The
Force Awakens has its world premiere today and will be in our cinemas
soon. Maybe some of you were lucky enough to grab the tickets? I
thought this is a good occasion to talk about special effects. To be
precise, the old school of special effects used in the first Star
Wars trilogy.
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Initially
George Lucas wanted the Star Wars' special effects to be made in 20th
Century Fox studio, but unfortunately it was disbanded. For that
reason a brand new studio was created – Industrial
Light & Magic.
The
team consisted of many different
people, friends and colleagues, some of them students, engineers and
artists who previously worked in marketing. But most of them never
had a chance to work in the movie industry. The leader of this team
was John Dykstra. During his studies earlier (industrial
engineering), he created a camera to film miniature model buildings,
a camera which could be controlled by a computer. This technology
proved invaluable in the process of making Star Wars.
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| Source |
Motion
control made it
possible to shoot the same scene several times. Dykstra used many
different equipment parts to create mechanisms that allowed to move
the device on rails and on any axis needed. The camera was mounted on
an arm and its every movement was
tracked by special computers – this allowed to recreate the
composition, speed and focus as many times as needed. Shots could be
combined later in post-production.
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Optical
printer. Source
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Another
important device, an Optical printer,
was used to put together the previously
filmed elements into one scene. Some of the material had alpha
channels prepared (one shot with white and one with black background)
which made it possible to insert it into backgrounds made in matte
painting technique (in this case, paintings on glass). It wasn't
always perfect though! For example, some ships had outlines visible,
and others even whole boxes around them.
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John
Dykstra accompanied by space ship models. Source
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Speaking of
space ships, many amazing miniature
models were created for the purpose of
filming. To build
these, Lorne Peterson used all kinds
of elements from model motorcycles, tanks and other toy model kits.
Their sizes varied greatly. The initial model for Millennium Falcon
had over 1 meter and weighted over 45 kilograms, but more were
created later, some of which had only around 5 centimeters. Another
example: the rebel ship in the opening pursuit scene was almost 2m
long, while the Destroyer chasing it was only about 1m long. But
thanks to the ability to film the identical scene many times, their
sizes could be adjusted so that the Destroyer seemed far bigger than
the escaping craft.
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And of course you can't forget
about light sabers. I think this video thoroughly explains how they
were made and worked. I recommend watching it:
May the force
be with you. :)
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Light_%26_Magic
Comments
However your article is really interesting, one day I was wondering how did they create all the special effects in the old movies. This optical printer looks like big and complicated sewing machine.
When will new Star Wars be presented? I'm a little bit bored with this hype in media. It looks like everyone else is fan of Star Wars.
Before someone will mention it here I'm happy to inform : prop making is not an 'lost art'. It may be used less frequently due to special effects, but is still present in times when it's more convenient or easier for artists to perform.
Sorry for disturbing example, but last time I saw really impressive props was in the "The Thing" remake - https://youtu.be/Eb5yHj5xfOs?t=1m54s
I honesty thought it was computer generated.
I really like the fact that they used a lot of practical effects in the new episode because I believe that the best special effects come out of the combination of cgi and practical effects. I recently watched the new trailer for Star Treck and in my opinion it doesn't look good. Weak green screens, weak cgi... I don't understand why they would release such a trailer. I feel like most filmmakers/producers just don't care about the final effect when it's cheap and done fast. The movie like that will earn money anyway so why worry.
Link to the trailer:
http://youtu.be/XRVD32rnzOw
Fun fact: Did you know that the asteroids in original Star Wars were make out of potatoes ;)?
I think that the old and the new trilogy are great examples that CGI is not what makes a movie good - most people claim that original series are much better, even though the technology wasn't that advanced. George Lucas added a lot of CGI to the remake of an original trilogy and some scenes are DISASTROUS. My least favourite thing is that "alien" added to the VI part by Lucas - it looks like something Pixar would make in a children movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiDRgDmXGi4
using common technologies, still it's respectable but I guess less magic. I can't even imagine how much work it required to capture all this space battles set up only using physical models of space ships. Big WOW for these guys : )
I was at the premiere of the newest part and I definitelly can say that I can recommend it to both: fans and people who in general do not know the saga (including those I recommend a look at the history by watching a brief summary before going to the cinema).
Great cinema entertainment on Sunday afternoon with brilliant special effects, which nowadays are often created by one person in front of computer and not by team that consists of people with different backgrounds.
Technology is still going forward and it's great to be able to see a vision of the future world.
I hope that the newest Star Wars won’t disappoint me. I'm not a hyg fun of it but I hope that it will be homecoming to my childhood.
Thanks for the very interesting article .
BTW Have you seen it: https://twitter.com/DepressedDarth/status/606198753943535616/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw ? ;)
unquestionably technology helps people make it better and better. I'm not a fan of Star Wars. I haven’t watched all parts of SW yet. Maybe I will do it. Everybody says about new part so I want to know something about it to talk about.I want to go to the cinema in the Christmas break. I hope that there won’t be a lot of people. Report from the premiere showed real crowds. I was impressed.
I agree, the refreshed versions of the first trilogy really did't need that. The CGI elements (like this monster for example) reaaally stand out and it looks pretty bad.
It is great to see how the forerunners created special effects. They must have had an extraordinary talent and imagination. Currently, the special effects aren't unique. To create them enough to have a computer and knowledge of graphics modeling programs.
Models of spacecraft are of course the best in the article.
Also, the practical effects can have their bad sides - I heard the actor playing C3PO not only couldn't really move around in his costume and needed lot's of time and help with getting inside of it - the sun nearly fried him while filming his parts on the desert.
Thanks for the link. It looks like hundreds of other action movie cliche trailers, nothing interesting to look at and I did notice the weak cgi you mentioned. Pretty weak trailer in my opinion.