Special effects of The Empire Strikes Back
The ensemble cast includes Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, and Frank Oz.
Up to 100 people worked on the nearly 600 effects required for the film, which included miniatures, matte paintings, stop motion, articulated models, and full-size vehicles.
[9][6] Fewer than 20 Star Wars special effects crew members followed ILM's move to San Rafael, seven of whom were key, including Richard Edlund and Dennis Muren.
[7][5] Empire's producer Gary Kurtz hired crew including production designer Norman Reynolds, consultant John Barry, makeup artist Stuart Freeborn, and first assistant director David Tomblin.
[9][6] Lucas brought back artists Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston to maintain visual consistency with Star Wars, and the trio began to conceptualize the snow battle in December.
[10][11] Lucas found concept work easier for Empire because the crew did not need to create completely new cultures or worry about "what sort of coffee cups they would use".
[18] Muren, Ken Ralston, Don Dow, and Jim Veilleux, among others, began filming effects work in full from February 1979 while ILM's electricity was being installed.
[25][3] To avoid the difficulties of shooting in distant locations, Lucas invested in practical sets; he funded the construction of a 1,250,000 cubic feet (35,000 m3) "Star Wars stage" at Elstree Studios, London.
[26] The production was so expansive that by June 1979, the executive team had to ration the labor they could expend on building sets as there were no other tradespeople available in the industry, and it considered bringing workers in from Italy or Spain.
The printer's main feature was the four projector heads it had instead of the normal two, allowing more elements to be composited at once, which saved time and reduced the loss of quality over multiple passes of the same image.
The majority of still shots or those with slight pans or tilts were performed with the Empireflex, while those with a lot of movement were done with a Dykstraflex because it had a mechanical arm that let the camera capture footage as if from the point-of-view of the Rebel spaceships.
[39] The recce crew, including Kurtz, Reynolds, and Kershner, flew to Finse on January 25, 1979, to begin receiving equipment containers sent by train or air.
However, location filming coincided with the area's worst snowstorm in half a century, impeding the production with blizzards, 40 miles per hour (64 km/h) winds, and temperatures around −26 to −38 °F (−32 to −39 °C).
[52] Although the Star Wars stage was completed in early May 1979, it was too small to house the full-scale Rebel hangar and Dagobah sets, and an extension had to be funded and built.
[54] Around fifty tons of dendritic salt mixed with magnesium sulfate for a sparkle effect were used for the wintery set; the combination gave the cast and crew headaches.
[61] During post-production in January 1980, the rough cut of the Wampa's initial attack on Luke was deemed unacceptable; Ralston described the head built by Elstree as like a cuddly "owl" instead of something scary.
[24] The Walkers were secured to the set with a pop-pin system that provided structural support and was quicker to release compared to a traditional tie-down system—threaded rods and wing nuts that lock the model to the surface.
[72] Berg and Tippett employed a Lyon-Lamb Video Animation system that recorded one frame at a time and could be played back immediately to quickly identify any flaws.
The Walkers were filmed in VistaVision with a telephoto lens and the footage was projected onto a six-foot screen and photographed on tape using a Sony video camera, which added blurs and zooms.
The material had very fine and small-napped hair that Tippett could separate from the leather in a water-soluble glue, and replace it with stretchy rubber, creating flexible, hairy skin.
[6][104] Fourteen weeks were originally allocated for its construction, but since filming was significantly overscheduled alongside rising production costs, it had to be completed in seven, requiring the crew to work overtime on nights and weekends.
[116] Various drafts refined the character—alternately named "the Critter", Minch, Buffy, and simply Yoda—from a slimy, repulsive creature to a small blue one; the character's long life and wisdom were consistent.
[118] Bringing the character to life was difficult: using forced perspective on adults or little people to make them seem smaller was considered, but building big enough sets for the technique was too restrictive.
[120][41] Stop motion would have made him look like a cartoon, contemporary animatronics were not sophisticated enough, and the concept of using a monkey was dismissed by Freeborn who had learned during his work on A Space Odyssey (1968) that the animals tended to tear off costumes and prosthetics.
[121] Stuart Freeborn, who had made many alien masks for Star Wars, was asked to create a design for Yoda before Lucas left for the United States later that day.
[136] Reynolds took over and designed the city interiors with a more crystalline shape because the round "Jell-O mold" forms McQuarrie wanted to use were deemed expensive and too difficult to build.
[34] For the Hoth Rebel speeder interiors, the British crew shot live-action cockpit scenes in front of a bluescreen so that an image could be composited later by ILM depicting approaching Walkers.
To enhance the effect, Finse helicopter footage was used with several small Walkers matted in to create the appearance of vast distances without a substantially large set.
[60][169][131] To collect over 1,000 sounds needed for Empire, Ben Burtt and Randy Thom spent months traveling around the United States to record various activities.
The film also received a nomination for Best Art Direction (Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley, Harry Lange, Alan Tomkins, and Michael Ford).
