Ep 146 | Don Bies — Inside the Lucasfilm Archives (R2-D2 Operator) - The Filmumentaries Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Weirding Way Media.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hello, and welcome to the Film Youmentaries podcast. This is
Jamie Benning and this is episode one hundred and forty six,
And in this one, I'm chatting to Don Bee's former
Lucasfilm archivist and special effects artists who worked at Magic
as well during his stay at Lucasfilm and during a
pretty pivotal time. Actually, Don's story is a great one

(01:08):
because it cuts across so many different corners of the
lukesfilm world, from discovering filmmaking through classic monster movies to
working on the fly, to becoming the guy responsible for
digging through and in some cases saving the original Star
Wars archive. We get into his early fascination with makeup effects,
how he blagged his way into mechanical design, what it
was like arriving in California in the mid eighties, and

(01:30):
how a job that was supposed to last two weeks
turned into ten years inside Lucasfilm. There are some brilliant
stories in here, including finding a very rare Darth Vader
helmet at the bottom of crate, listening to some original
recordings of Irvin Kirshner on the set of the Empire Stracks,
back working with Anthony Daniels and Peter Mayhew on commercials

(01:51):
and even suiting up as a few characters for the
special editions. So if you've ever wondered what it was
like working at Lucasfilm during that time, this is a
really fascinating look behind the curtain. So here's my conversation
with Dombe's and I'll be back at the end for
a bit more jabbering on. Don great to have you

(02:26):
on the podcast. We had a few time, a few
attempts at this, but we finally managed it. So I
first became aware of you, as I'm sure many did,
was and that was on the laser disc the tour
of the archives, and I was like, who's this guy?

Speaker 3 (02:42):
How's he got that job?

Speaker 4 (02:43):
You know?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
But I want to go all the way back. I
believe you grew up in Chicago. I just want to
kind of know how the sort of the film world
was first brought to your attention when you were a kid.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
The earliest memory I have told story my my beginning
in the film business was when I was six years
old and a cousin, a much older cousin. I was
the youngest of the kids. I was like, way younger
than everybody else. She thought she'd tried to scare me

(03:18):
by showing me the nineteen thirty one force Carlo Frankenstein
and yeah, yeah, and uh and it did the exact opposite.
I was enthralled with it, you know, and and and
what what amazed me the most was was the makeup.
You know, how did why does that guy look different?
How did they do that?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
You know?

Speaker 3 (03:39):
You know, I didn't understand any of it at that age,
and you know, I would ask my mother and she
would just say, well, it was makeup, and you know,
and to me, makeup was you know what she put on,
you know, yea lipstick and and stuff like that. So
so I think she was the one that brought me home,
found me a copy of a famous Monsters of film,

(04:01):
you Phil y Ackerman's and and so that started my
love not only of Frankenstein and and that, but also
the film film world. And fortunately my mother was a
huge uh and my father for that matter, but my
mother more so was a huge film fan. So she
they loved watching movies and we'd go to the cinema

(04:21):
all the time. And I very my very first recollection
was Mary Poppins saying Mary Poppins when it first opened,
So I must have only been about four or five
or something like that.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
And that's got a combination of so many things, and
it hasn't it. I mean there's paintings, there's animation, it's musical.
I mean there's it's quite an onslaught of a movie
that as for a young kid, you kind of it's
a fantastical world, isn't it too?

