American Cinematographer - February 2016 - 37

Photos by David James and John Wilson. All images courtesy of Lucasfilm Ltd.

Opposite and this page,
top: Finn (John Boyega)
and Rey (Daisy Ridley)
befriend the legendary
Han Solo (Harrison Ford)
aboard the Millennium
Falcon in Star Wars: The
Force Awakens. Bottom
(from left): Robbie
Bryant; Alex Bender;
Robert Palmer; Alex
Collings; Alex Teale;
Serge Nofield; Phil CarrForster; cinematographer
Dan Mindel, ASC, BSC;
Colin Anderson; and
Simon England on the
Falcon set at Pinewood
Studios outside London.

Vanessa Davies, and her assistant,
Mary Gouldsbrough.
Office walls are adorned with
retro posters emblazoned with a confidentiality slogan: "Loose Lips Bring
Down Starships," featuring the hand of
Darth Vader choking an Imperial officer, who is clutching blueprints. After a
chat regarding the overall status of
production, which is scheduled to wrap
in early November, Davies leads us
around the massive soundstages and
side streets of Pinewood toward the
back lot.
On a flat sandpit the size of a
couple of football fields, the production
has created a snowy plain with moguls,
rock formations, snow drifts and blinds
that convincingly blend with a partly
cloudy, late-summer English sky. At
the base of the snow plain, we see a
large portion of a sinister-looking gray

bunker with flashing red lights and
steam vents. Davies informs us that this
is Starkiller Base, the planetary headquarters of the First Order - formerly
the Galactic Empire. To further sell the
environment, special-effects technicians blow ice and paper snowflakes
sourced from Snow Business.
Executive producer Tommy
Harper notes that Abrams and director
of photography Dan Mindel, ASC,
BSC felt they could pull off snow on a
back lot after their successful experience with the similarly snowbound
Delta Vega sequence from their first
Star Trek film (AC June '09). A line of
cones neatly demarcates the snowy
plain from a desert-village setting shot
earlier in the production, and reveals
the truly impressive reality-bending the
production has been able to accomplish
with its real-for-real approach.
www.theasc.com

Harrison Ford (Han Solo), John
Boyega (Finn) and Chewbacca stunt
performer Joonas Suotamo await a
take. They hold various weapons and
are clearly arriving to infiltrate and
sabotage the enemy base. We briefly
meet and shake hands with Abrams
and Mindel, who cordially welcome us
to their set. Davies whispers that we're
the first journalists permitted to visit.
The outdoor scene is lit relatively
simply with two heavy construction
cranes hoisting large overhead 70'x40'
frames with silks and flags to control
the ambient sunlight. A single Sunray
12/18K HMI unit diffused through a
10'x10' silk frame plays as the main
light source. Later, a smaller 1,200-watt
HMI is bounced against a white 5'x5'
Grid Cloth to provide fill and eye light
for close-ups at the corner of the
Starkiller Base entrance.
➣
February 2016

37
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2016
