American Cinematographer - February 2020 - 39

ever sees uncorrected material. The
process is fast and cost-effective, and
we get to see the movie on the big
screen as we're shooting it. It's incredibly fortunate that Lucasfilm has
allowed us to do it this way."
When production commenced in
August 2018, one immediate challenge was resolving the story arc of
Princess - and General - Leia
Organa, portrayed by Carrie Fisher,
who died suddenly in 2016. The filmmakers maintained a strong desire to
include Leia in the final chapter, and
to provide a fitting closure to her
story without recasting or digitally recreating the character.
As fate would have it, Abrams
and Mindel had filmed an entire
subplot with Leia during The Force
Awakens that wasn't used in the
finished film. By rewriting the script
around that footage (along with additional material shot for The Last Jedi),
and employing rotoscoping and
motion control, the filmmakers were
able to include Fisher in entirely new
scenes for The Rise of Skywalker.
"We did some testing to see how
that was going to work," Mindel
recalls. "I've worked with Roger

"We spent a lot of time on crane, and a lot of time on Steadicam. J.J. wants the
camera to really be part of the action, part of the storytelling process, to be a character in the game. He shows up in the morning, we do the blocking, and then it's
primarily between him, Dan and Colin Anderson to create a dynamic, difficult-toexecute shot that has a lot of moving parts and requires a lot of people to hit their
marks at very specific times throughout the take. J.J. was very patient and very positive. He knew what he was asking for was very demanding - and if one element
made an error, no problem. We'd just keep going until every single individual who
had a part in the take got it right."
- Sergius Nafa, 1st AC
Guyett many times, and I rarely do
anything on set without consulting
him. I truly believe it's the cinematographer's duty to give the visualeffects supervisor the absolute
maximum leeway. Together, we
matched the lighting that was used in
the original footage [of Fisher]. It was
a matter of dialing it in by eye and
then shooting it. We were able to take
interior shots and put them outside,
and vice-versa, and match the lighting.
About a year has passed in the storyline since The Last Jedi, and The Rise of
Skywalker begins by updating viewers
on the heroes' progress. Of particular
interest is Jedi-in-training Rey, whom
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we catch up with in a forest on the
planet Ajan Kloss as she practices her
lightsaber skills. The sequence was
shot in Black Park, just behind
Pinewood Studios. Key grip Hymns
deployed a Wirecam, from The Wire
Rig Co., in the treetops to capture fast
tracking shots of the actor.
"Outdoors, we planned and built
the sets around where the sun was
going to be throughout the days,"
says Mindel. "In England, the
weather changes 'every five seconds,'
and we had to generate a certain
amount of light and shadow to resemble natural light. We had a pretty big
footprint - there's nothing like
seeing a full-size Millennium Falcon
and other ships just sitting there in the
February 2020

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American Cinematographer - February 2020

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