KMC Forums - Friday Set Diary

Little Time for Pleasantries
August 27, 2004

"Chancellor Palpatine. What a welcome sight. Are you all right?" asks Mace Windu as the Supreme Chancellor arrives at the Senate building.

That's not how it originally played in the shooting script or as it was shot in Sydney last year. In the interests of keeping the story moving along, the original first encounter between Mace and Palpatine has been transplanted to a new location, and new lines have been written for their brief exchange.

Originally, Palpatine and Mace would meet in an industrial area of Coruscant, prior to the shuttling of the Chancellor to a Senate landing platform, where assembled dignitaries would meet the leader of the Republic. This resulted in two meet-and-greet sequences in a row, which slowed down the film with redundancy.

So now, Mace is at the Senate platform entrance alongside the rest of the Senators. Samuel L. Jackson and Ian McDiarmid film a most civil exchange, complete with pleasantries, but veiled with tension. The war has strained the relationship between the Jedi and the Chancellor.

I can't help but fill in such thoughts because, during the flight over from the UK, I was given a fantastic opportunity to read the first draft of Matt Stover's Episode III novelization. Though I won't go into specifics, the novel did a fantastic job of painting in what exactly is happening behind the eyes of these characters, and motivations that were hinted in the script seem all the more real.

As a result, the scenes today with Mace and Palpatine take on extra color, even though the predominant hue is once again blue. Wind machines provide the open-air Coruscant gusts. The call sheets today take special care to mention the risks involved in the presence of these contraptions, devices that are scheduled to be on set today and tomorrow. These precautions include a list of 20 points, identifying the hazards, requirements, and recommendations on its operation. For takes later today, it gets loud enough that George has to yell to be heard. Even 1st Assistant Director Colin Fletcher's booming voice has to be aided by 3rd AD Eddie Thorne shouting commands down the chain to the fan operators.

For the first set-up on the landing platform and Senate entrance, a single blue Senate guard stands at attention, wearing the new Episode III helmet design. The Sydney background plates provide the rest of his ranks.

In addition to the Senators, ILM extras will play additional dignitaries, as described in this Post Note article here. Also, their attendant protocol droids will be added into the scene as digital characters. C-3PO is already there as a practical element: Anthony Daniels as filmed last year. The rest of the protocol droids will be computer-generated, and sport a variety of metallic hues -- copper, silver, black and white.

Other attendant droids will fill out this scene. Affectionately nicknamed "Bettie Droids," these retro-streamlined automatons started off as a single droid in Bail Organa's office, but have now come to populate a lot of Coruscant's higher strata, such as the Galaxies Theater.

Later in the day, much of the action revolves around the Chancellor's office for scene 99. One of the largest sets constructed in Sydney has been simplified to a room-sized pie wedge of blue floor, a blue conical projector, and a properly painted window ledge. The Production Art Department, led by Supervising Art Director Peter Russell, have carefully analyzed the angles of the re-shoot sequences in storyboards and animatics and have determined just how much of a real set they require. It's up to Director of Photography Giles Nuttgens to properly align the camera and lighting of the sequence, so that audiences next May won't be able to tell which scenes were shot in the full set, and which were shot on but a fragment.

This afternoon, John Knoll plumbs the depths of his laptop computer to bring up a slide show of candid behind-the-scenes digital photographs he took way back during the production of Episode I, from 1997. It drew many of the old-time crewers like magnets -- Producer Rick McCallum, Stunt Coordinator Nick Gillard and Stills Photographer Keith Hamshere are among the ones crowding around for a closer look.

A snapshot of Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and Ahmed Best in the bongo cockpit evokes strong memories. "Remember that nightmare?" asks Rick. "Back then, we had no idea how we were going to accomplish these shots. We had no idea what we were doing."

"We still don't know," says Nick.

"Yeah, but now John can fake it," laughs Rick.

Other video goodies delivered by Knoll today include a tape of the latest batch of finals from ILM. With George being overseas, the regular Tuesday and Thursday review meetings are understandably on hold, but work still continues in California on the visual effects. Among the recent finals are astounding shots of Count Dooku in lightsaber twirling action, realized by placing a digital Dooku head atop fencing double Kyle Rowling. It's seamless, and represents a huge jump from a similar effect achieved for Episode II.

"What we've found in the digital doubles is that the older the face, and the more character there is in there, the easier it is to look good," says John. "The strong lines and wrinkles lend themselves more to the digital model. It's the fresh-faced digital doubles that you really have to work hard to get right."

The webcam is starting to work its way into the minds of the UK crew. The Sydney crew took some time to warm up to it -- or at least wrap their heads around the seemingly paradoxical idea of having a live webcam on a closed, secure set.

Now, a year later, the little camera has a bit more freedom -- set photography featured in Hyperspace and Star Wars Insider have revealed the Episode III looks of all the principals, so the stressful game of making sure it wasn't pointed at any of the main actors is a thing of the past.

That's not to say it can see everything. Scene 99, for instance, is a little too much for a webcam debut. And it appears that Monday morning's shoot is scheduled on a third stage, one not webcam-compatible.

But still, many on the crew are intrigued by the idea of fans watching in on their jobs. Or that families from overseas can see them in action. Around 2:00 today, after returning from lunch, I discovered that Boom Operator Cecilia Lanza, Marie Finch from Standby Props, and Unit Nurse Lisa Gardner took the opportunity to pose, Angels-style, as a special hello to Hyperspace members.

Good work, Angels.