.”
Described as a “helpful alien,” Spence has already undergone a lifecast for the Episode III Creature Shop to begin working on the prosthetic makeup that will transform him into an otherworldly being. Creature Shop Creative Supervisor Dave Elsey was eager to work with Spence’s distinctive countenance, as he almost had a chance to during his time on “Farscape.”
“Bruce Spence was once a possibility to play the character of Scorpius, but that didn’t happen,” says Elsey. “Some time later, he did come on the show, only he ended up playing a character that didn’t need makeup.”
With his upcoming appearance in Episode III, Bruce Spence has managed to appear in the final chapters of the three biggest trilogies in production right now. He plays the role of the Trainman in The Matrix: Revolutions and will be the Mouth of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
“It’s a bit wild,” he says. “It’s interesting, because they’re all similar stories. As Joseph Campbell explained, it all goes back to mythological epics. I’m making different contributions to each film. Though I think the least substantial constribution will be Episode III, I just regard myself as being lucky. After all, being in show business, I think a lot of it is luck.”
Thursday, July 24, 2003
Issue #90
Hearing Voices: Duncan Young
When the supporting roles for Episode III were still being cast, Duncan Young tried out for one of the smaller parts, but didn’t get it. Casting Director Christine King had worked with Young before, and did find a place for the actor. Rather than playing just one role, he’ll now play several, though it’s quite possible he won’t be seen or heard in the finished film.
Young is now part of the crew, working as the off-screen reader for many of the digital characters in the film. “I’ve done mostly Yoda so far, and some off-screen dialogue for characters that are speaking over intercoms and radios and things like that,” he explains.
For his part, it’s not important that Young sounds like the characters. It won’t be his voice used in the finished film. It’s the on-set performance that matters. “I’m not much of a Frank Oz impersonator, so I don’t even attempt that,” he says. “It’s more getting the rhythms right. [Animation Supervisor] Rob Coleman has spoken to me in great detail. For him, it’s getting the timing right, so that when Frank comes in to do it, it slots in seamlessly. I think the brief is to err on the side of slower, so he has plenty of room to color and massage it.”
Even though he won’t appear on screen, Young did have to undergo makeup and wardrobe for one of his first days of shooting. The tall performer matches Jimmy Smits in height, and was a suitable substitute for one scene for which the real Bail Organa wasn’t available. “Jimmy Smits wasn’t in Australia, and they needed to shoot that scene because the set was built and it was going to be taken down,” Young says. “So, I stood in and got the wig and the beard on. Of course, in the final product, they’ll erase me out and put the real deal in.”
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