Special effects in "Star Wars" Bashny.Net

We all know that one of the most iconic and grandiose films is the saga of "Star Wars" So what she was so fun and interesting? First screens attracted remarkable for its time visual effects and proximity to open space. Let's priotkroem mystery of the classic trilogy and learn how to literally from a simple cardboard and drawings created the legendary trilogy.
29 pics + text

hence





Like any masterpiece "Star Wars" began with an idea.
Great storyteller new era of cinema George Lucas epic conceived when he was not yet 30 years old. In the mid-1970s was ready to preview the script, which, however, has repeatedly almost completely rewritten. How do you, for example, one of the ideas to make Lucas Luke Skywalker 60-year-old general, and Han Solo - alien with green scales and gills?



Written history includes the story of all known today six episodes. There is a version that George Lucas has decided to withdraw from the middle of the series because the first three episodes while allegedly lacked the skills of specialists in visual effects. This is not the case, the director could easily implement his idea from the very first episode. He initially decided to take up the filming of the fourth episode. Firstly, this was done in order to intrigue the audience. Secondly, George Lucas did not know if it will work at it to remove more than one series of "Star Wars", so took up most "drayvovy" time scenario.



Then it was worse. For a long time no one studio did not want to take up with the adaptation of the tale, to put it mildly, a strange story. In the yard still felt the influence of the hippie movement, venerable directors filmed serious movies about the Vietnam War, and mediocrity riveting thrash crafts about the evil aliens from outer space. The work of George Lucas once ranked as the last one, that's just the budget in this case required a rather big - $ 8 million. Fortunately found a producer who believed in the genius of the young director and the necessary amount.

Still, the success of "Star Wars" believed only a few. Lucas himself and then sometimes doubted of his undertaking to get anything worthwhile. Later, the actors remembered shooting as the most absurd episode in their lives. Tall guy in a suit monkeys, dwarfs, simple pretentious dialogue ... The film was seen as a fairy tale, or trash, but not science fiction, claiming to cult status.



"The scene in the bar looked like a raving stoned: some frogs, pigs, Cricket - nightmare!" - Says with a smile playing the main roles. Apparently, the same view was held by Hollywood bosses who for some reason one of the main issues paintings considered whether the Wookiee wear underpants. At some point, "Star Wars" in general would like to cover, then decided to throw out all the special effects of the film and turn it into a television series. Only perseverance and obstinacy of George Lucas rescued tape.



The process of creating masks



The lion's share of the filming took place in the desert of Tunisia. In the same country found a suitable name for a planet on which the action takes place in the first third of the film. City Name Tataouine imperceptibly transformed into Tatooine. Here, in North Africa, found a suitable decoration: home caregivers Luke Skywalker was not built specifically for the film, this is a common hut in a village in Tunisia. Suitable same interiors found in a local hotel.



But the city of Mos Eisley, from the spaceport is Luke finally went to space travel on the "Millennium Falcon" had to be built from scratch. Tons of decorations had to smuggle out of Hollywood on airplanes. It took about two months to ensure that goods received from the settlement to build, fits perfectly into the desert surroundings.



Decorations 2



Spaceship Han Solo was created a life-size in one of the biggest kinopavilonov in England. Length colossus reached 50 meters and weighed several dozen tons. Giant layout "Millennium Falcon" is sometimes glimpsed in the frame, but most of all his crew were useful "internal", because the protagonists spend a lot of time in the vehicle. However, the cabin still had to be done separately.
George Lucas wanted to literally put the viewer in the place of heroes. "Millennium Falcon" is racing at the speed of light, the ship shelled, it shook from side to side. All this must be accompanied by shaking inside. 40-ton layout is difficult to vibrate, so it was decided to build a small cabin and place it on the spring platform. As prescribed scenario scenes shook her hand.



Another giant layout had to do to recreate the scenario described in the crawler, which toured the Jawas Tatooine in search robots. For some episodes was built huge metal "box" with tracks from the mine excavator. To capture the same general scenes using the compact model crawler.



As in most of the pre-computer era of fantastic bands, in "Star Wars" had a lot of "toys." All spaceships that we see in the film (from the "Millennium Falcon" to the fighters) were made in the form of miniature plastic or cardboard models. "Death Star" and was painted at all, and to shoot the final scenes of a large-scale attack crew built a layout size of 15 × 15 meters. He carefully replicated each of the hundreds of towers and guns, which bristled "Death Star." Tunnel through which flew fighter toy rebels became dominant layout.
Who knows, would get a "Star Wars" cult status, whether in the film alone space shooting, without all of the "Zoo", which is still lodged in the picture. Hundreds of dolls and masks, a lot of make-up and, of course, a fleet of dozens of robots. All of this blend in a new universe, and even now looks good.



