So far as style was concerned, I already had a pretty good idea of the type of 'look' that was required for this picture, (having seen the first and second Star Wars pictures) and having found out from the director, Richard Marquand, that George Lucas (the producer) had quite definite ideas himself of how he wanted things to look. So I was not really left in a position of searching my mind for a 'style': it was already there. Call it, if you like, the style of Star Wars.

A lot of the sets incorporated an integral form of lighting, insofar as the space ships, space craft and sets of that sort have a great deal of built-in lighting—which I used, obviously.

The film script incorporated quite a number of huge sets to be constructed and shot at E.M.I., Elstree Studios, as was the case with the previous two Star Wars pictures.

For example

1. A Redwood Forest filling a big stage from floor to gantry with painted backing surround. (Matching location shots to follow).

2. An enormous underground tunnel with huge iron rise and fall and entrance gate from the Desert.

3. Complicated underground Throne Room and moving structures.

4. Desert wilderness for shooting sand storm.

These sets and others were fully constructed before the film actually started shooting. The associate producer, Robert Watts, engaged my services in plenty of time for me to pre-rig and light these sets, and also to shoot tests so that the director could look at them and make his decisions.

When we saw the first test of the Redwood Forest, the director felt it looked a little bit too glossy. He wanted it made somewhat more mundane and totally believable—he really hates the feeling that anything has a studio look at all. So what I had to do was just go back and make another test and what little bits of gloss I had put into it, I took away, which made the overall job of the lighting somewhat easier, it just meant that I approached it in a simpler way, leaving it looking flat and dull.

Our very first shooting day was on the desert wilderness set, incorporating sand storms. Cameras and sand don't like one another, but thanks to my diligent crew we suffered no problems Our camera equipment, supplied by J.D.C., Wembley, Middlesex, consisted of two Arri BL's especially "hard fronted" to take the J.D.C. anamorphic lenses, one Arri 2c for hand-held work, and a VistaVision camera supplied by I.L.M. of San Francisco for shooting matte shots and T.M. plates, etc. We had no camera problems at all during the seventeen weeks shooting and were very well served by J.D. C.

The Star Wars pictures incorporated a good deal of traveling matte work and painted glass matte shots, so I was constantly needing to keep very much coordinated with the art and special effects departments of I.L.M.

If anyone were to ask me what I find most difficult in the lighting of a film such as Return of The Jedi, I would say it is the pressure one is put under, insofar as pace and speed of work is concerned, coupled with trying to produce very interesting lighting effects and visual imagery. Sometimes I find this to be a very lonely and hard battle. After all, I am the only one who can seed the finished image before it gets onto the film. The camera can only photograph what I am putting into the lens, and I have to see this in my "mind's eye" before the lamps, be they brutes, 10Ks, 2Ks, mini-brutes, etc. make their contribution, which is, after all, only light, in varying intensity and color. I have still to mold it into a visually, even possibly "artistically" and dramatically interesting picture, at the same time interpreting the "scripted sequence," to, I hope, the satisfaction of my director, producer, and production designer—trying also, not to be unkind to the leading lady; frequently being required to achieve this with a two and three camera set-up.