This long-term arrangement at Leavesden worked well with the productions general shooting schedule. We had three distinct phases on the production, Tattersall explains. The first was to work our way through our initial 25 sets at the studio [including the Galactic Senate chamber, the Mos Espa arena, Wattos junk shop, and Anakins home on Tatooine]. In the second phase, the company moved on to Italy and then Tunisia for location work [depicting the Queens Palace on Naboo, and scenic desert exteriors on Tatooine, respectively]. Meanwhile, all of the wrapped sets at Leavesden would be replaced with new ones—wed then return to shoot phase three, using the next 25 sets [including the Jedi Council Chamber, the starfighter hanger in Theed, and the Palaces generator complex].
The advantage to this plan was that we had time to pre-rig and pre-light before we began shooting phases one and three, which allowed us to just go from one set to the next.
One of the first scenes to be shot at Leavesden depicts the drama unfolding in the vast Galactic Senate chamber. The arena features a central lectern, as well as thousands of intergalactic representatives seated in individual platforms docked along the chambers walls. During presentations, these platforms can detach and hover toward the lectern, allowing the speakers aboard them to address the entire Senate.
Only a few key elements of the chamber were constructed full-scale (including the lectern and one delegate platform), with the remainder created in post at ILM. While filming the Senate sets, Tattersall made extensive use of dolly and crane work to create the impression that the platform was indeed moving, while the Arri DCS unit recorded his moves so ILM could easily retrace his steps.
The bluescreen surrounding these setpieces was quite enormous and a major lighting chore but just one in a long series of such challenges. Explaining how he tackled this extensive bluescreen-illumination job, Tattersall relates, AFM Lighting provided our lighting gear for the show. Its a London-based company run by really good people, and they have great gear. One of the terrific things they supplied us with were these blue-spiked fluorescent units called Jack Flos, and we used 160 of them for our bluescreen work. AFM designed them with four 5', 120-watt tubes, using a pure-blue tube, which made them very efficient for us and perfect for what ILM wanted. The next most powerful such tube on the market is about 65 watts, so theyre just over twice as powerful, which allowed us to use fewer units and effectively fewer cables and less rigging time. We could also place them a bit further away from the bluescreen than normal, which made the coverage more even.
On each bluescreen, we used two lighting pods made up of these Jack Flos: one hung from up above and one on the floor, each set 15' from the screen. That would give us an even T4.5, so wherever we had a bluescreen, we just made sure that the construction crew gave us space for our lighting pods. Since the lighting on the bluescreens dictated our shooting stop—as they had to match our key light—it was important to keep that routine going.
The main thing was to give ILM a dense negative to work with. The principal photography was really just a foundation upon which the rest of the film could be built.
Asked to describe Lucass preferred shooting style, Tattersall reports that two cameras were generally used to cover every setup—one wide and the other tighter, but at the same angle. The first camera would cover for the storyboard, while the second would get something else—it was fairly conventional, the cameraman reports. The first unit would start with George and then the second unit with cameraman Giles Nutgens—would follow up behind to pick up their material. Giles shot several episode of Young Indy, so again he was somebody familiar with our procedures.
George was very hands-on during shooting, and every sequence was planned and detailed with storyboards or animatics that wed refer to over the day. Also, because we had so many standing sets, we were able to spend a good amount of time walking through them and working out how wed be shooting things.
Considering the amount of preparation that went into making The Phantom Menace, it seems logical that very little footage would end up on the cutting room floor. Youd be surprised, Tattersall admits. The editing process is one of Georges passions, so we provided him with plenty of raw material. I dont think its any secret that we shot 1.25 million feet of film!
The large amount of footage was accumulated in part because Lucas prefers to do traditional master-shot coverage, which allows him the most flexibility in the editing room. The first shot of the day was always a master, Tattersall details. After that, it was a matter of moving in to get two-shots, over-the-shoulders, and close-ups. We then switched to the reverse angle and repeated the process. Its really a classical way of getting coverage, and so many other directors tie themselves in knots, from an editing standpoint, by not doing exactly that.
The great thing about doing a wide master first is that nobody on the set is in any doubt about whats going on in the scene, which is important when there are so many effects. If a director begins with the close-ups, or something in the middle of the scene, confusion can very easily occur.
Because editing was being done by Paul Martin Smith and Lucas concurrent with shooting, and because many of the sets stood long after scenes utilizing them were wrapped, it was also easy for the first unit to return to any given scene for additional footage if necessary.
Another methodology carried over to Phantom from the Young Indy and Radioland experiments was the use of video dailies. Tattersalls footage was processed at Rank (Deluxe) Laboratories in London, sent to Midnight Transfer for telecine, and then shipped on to ILM for scanning. I cant say its my preferred way of working, Tattersall says of video dailies, but it can be more convenient, especially when you have miles of dailies to sit through. We did have some projected dailies, however. If anybody had a particular request to have something screened, individual shots would be printed up and projected large, which sometimes answered some very important questions regarding costuming, makeup, and focus. Sometimes when we were coming onto a new set, Id request film dailies just so I knew I had the proper lighting approach. Ian Robertson was our client liaison at Deluxe; I’d worked with him on many projects before, so that was also a help.
The location work done for Phantom Menace was minimal, yet pivotal in adding a degree of realism to the drama. Rick and Gavin had done an extensive location scout, so the locations I saw were pretty much the final choices, Tattersall remarks. It seems that they always intended to go back to Tunisia—where part of the original Star Wars was shot—in order to recapture that environment for the planet Tatooine.
It was especially difficult to find the perfect location to depict Queen Amidalas Royal Palace. All of the large palaces in Europe were scouted, but Reggia Palace in Caserta, Italy, just north of Naples, was selected because it featured the types of spaces we were after. George was looking for something on a massive scale, and which featured classical architecture that could then be digitally enhanced and extended to seem even bigger.
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