Robots come up with a variety of



Today it is difficult to imagine "Star Wars" without the robots C-3PO and R2-D2. Do these mechanisms were too expensive, so George Lucas agreed to astromech droid robot secretary played by actors. In plastic "armor» C-3PO Anthony Daniels fit. According to him, the plates were so fragile that broke on the first day, damaging actor leg.



Anthony Daniels was completely blind in his suit



Anthony Daniels



Inside R2-D2 sat dwarf Kenny Baker, who played nimble robot on wheels in all six films of the franchise. The actor says that he could not get out of your own bowels metal R2-D2, and sometimes he had to spend several hours inside because of it simply forgotten. All in all, the film in one form or another is present more than 30 robots, most of which are controlled remotely.



On-site Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels were tensions
Sometimes assistants had to roll R2-D2



But the hardest thing had Chewbacca, that is, sorry, Peter Mayhew, who played a Wookiee. Prior to joining the movie a man working as a nurse in the hospital, but due to an increase in 221 cm made his way to the big screen. Every day during the filming of "Star Wars" he had to put on a wool suit, put on the "head" and the shoe "feet" native of Kashyyyk. In Tunisia, the actor pursued unbearable heat, and in the halls sometimes interfered too low for him openings.
True face "Chewbacca»



George Lucas after the shooting said that in many ways the image of Chewbacca he borrowed from his dog Indiana. As for the name, say it is derived from the Russian word "dog" - very much it is pleasant to the young director.
During the filming of the Wookiees not utter a word, not a roar, only opened his mouth, as required by the script. Later, sound engineers had to experiment with hundreds of different sounds, to find suitable for speech Chewbacca. For example, when you hear the angry and perturbed Wookiee - it basically sounds that makes a bear, but rather Chewie got Tiger "purring". Famous wheezing breathing of Darth Vader managed to get through the mask for scuba divers, R2-D2 «talking" with a mixture of many different bibikany synthesizer and even infant babbling, and the sound of fighter had to combine the roar of an elephant and the sound of rushing on the wet highway vehicle.



Layout plot "Death Star»



Still, in the first place "Star Wars" remembered stunning special effects. When I was at the end of the 1980s saw the first episode of the fourth and slack-jawed amazement came out of the cinema, I could not believe that this could remove more than a decade ago. According to George Lucas, when he saw his first tape mounting options, he dropped his hands. The film turned out so weak and miserable that even the director could not believe in a brighter future paintings. However, the impression changed dramatically when a "Star Wars" special effects added.

The camera floats over the layout, removing the final battle



And here is the famous tunnel - one of the main "chip" of the film



For all the beautiful had to take the rap studio Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which Lucas created specifically for their space epic. Just got a movie for almost four hundreds of special effects - incredible for the time indicator. The creation of flight vehicles, shot blasters, glowing swords left third of the budget and most of the tapes spent on the production of paintings of man-hours.
The results exceeded all expectations. Actors brandishing wooden swords covered with a reflective material, could not believe that the screen is constantly breaking these sticks will become laser swords. All flash and glow ILM team painted by hand.



Since the construction of some scenery threatened to pour a lot of money, George Lucas decided that you can replace them with pictures. In some scenes the role of scenery in the background carry the most that neither is a high-quality image (Figure deep mines, for example).



Do you remember the beginning of the "New Hope" when crawling across the screen titles, shifting slowly and majestically drifting ships? If you remove this episode traditional 1970s methods, ships would have to move the camera on a blue background, and then apply the necessary background is. In this case, the picture is a little "jerky" objects randomly shifted and "shaking».



George Lucas came up with to turn everything upside down and not moving models of space ships, and a camera that takes them. Installing while running on rails and guarantee absolute smoothness of the picture. The system remembers every position of the camera, making it easy to combine with any background image without a hint of inaccuracy.



The most advanced episode, demonstrating the dignity of the new method, the final scene of the attack was the "Death Star." To give credibility combat units, the director made a documentary film crew to see newsreels with air battles during World War II. The episode was shot in several pavilions. In one chamber revolved around the "toy" ships, in the second miniature optics Flied layout "Death Star", at the same time fixing the squib explosions. Then shots combined and get one of the iconic scenes in film history.



George Lucas controlled the whole process of shooting his brainchild, begging the producers money, asked not to close the project and eventually ended up in hospital with nervous exhaustion. Price Herculean effort in just a couple of months he started the cult of the universe, whose influence still did not decrease.

So filmed the famous scene with subtitles

End ...



Source: