Star Wars Model Shop

Models of the Empire Strikes Back with Jon Berg & Lorne Peterson

On Thursday afternoon, Lucasfilm's Pablo Hidalgo hosted Jon Berg and Lorne Peterson in a panel titled "Models of the Empire Strikes Back."  Pablo had the mother load of Lucasfilm archive photos on a laptop and the duo told stories and went over various models as Pablo found, just in time in some cases, photos for illustration.

Jon Berg is a hilarious guy and it was fun listening to both men as they recounted stories of working on Empire Strikes Back and how they made the models used in the film as well as the techniques, mostly stop motion and motion control, used to film them.  For A New Hope the model shop had seven model makers but as an example of the scale of model making over the years, there were over 100 by the time Revenge of the Sith was filmed. 

A few of the more interesting anecdotes about the models and filming include Lorne Peterson recounting how Phil Tippet shopped around looking for unborn calf skin in order to make the tauntaun pelt for the model in Empire.  At one point, Tippet commented that "they must think we're devil worshippers" due to the interesting looks he received when asking for the calf skin.

Lorne and Jon spoke about kit bashing Formula One and German tank models, among others, when creating various ships for Empire.  Specifically, the Millennium Falcon for A New Hope was approximately 4' long and weighed several hundred pounds.  The model shop used one scale of retail models to create engines and other parts of the ship.  When models for Empire were being created, they realized the need for a smaller Falcon that they could maneuver in shots.  They were able to buy the exact same model kits as they had done for the previous model, only in half scale.

As an example of how long it takes to build a model, it was recounted how the construction of Darth Vader's Star Destroyer in Empire required the shop to work seven days a week for seven weeks to complete it.

Jon Berg designed the AT-AT walkers for Empire based on drawings by Joe Johnston.  They had articulated legs, neck and weapons that the team could use in the stop motion filming of the Hoth battle scenes.  The platform that the walkers stood on was only 3' off the ground and Jon and his team spent days under it, popping up through trap doors to adjust the walkers for each shot.

One of the final things in the presentation was a question from Pablo about a well-known photo of the ILM model shop.  In the photo, the man sitting in front is holding a model and Pablo always wondered what that was.  It's the delivery pod for the Probot that lands on Hoth.  Apparently, that model had not been photographed previously but was in the archive and a couple of photos, from different angles, were shown at the panel.

Modeling the Galaxy with Lorne Peterson

Sunday morning, Lorne Peterson made another appearance, again with Jon Berg, for a panel titled "Modeling the Galaxy."  Pablo Hidalgo once again hosted and the panel had many similarities to Lorne's talk at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, PA during his appearance for the Where Science Meets Imagination event.  A few points that Lorne and Jon spoke about were also covered in the Thursday panel, including info on the AT-AT and Millennium Falcon models. 

New stories were recounted, however, and Pablo had his well-stocked laptop at the ready, showing photos that I had not seen before, not even in Peterson's own "Sculpting a Galaxy" book.

The story of Peterson and his crew going to Mexico to get the shot of the Rebel Soldier standing in his outlook post on Yavin for A New Hope has been recounted before, but Pablo showed off new photos of the actual event.  The garbage can, which formed the outlook post, was mounted on a tall pole and only anchored to the ground with three bolts.  They were several hundred feet up on a pyramid and the photos of the precarious shoot were incredible.

Filming the Sandcrawler for the Tatooine sequences was also an interesting story.  The crew dug a hole in the desert in order to bring the cameras down so that the skyline and scale of the model would seem larger.  A 3" ridge of sand became a several foot tall dune in the final film thanks to the perspective.

Fans of the prequels were also treated to some interesting information including how the model for Mustafar was created for Revenge of the Sith.  In order for the lava to flow, the entire set had to be tilted at an angle.  That forced the model shop to sculpt everything on a 10 degree angle so that the mountains appeared vertical when tilted and so that anything falling or dripping would appear to be dripping down and not on an angle.

Due to other commitments on Sunday, I arrived late to the panel and left early once the panel was opened to questions from the audience.  Having now seen Lorne Peterson both in Philly and for two panels at Celebration, I can easily recommend to everyone that they should take any opportunity to hear him speak.  If Jon Berg is in attendance, even better.  It's extremely interesting to hear both men speak about what went into the models as well as what it took to shoot them.

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