A second unit was formed to aid in speeding up production, and John Barry, the Academy Award-winning production designer of Star Wars, was hired as second-unit director. Unfortunately, a tragedy marred the movie's progress. Two weeks after he started on The Empire Strikes Back, Barry became ill and died. Work stopped for an afternoon while his colleagues attended his funeral, paying their respects to a lovable man who had contributed much to the motion picture industry. Producer Gary Kurtz took over direction of the second unit until a replacement, Harly Cokliss, could be found to replace Barry.
But compared to some films of similar size, the problems were minor and the enterprise pressed on. The redeeming factor, of course, was the quality of the footage, which made the struggle to film the complex interiors all the more worthwhile.
The movie, in fact, was made on two levels—at the studio at Elstree and at ILM. Lucas and Kurtz had the ultimate responsibility of keeping these two dimensions accurately interlinked. Lucas flew in from California from time to time, joining editor Paul Hirsch in the cutting room, while Kurtz gave technical advice uniquely his as the producer of Star Wars.
Four big sets seem, in retrospect, to have been the peaks across which the filmmakers climbed to completion of principal photography in late September. These were the Cloud City complex of Bespin, its carbon-freezing chamber, the ice hangar on the planet Hoth, and the swampy planet of Dagobah. Of them, the cool, beautiful, streamlined interiors of the Cloud City were the easiest to work on. The huge hangar, which inaugurated the Star Wars stage, dwarfed actors and technicians alike with its full-scale hardware and vistas of solid ice. When the set was struck, the big stage was occupied by the swamp planet, an interior which, with its twisted trees, fetid lake, mist effects, and humidity, proved to be as uncomfortable to work on as any tropical jungle location. But, by far, the most taxing was the chamber, a forty-foot-high cylinder within a complex of spiraling metal, full of gadgetry, some of which emitted steam. This set had no redeeming factor for the crew, except its impressive impact on the screen.
From springtime through fall, the filmmakers labored on sunless stages until, quite suddenly it seemed, photography was complete. The intricate props, costumes, and hardware were put into storage and the crew dispersed.
For most films, that would be the end of the story, but not for movies of the Star Wars variety. Completion of principal photography was, in a sense, a beginning. Months of work followed, particularly in the special effects labs at Industrial Light and Magic, where miniatures, opticals, animation, and other processes had to be meticulously integrated with the live-action material of the rest of the film. By late fall, an exceptionally complex sequence in which the Millennium Falcon flies through an asteroid belt pursued by TIE fighters had been completed. A technical problem requiring experimental research arose when it was clear that a white matting, instead of the usual black, was needed for scenes showing combat craft against snow, but this was successfully solved.
John Williams, who recently replaced the late Arthur Fiedler as the conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, completed 108 minutes of original music for The empire Strikes Back, and recorded them at the Anvil Recording Group's studios at Denham, near London, with the London Symphony Orchestra under his conductorship. In addition to four new themes inspired by The Empire Strikes Back, three of the main themes from Williams' score for Star Wars were reprised.