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah? Absolutely? And and and that that started that love
of fantasy films. And you know Ray Harryhausen and Willis
O'Brien and you know John Chambers with Planting of the
Apes that I became a huge plant of the Apes fan.
I was really into Gorilla's you know, and Apes and
everything because of those movies and anything that had that

(05:04):
in it, you know, I would try to find and watch.
And there was a show on Saturday nights in Chicago
called Creature Features, which is so common in a lot
of areas. They had their own versions of that and
they would just show the old universal horror films. So
I would, you know, bribe my parents to let me
stay up, you know, because it started at like ten
thirty at night and watch watch those movies. So again

(05:28):
became an officianado of all the old universal horror films,
and so it just was that was it and it
and like I said, it sparked an interest in the process.
So anytime there was like a behind the scenes or anything,
you know, that might be on TV, because occasionally they
did that, I would watch those and watch that art,

(05:53):
you know, that how people were making the film itself.
And so, like I said, it led along. The nineteen
seventy seven was just a huge year for me because
I had turned sixteen here in the United States, at
least at that time, you could get your driver's license
at sixteen, and I got my first job, and that

(06:20):
all happened within a matter of months. And then of
course Star Wars came out, and to.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Know that it was coming by the way, had you
they've been pressed building up to that in the magazines
and things that you look, you.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
Know, I remember seeing the one thing I do remember
seeing was the Time magazine that had although they got
bumped from the from the front cover, but I remember
seeing the Time magazine article. For some reason, we had
a subscription of Time magazine. And then Starlog had their

(06:51):
issue seven I believe it was, and that's when I
became aware of Starlog. And then I do remember seeing
a trailer or two on TV. But what got me
interested in it was it had a big ape in it.
Because I was in the apes, you know at that point,
so it was Chewbacca. Right, It's like, well, I gotta
go see this. It's got an ape in it, right,
So so I went to see it and it just

(07:12):
it knocked my socks off the.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
The you know.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
It was a very that evening. Was a couple of
friends we went. We I didn't have access to a car,
so we had to get driven there by friends of
their family. And we we got to the screening that
was I think it was supposed to be like a
four thirty screening. We got at four fifteen while it
was sold out by that point, you know, and the

(07:37):
line was stretched around the around the theater, so we
had to wait till the next screening, which was at
six thirty or something like that. So, and it was
a Sunday, I remember that very clearly. It was at
a mall, and the mall was closed because it was Sunday,
it closed early by that point, so we couldn't do anything,
so we just hung out in the lobby and so

(07:58):
then you know, we wait, didn'tuntil the movie came out.
There was this onslaught of as as people we were
trying to get into the theater and and you know,
then it opened and I just wasn't, like I said,
enthralled with with what I saw. And later that year,
so that was I actually didn't see Star Wars. You know,
right away it came out in May or so here.

(08:20):
I didn't see it until there's there's probably July, late June,
early July that I saw it. But later that year,
in August, I was working this first job I got.
I was working at an amusement park in Chicago, outside
of Chicago, and it was an indoor amusement park. It
was the first indoor amusement park, and it was called
Old Chicago, and they had rides and you know, carnival

(08:42):
rides and carnival games and everything. And I was one
of the carnival game attendees and you know, I take
the money and give you the balls to knock over
the clowns and stuff. And they came to film a
movie there. It was called The Fury, was Brian De
Palma's movie with Andrew Stevens and Kirk Douglas and Amy Irving,

(09:02):
and it was his follow up from Carrie, and so
I had unfettered access to the to the work location
because I was an employee either and so I would
just follow around the crew, you know, I would just
watch them film, and I particularly got really friendly with

(09:22):
the effects crew because what they were going to do
is in the in the course of the story, the
Andrew Stevens plays this character with telekinetic abilities and he
sees a bunch of Arabic men that because he blames
them for kidnapping his father, killing his father, which didn't happen,
but anyway, he has a vendetta against him, and they're

(09:46):
they're on a ride and he puts the ride through
a window of the restaurant, and so I got to
watch them rig that I got to watch and the
guy that actually was running was the head of the
effects apartment, was a guy named A. D. Flowers, who
apparently I think he went back to Wizard of Oz,
but his more previous was uh uh. The credits had

(10:09):
been Tiring, Inferno Beside and Adventure to to Tour, you know,
all movies that I was like big fans of and yeah,
and and like, wow, this is really cool. And then
I got to watch because I was also in the
makeup I want I saw that the makeup man was
putting this on on Andrew Stevemens forehead, This throbbing vein appliance,

