First in Star Wars, then in The Empire Strikes Back, and now in The Return of The Jedi, the people of Lucasfilm have created and explored that "galaxy far, far away." Joe Johnston, the art director for visual effects, has had part of the responsibility for landscaping, population, and transportation in that distant galaxy. Art direction for any film is important, but when you are dealing with what has become "that Star Wars look" the challenge is slightly different. First, the nearest competitor is yourself and second, there are fans that simply will not settle for anything less than the unbelievably fantastic.

As Joe Johnston explains it, art direction for special effects as opposed to art direction for live action is a Taun-Taun of a different color. "The two jobs are totally different. In live action, an art director will really be the production designer's assistant. He will look at blueprints and sets and make sure that walls are painted the right color—whatever. But in special effects—at least at ILM—I'm really more of a designer than an art director. I like to think of myself and the rest of the art department as the artistic influence at ILM. I don't do it alone by any means.

"After all the models and the ships and everything are designed, and after it is all storyboarded, the job is just a matter of keeping an eye on shots and elements and models. We try to make sure that everything is coming out the way we collectively hoped it would. It's the perfect job, because the people here are talented enough that you don't have to really oversee anyone. You just check in once in a while"

Special effects that are really special depend on people working together and respecting one another's talent. Johnston explains the relationship between his department and the model shop: "Model shops some places need to have a three-view drawing before they can start construction of a model. But here you can give the model builder the roughest of sketches and he'll start construction. He's half model builder and half designer, so he'll design it as it's being built using input from one of the other artists.

"We tried doing three-view drawings on Star Wars, and we found that when you give a model builder something that is carved in stone and say 'Here duplicate this,' it doesn't come out anywhere near as good. He is trying so hard to duplicate the drawing that he doesn't have any freedom and it usually looks stiff and overworked. I think you have to have the right kind of people to do it our way. You have to have people that are talented enough to just take something and run with it."

Johnston revealed that a lot of work is done by his rather small department. "We have a total of three artists in the art department. If we get in trouble, if we have a lot of storyboards to do, we hire some local people to help out. But we have a core group of three. A lot of the other departments who do as much work as we do have more people, but I feel we can keep more control if we can keep the number of people down. Nilo Rodas, Dave Carson, and I work so well together that it's easier for us to do than to train new people or bring in somebody from the outside.

On Return of The Jedi, Johnston had three primary functions: He and his crew designed special effects sequences and hardware; storyboarded the sequences and followed their designs through the different departments to insure the collective "look."

Preparation begins with a script - not always a final version—and can take as long as shooting the film itself. "We read the script a couple of weeks in advance of any kind of a storyboard meeting, so that we have some ideas to present. Then we just talk through the sequences and George and the director will give us real rough ideas of what they have in mind for the effects sequences. At that point nothing is locked down. We can still make major changes if we want to—if they are good changes. Then we will go away and start laying out some sequences. It may be a month or six weeks before we get back to another meeting. By that time we've got some directions and they have some more ideas. It is a long process. Sometimes it's a process of elimination. We give George ten ideas and he likes one of them, so now we—know the direction to go. We usually allow about a year— for storyboarding, and if you throw in designs—hardware or creature or vehicle designs it's probably about a year and a half, 20 months for all that stuff before we ever start shooting."

One of the things that Johnston really enjoys is design and vehicle design in particular. "We can do anything we want when we are designing vehicles at the very start of the show. We don't worry about how they are going to work or how they are going to be built or photographed. We just do what we think would look the best on the screen. Most of the time we do have to compromise, but if we start with something that is the best design, the most creative design, the most unique, then we can go back later and tone it down a little or make it work better. We work in reverse - we worry about the limitations last."

In order for the film to have a cohesive appearance the live action production designer, in this case Norman Reynolds, spent hours conferring with Johnston. "Norman Reynolds came over (from England where the live action was done) several times for meetings here in the early stages of pre-production. We had meetings where we went over everything live action and miniature. We discussed how they were going to interrelate and what we would do and how it would relate to what Norman was doing. Those meetings would last for days. Then he would go back to England and start on his stuff."

[ continued on page 2 ]