"The possibility of successfully filming a scene with these resources is approximately 3,720 to one!"

On Sunday, I whipped up a batch of ice-cold bantha milk, and my cast and crew got down to the business of making movie magic. We had a hoot and a half — maybe three quarters!

A communications snafu waylaid my Boba Fett (Trish), so we shot the cockpit scene first. I'd had a lot of fun assembling found objects to make something that would read on-screen like a cockpit — a soldering iron, some Christmas lights, a big military decade box, a couple of plastic pen carriers, and (as a nod to the Satellite of Love) a couple of spray paint caps. We wrapped my C-3PO (Herbert) in aluminum foil, dressed my Leia (Kat) and Han (Kendra) in their color-coded jackets, and convinced Rosie to lie on the floor and shake the Wookiee. ("I always knew my film debut would be on my back," she said.) They all crammed themselves into the cockpit and did their best Star Trek lean as the Falcon "was hit by lasers" and "avoided asteroids."

(Those two hot spots of light on the green screen will come back to bedevil me during editing. Live and learn.)

Boba had arrived by the time I got my shot, so we all trooped downstairs to the "Super Star Destroyer bridge" I'd turned my living room into, and my long-suffering actors suited up. Vader (Rosie) wore a black zentai hood and sunglasses that made her nearly blind; Dengar (Yossi) strapped a baking pan to his chest and stood on a rickety stool; the Imperial Trooper (Will) wore a bowl on his head. Boba Fett (Trish) and Admiral Piett (Kat) had less onerous costumes — though Boba did get cardboard pieces duct taped to her chest — and Herbert played puppeteer for IG-88.

Everyone did a bang-up job. Vader hit her mark every time, despite being unable to see. IG-88's head turned just like it was supposed to. Boba Fett slouched to make Vader look taller. Dengar really stepped up — literally, since he had to stand on a stool to make it look like he and IG-88 were looking down from a raised walkway. (It's a shame that only his midriff appears in the scene, since his costume was surprisingly successful.) Imperial Trooper Will, apart from having the perfect slightly confused military-stern expression of an Imperial Trooper, offered deep insights into Star Wars character motivations. Admiral Piett held Vader's train as IG-88 presided over her marriage to Boba Fett:

(Robotic voice: "MAWWIAGE...MAWWIAGE IS WHAT BWINGS US TOGETHER TODAY.")

I spent most of the shoot standing on my coffee table, directing people and framing up shots in the viewscreen of Kat's little camera. (My camera doesn't shoot HD video.) I learned I'm better at building things to go in front of the camera than I am at standing behind it — I don't worry about foam core and duralar getting impatient with me. But I got all four of my shots, and even though nobody drank the bantha milk the peanut gallery seemed duly impressed:

When theory meets practice, practice wins

Shooting is when theory collides with practice. I can spend hours and weeks getting all the little details right with my models and my costume, but when I've got a limited time window, and a limited supply of Silly String, to get my three shots, all of my clever plans run up against the cold, hard wall of physics. For miniature photography, I had fixed lighting options, a limited depth of field, support rods that bobbled around more than I expected, and support structures that didn't quite get out of the shot the way I expected them to.

But, thanks to my technical support crew (Kendra and my friend Kat), I got my three shots.

The first was relatively simple: the Star Destroyer moves ominously toward the camera, chasing the Falcon. I opted to hold the two ships steady and move the camera, which required a makeshift dolly:

Three Matchbox trucks did the job, though they refused to go perfectly straight, and the Falcon never was in focus. But it's a one-second shot that may not even make the final cut.

Shot two was the background for the composite cockpit shot. It was my job to make the cockpit "shake" at the right moment, by pivoting it on a clothespin stuck into half a music stand. Kendra slid the asteroids closer to the cockpit, to give the illusion of flying through space, while Kat fired Silly String "lasers" across the bow. The asteroids bobbled all over the place, especially when the Silly String hit the support rods, and weren't in focus anyway. But I got the shot. (God only knows what it will look like when it's composited with the green screen.)

For the "pursuit" shot, in which the Star Destroyer chases the Mini-llennium Falcon for about five seconds, I had Kendra rotate the office chair the Star Destroyer was mounted to, to simulate linear motion with rotational motion, while I manipulated the Falcon at the end of a support rod. Kat lay on her back with a can of Silly String hidden by a fold of backdrop fabric and fired "laser blasts" at the Falcon. The three napkin asteroids held still in the foreground.

(That's Kat standing in for me for the production still.) We shot takes until the Silly String ran out, Kendra slowly and smoothly swivelling the chair while I puppeteered the eensy-weensy Falcon.

A couple of pre-production tasks remained before I could turn my mind to principal photography. I did some weathering on Boba Fett's chest armor, to make it match the helmet:

That's a bit of metallic silver paint pen, a bit of Sharpie. Then I finally sorted out IG-88's sensor lights, duct-taping the inside of his dome for opacity and rigging up a little duct tape loop to hold the bike light:

I spent Saturday evening setting up the Millennium Falcon cockpit set in my bedroom alcove and prepping my living room for the Star Destroyer shots. Then a horde of actors descended on my house on Sunday...about which there will be more anon.

Foam Wars

Two of the shots for my Empire Uncut! scene are miniature space effects shots, with a Star Destroyer pursuing the Millennium Falcon. For that, I'm going to need some miniatures, so on Wednesday I convinced my long-suffering wife to drive me to the art supply store, where I acquired some sheets of foam core, a steel straightedge, and new blades for my X-acto knife. I adapted some papercraft patterns I found online, and set to work:

It's fifteen inches long, all stuck together with plain ol' Elmer's glue, and weighs a grand total of four ounces. To crease the layers of superstructure, I scored the underside with the X-acto knife, then used the butt to crush the foam down to create a hinge. The support rods slide through holes in the interior supports.

That's the beauty shot above, all smooth and gleaming white. Unfortunately, it'll actually be shot from this angle:

The nose-on angle really highlights every flaw, thanks to my old enemy foreshortening. If I have time, I might spackle the little gaps beneath the creases, and add some greebles.

Then, tonight, I put together model #2: a one-inch Millennium Falcon. The tiny sensor dish is the top layer of paper on the foam core, cut free and flipped up.

Awwww.

Last night, I made a list of everything I have left to do before filming: Vader's costume, Boba Fett's costume, the green screen cockpit windows, a couple of screen tests, and a few other lesser bits and pieces. I found some of the necessary elements at a thrift store today, including a fetching blue turtleneck for Boba. At a party tonight, I think I completed casting. Principal photography will be Sunday the 7th, with VF/X a couple of days before that, which gives me a little less than two weeks to get everything together. Delivery on the 11th!