(10:30):
which I found out much much later was either made
by Dix. I think it was Dick Smith or Rick Baker,
but I think it was Dick Dick Smith that that
made the points. And I'm like, oh, you know, I
got to so I got to meet that makeup artist
and I found out later it was William Tuttle, who
did Seven Faces of Doctor Lao and Time Machine and everything,
so so I you know, I like, I was just like, okay,

(10:54):
this seals that I got to do this kind of
thing for the living. And that's that started that journey.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
So wow, that's the I mean, you didn't have a chance, really,
did you. It was all coming at you from all angles.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
It was all fate. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
I was like yeah, yeah, But then how do you
go from you know, being in Chicago, which isn't necessarily
a big film town, to then getting into the film
industry itself. I mean, you said you were interested in
the makeups, and stuff. Were you making stuff yourself? Were
you trying to make eight masks and things?

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Oh? Definitely, yeah, yeah, And I would any any like
willing friend that would sit for me, you know, for
my crude life casting or crude sculptures and stuff like.
I remember one guy when I were taking the makeup
off a lot, he lost part of his eyebrow. But yeah,
it was just it was just experimenting with that stuff.
Dick Smith had came out with a handbook I think

(11:42):
it was published by the same publisher that did Famous
Sponsors of film Land, and he came out with a
handbook on how to do makeup with kind of things
you could find around the house, more type of stuff,
you know, gelatine and cotton and you know, you had
to get some makeup supplies. But and so I played
with all those and learned about, you know, where you
can get fake hair and things like that. So I

(12:08):
was definitely playing around with that. And yeah, you're right,
Chicago didn't have much of a film scene at that point.
And then so I got into a theater. I did
the theater in high school, and then I got into
community theater in Chicago, and did you know, started doing
that kind of work and at least let out a

(12:29):
creative side of me while I, you know, was trying
to build up portfolios of stuff. And I did set
design and did props, I did I did a little
bit of acting, and you know, I did kind of everything.
And and then my brother, who, like I said, is
older than much older than me. He's a he's a
pediatric surgeon. And he tells me this one day. He said,

(12:53):
told me about this patient he had that whose son
was really into makeup, and maybe we should get together.
So I, you know, we connected. And his son's name
is Keith Edmeyer. And Keith was this wonder kid of
a sculptor, you know, he was. He had been corresponding
with Dick Smith. He had been in touch. I think

(13:15):
he went with Rick Baker at that point. And and
so the two of us started doing projects together. He
was still in high school, I was. He he's I
guess he was about five or six years younger than me.
So he was still in high school. So he had
like a couple of high school projects that he was
doing that I would help him out with. I remember,
they did this really high value production of Jesus Christ

(13:37):
Superstar and and we're you know, they were having blood
effects and stuff. So it was it was, you know,
we we got to do a lot of fun stuff together.
And and then in uh we did a couple he
helped me out with a couple of shows. We did
a stage production of Frankenstein and he did the makeup

(13:59):
for that, and and then he left to go work
with Rick Baker down in Los Angeles, and and then
he was down there a couple of years. I kept
in touch with him, and then he when one of
the times we were talking, he mentioned, oh, yeah, there's

(14:19):
a company up in northern California that's looking for people.
They're working on this remake of The Fly. And so
I put my portfolio in, which at that point was
just heavily makeup stuff. But the one thing I had
done when I would when Star Wars came out was
I made my own full size R two D two
radio controlled R two.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
D two from the prints that you could get.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
No from I scaled up. I did have those, but
that was only one elevation of R two or I
had a couple only a couple of shots in there
of that. But what it did have. What it did
have was the model kit of our time, which wasn't
I found out many years later it wasn't terribly accurate,
but it's still was enough to you know, I figured, yeah,

