American Cinematographer - February 2018 - 34

*|*

he Lucasfilm-provided car brings
me to the main gate at Pinewood
Studios. We drive in past Goldfinger
Avenue, and I'm then met by unit publicist Stacy Mann, who welcomes me to
"Day 74 of many."
Our first stop is the Richard
Attenborough Stage, which houses the
expansive Jedi cavern on Ahch-To. The
set is dusty and features a mixture of real
and cast-foam rocks that a crewmember
sweeps along an uneven floor. The
center of the mostly plaster-carved cave
features an intriguing yin and yang-like
tile mosaic that I can only speculate
represents the opposing dark and light
sides of the Force.
Next we move onto Q Stage,
Pinewood's newest stage, which
currently houses the throne room of
Snoke, the First Order's Supreme
Leader. The set is ringed with bluescreens that are adorned with tracking
markers and lit by Arri T12 12K
Fresnels and SkyPanels. Crash mats line
the floors, indicating that some serious
action will take place here.
Mann leads me outside, and we
cross the same field where, two years
earlier, Starkiller Base's snow-covered
exterior and the desert planet Jakku's
sand-swept Tuanul village had been
built for The Force Awakens. Now, the
field is dotted with Ahch-To's stone
huts. A few weeks earlier, these same
huts had been in various locations along
the northern coast of Ireland, from
Malin Head to Loop Head.
Our next stop is the weapons
room, where assistant prop master
Jonathan Tidmarsh allows me to wield
First Order F-11D blaster rifles and
Praetorian Guard axes, Poe Dameron's
Glie-44 blaster pistol and, for old times'
sake, even Han Solo's DL-44 heavy
blaster pistol. The blasters are all carbondioxide-powered airsoft guns, which
give a satisfying pop and recoil with each
trigger pull.
We then enter the creature shop,
where electronic design and development supervisor Matt Denton introduces us to some of the droids and alien

February 2018

Star Tours

*|*

life forms that populate the movie.
There's a bulging Canto Bight casino
patron wearing an elegant dress; Denton
notes that this particular character is
partially foam and animatronic, but its
realization crosses over with the makeup
team and is completed with the help of
CGI. There are several BB units, including a fully functioning remotecontrolled BB-8 - as well as a
dark-colored counterpart, BB-9E, that's
in the First Order's employ.
As we enter the hand-prop room,
I'm struck by the attention that's been
paid to even the finest details among this
collection, which includes Luke
Skywalker's and Kylo Ren's lightsabers.
Some of the lightsabers are hilt-only,
while others are complete with LED
"blades." A prop master notes that cinematographer Steve Yedlin, ASC had
specifically asked for the LEDs in Kylo's
saber blade to be a less-saturated red
than what had appeared in The Force
Awakens.
A bag labeled "Maz Kanata's hand
grenades" suggests the wizened space
pirate has her hands full following the
destruction of her castle in the last
movie. An entire wall is filled with
Canto Bight casino paraphernalia,
including decks of sabacc playing cards
and piles of chips inscribed with
Aurebesh, the written alphabet of the
Star Wars galaxy. I also catch a glimpse of
a weathered pile of books that I'm told
are the ancient Jedi texts.
Next I'm led back outside, past
production vans labeled with the codename "Lunar Heavy Industries," to
Lucasfilm vice president of publicity and
communications Lynne Hale's car. We
drive about 30 minutes south of
Pinewood, to the outdoor lots and additional soundstages at Longcross Studios.
I briefly meet with Yedlin and
producer Ram Bergman as they take a
short meal break. Bergman - director
Rian Johnson's longtime producer -
shares that he is especially proud that
The Last Jedi's production built a full-size
exterior version of the Millennium
Falcon; the famous Corellian YT-1300
American Cinematographer

light freighter had only been a partial
build for The Force Awakens. Bergman
also mentions that, at this stage in the
schedule, they are starting to see light at
the end of the tunnel - and that everyone is working hard to finish on a high
note.
We spot Luke Skywalker
himself, Mark Hamill - chatting with
a group of young fans from the MakeA-Wish Foundation - as we walk over
to the set: the fathier stables of Canto
Bight. The architectural details have
been carved in foamcore, and real hay
lines the floor. In the first setup that I
see, a stable boy sweeps the floor, then
wistfully steps toward what will eventually be a view of the nighttime sky -
but which, for the moment, is only a
bluescreen.
This set has been built on a
roughly 30-degree grade leading up
toward the "horizon"; the arrangement
presents some logistical challenges as
the crew works to keep the accoutrements of production from rolling
downhill. Yedlin and Johnson plot the
scene with a 75mm lens mounted on a
director's viewfinder, while a Panaflex
Millennium XL2 with a 1,000' magazine of Kodak Vision3 500T 5219
stands at the ready on a
Chapman/Leonard Hybrid III dolly.
Johnson offers a quick welcome, and
Yedlin enthuses, "These sets are amazing. You've come on a very fun day."
The production's behind-thescenes crew carries some impressive
camera gear of its own, including an
Arri Alexa Mini - capturing ProRes
4:2:2 - on a DJI Ronin 3-axis gimbal
supported by an Easyrig Vario 5 backpack rig. A crew from Industrial Light
& Magic shoots reference scans of the
set with a Leica lidar camera on a
GST20 tripod. Johnson carries his own
Leica M6 rangefinder still camera. The
set feels overall looser, chattier and more
relaxed than when I visited The Force
Awakens - although, of course, that
production carried the heavier burden of
relaunching the franchise. A number of
the crew are now veterans of two over-

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2018