Star Wars 1: Behind-the-scenes Production of Phantom Crisis

George lucas began to write the prequel trilogy trilogy in19941year1October, and the script was adapted from the story outline he completed in 1976, with only 15 pages. At first, Lucas designed it to trace the background and events of the characters in the Star Wars trilogy. The original title of the film was "The Beginning", but Lucas changed it to "The Phantom Threat", alluding to Senator Palpatine's long-hidden ambition to become emperor.

While Lucas was writing the script, Gavin Baquet, the artistic director, also began to design thousands of props and sets for the film. The whole process lasted for two years. In order to give the Jedi a brand-new style of action, the producers invited Nick Gillard, a senior stuntman, as the stunt coordinator. In Gillard's view, the battle scene with a lightsaber should be as tense as playing chess. Because the lightsaber is limited in length, the Jedi will certainly integrate all swordsmanship styles, including various schools of Japanese kendo. While training liam neeson and ewan mcgregor, Gillard conceived five or six action scenes, each 60 seconds long. The film started shooting on June 26th, 1997 on/kloc-0, and was finished on September 30th of the same year. In addition to setting the main set in Leavis Deng Film Studio, the crew also filmed the Tatooni Star scene in the desert of Tunisia, the interior of Naboo Palace and the Italian Casata Palace. On the third night in the desert outside Tozer, a sudden sandstorm destroyed many scenery and props. In order to repair as soon as possible, the crew revised the plan, and the filming of the film in Tunisia was completed as scheduled.

The crew made nine R2-D2 models, seven of which were able to walk. When shooting desert scenes, the R2-D2 model with standard specifications is not only prone to deviation, but also often falls into the sand. Having encountered similar problems before, Lucas decided to let Industrial Light and Magic Company and British Special Effects Department make their own improved R2-D2 model. R2-D2 of Industrial Light Magic is equipped with two wheelchair motors, which is enough to push the weight of 198kg. R2-D2 of the special effects department adopts a brand-new drive system, which can cope with desert road conditions. The former was used for the set shooting in the studio, and the latter was transported to the location of Tunisia, where it showed its talents in the desert.

John knoll, director of visual effects, previewed 3,500 storyboards before the film started shooting. Although Lucas has been accompanying him to explain synchronously, Noel is still at a loss about how to present what he saw on the big screen. Noel finally decided to combine the original technology with the most advanced digital technology. In order to create some pictures in the film, Noel and his visual effects team had to write unprecedented new programs. In addition, the creative staff also hope that CG characters can be seamlessly connected with real actors, so when shooting a scene with CG characters, Lucas first asked the corresponding voice actors to voice the scene, then let the real actors perform the same scene alone, and finally added CG characters to complete the dialogue.