Lorne Peterson Lecture

April 11, 2008

Friday night at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, PA, Lorne Peterson, Oscar winning ILM model maker extraordinaire and author of "Sculpting a Galaxy: Inside the Star Wars Model Shop," gave a presentation on his 30+ years of experience in the movie making industry.  His appearance was in conjunction with the Star Wars Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit that runs from February 9th through May 4th.

Mr. Peterson spoke for about 90 minutes and followed his lecture with a book signing.  Between the lecture and the dozen or so questions that he took, it was a very well done and informative presentation.

Lorne Peterson has worked on many films in his career including all six Star Wars films, Indiana Jones, Men in Black, Pirates of the Caribbean, Wild Wild West and many others.  During the presentation he showed off stills and clips from his films and even some rarely, if ever, seen footage from the limited edition version of his book.

Although he recounted several anecdotes, some of the more interesting included his description of special effects on films such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  During a scene where a large amount of water is rushing down a tunnel after the heroes, Peterson and his team used jets of air blowing on the leading edge of the water to create a look that was in scale with the rest of the model.

Mr. Peterson also recounted how crumpled aluminum foil and coal was covered in baking powder and used as mountains for the plane crash in Temple of Doom.

For the film Wild Wild West, Peterson and the ILM model makers not only had to re-create a western town whose full-sized counterpart had been burned down during filming, they also had to come up with a way to believably blow up a model of Monument Valley, Arizona.  Including how to make scale boulders fall and not bounce. 

During Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, to create believable waterfalls on Naboo, the crew used sugar poured over black velvet that covered up shapes to create a realistic flow.  The following morning they discovered ants had invaded their sugar stash and decided to replace it with salt for the rest of the shoot.

It was pointed out during the lecture that some things, like hair and water, which are computer generated for one film can be used as a basis for others.  Specifically, the water created for The Perfect Storm was a model that was later improved on and used for Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

One of the questions that was asked early on was how the decision is made between practical models and CGI.  Mr. Peterson mentioned that the choice between models and CGI is often based on cost and time.  Directors are given options and prices and then decisions are made as to which is best for the film and most affordable.

During the Pod Race scene for The Phantom Menace the crowd was filled in using thousands of painted cotton swabs.  The ILM model makers even devised a tool for sorting and arranging the swabs to make handling them easier.  Near the end of post production work on the film, the CGI department had enough time to finish off the scene digitally, replacing the cotton swabs with a diverse crowd of spectators.

An interesting aspect of model building that Mr. Peterson pointed out was making scale models not only look but act like larger, real life items.  During the filming of Always they used 15' model airplanes and burning Christmas trees to create a scene where a plane was flying through the treetops.

For Men in Black, to crash Edgar's getaway space ship at the end they needed to create dirt to crash into.  That dirt was actually peat moss which had been laid out in the sun to dry and was repeatedly run over with a car to break it up.  It was mixed with some other dirt substitutes and placed in a trough that the ship, mounted on a pipe and moved by a small car under a platform, would crash into.

Asked what the most difficult model he'd built was, he had two.  The first was the Super Star Destroyer from Return of the Jedi due to all the fiber optic lights involved.  The second was the ship from E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial because it not only had a lot of lights, it also had several moving parts.

Mr. Peterson has worked on well over 30 films during his career and is one of, I believe, three people to have worked on all six of the Star Wars films.  He won an Oscar for Best Effects, Visual Effects for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1985.

"Sculpting a Galaxy: Inside the Star Wars Model Shop" was published in 2006 and is available in two editions; a hardcover edition and a limited special edition that includes several additional booklets, a DVD containing some never before seen photos, and a scale model of Luke Skywalker's land speeder among other bonus material.

His lecture at the Franklin Institute was fun and interesting and those that I spoke with agreed that 90 minutes wasn't enough to hear about the incredible things that Mr. Peterson has done in his career.  If you ever have the opportunity to attend a lecture by Mr. Peterson, please do so. 

¹Photos courtesy of Brad Kulp.