Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/990311
S O L O : A S T A R W A R S S T O R Y | P E R S P E C T I V E 4 5 Given a limitless budget (that sadly never happens!), one could spend endlessly trying to convert all the areas of the station that were used into fully finished sets. Therefore, key areas of the location were targeted that would require a larger effort, leaving the background to visual effects for a "small fix"! A key and very telling exercise that was undertook very early on in preproduction to illustrate this involved the design team perched within the back of a flatbed truck, acting as Han and Kira stand-ins, as the visual effects supervisor Rob Bredow took handheld 4K video, with a shallow depth of field, to see how the cross shots in a speeder cockpit would look with motion blur and foreground action, as we sped up and down the web of Fawley streets and alleyways. It became clear that the background was very forgiving and only tonal problems needed to be dealt with. It also, by the way, served as a good interdepartmental bonding exercise! To justify the expense of a full crew location shoot at Fawley, two further Corellia sets were added to be built and shot there in amongst the existing structure; the entrance to the Den of White Worms and the fishmarket. As we usually do, the Art Department produced a white card model of the location, along with the set elements we proposed to install there. We find this the most effective method of roundtable discussions to allow all departments, including visual effects, and first and second units, to plan efficiently. We also use a lipstick camera, popular with directors for composing shots, to ensure that all necessary requirements in construction and set decoration have been dealt with. Considering the vast size of the Fawley site, both the property and set decoration departments ensured that all the pieces they supplied were easily moveable to shot, or even able to leapfrog from one setup to another in an effort to service the needs of both units, that often were shooting at the same time. Of course, the role of the location department, and the Art Department's relationship with them is a very important element to this whole endeavour. The effort this department puts into not only location finding, acquiring and gaining permissions, but also facilitating construction, E D. CORELLIA STREETS EXTERIOR, CONCEPT ART BY JAMES CLYNE. E. CORELLIA WAREHOUSE INTERIOR. LOCATION PHOTO OF THE FAWLEY POWER STATION BY STEVEN RITCHIE. F. CONCEPT RENDERING OF THE CORELLIA WAREHOUSE INTERIOR. PAINT-OVER OF LOCATION PHOTO USING ZBRUSH AND PHOTOSHOP BY JACK DUDMAN. G. CORELLIA SPACEPORT SET PHOTO BY DOMINIC SIKKING, ON THE 007 STAGES AT PINEWOOD STUDIOS. H. CORELLIA SPACEPORT SET PHOTO BY JOHN WILSON, PINEWOOD STUDIOS. F G H