(15:04):
I guessed at what the scale would be roughly, and
you know, did the math and you know, fixed it
that did it that way. And so that was in
my portfolio, just to you know, just to round out
my portfolio. But my portfolio was, like I said, mainly
makeup heavy. And so the company was Chris Wayliss Incorporated

(15:24):
c w I and Chris you know, I sent my
portfolio in and you know, here I thought I was
going to be the next great makeup artist, you know,
up there with Dick Smith and Rick Baker and all that.
And and he wasn't interested in my sculptures or makeup
at all, he says, But he says, I see this,
uh r two D two you did? He says, so
you do mechanical design, and and I already knew at

(15:45):
that point just say yes, you know, yeah, sure, yeah
you know, and and he he says, oh yeah, I
said yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah I do yeah, And
at which I kind of did. I mean, I did,
you know, had to learn all that stuff for to
make it art two.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
But you're like twenty this.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
I was twenty four.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
I think it was okay, it was. Yeah, it was
sort of early eighties, wasn't it.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
Yeah yeah, And and so uh he said, uh, he says,
so you know how to use a mill and a lathe?
And I said yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I didn't
know what a mill was. I knew what a lathe was,
but I didn't know what a mill was. And so
a week or so goes by, and then I got

(16:26):
a call saying they wanted me to start on such
and such a day. So I packed up everything, moved
out to California, and and and then they've been out
here ever since. So yeah, so I started on the
Fly and again doing mechanical design, and that's that's kind
of how I get it. And then you know, you
meet people, you know, yeah, it was only fly up

(16:47):
Perio at that time. It was a small community.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah yeah, So on the Fly then described to me
a particular sequence or shot you worked on that.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
Well, it's funny because a lot of yeah, a lot
of the stuff I've initially worked on was all stuff
that got cut. It's in the special edition DVDs and
stuff like that. But there was a sequence there was
a special edition. I didn't think, yeah, well that's it's
it's it's like the Blu ray that had all the
cut scenes in it, and right, not so much a
special edition, but it has the cuts. There's a sequence

(17:20):
where he tries to reverse the results of the fly
and he takes a cat and an ape and puts
them in and blends them together, and with the idea
that he would unblend them. And so we made this

(17:41):
monkey cat. We call the monkey Cat puppet. So I
made that. I worked on that. I made, well, there
were two versions of it. There was the free the
one that like wobbled across the floor, pulled on the string,
it looked like it was running. That's the one I
mainly worked on. Then there was another one that was
more animatronic, that had articulated faces and stuff, and I

(18:03):
worked a little bit on that one, but I mainly
worked on the other one. And then after that, he
beats the really brutal. He beats the thing to death
with a stick, which the hands were David Kronerberg's hands
when he beat it. And then Brundle is distraught because

(18:24):
it wasn't working. So he climbs up on the roof
and there's this remnant of this scene that's still in
the film where he keeps scratching his side. He's constantly
doing this in the film, and it turns out when
he gets to the roof and he's looking over the
city and everything, it's starting to bother him more and more.

(18:45):
And a little fly arm pops out. So I made that.
I made the fly arm that comes off, and then
he gnaws it off with his mouth, and then and
he throws it aside and it twitches, so that again,
that was something else I made. And uh, and then
at the end he he has uh he the the

(19:06):
the other guys staff is I think it is. He
does the fly vomit and this, and and acid eats
his uh, his foot and he a tone comes out
and he slurps that up. I made the tongue that
that came out. So that's all the stuff that didn't
make it in the film. And then oh, and then
there was actually a stop motion sequence that I worked

(19:27):
on that we did after film shot, which I can
get into. But the the thing that I did work
on that did make it into the film is a
big thing. He turns into at the end. And so
there was a there's a group of us led by
John Berg, who did the Walkers from Empire Strikes Back,
who is to this day. He was a mentor at

(19:48):
that time and then he's become Yeah, he's a really
good friend of mine, you know. And uh and we
we we've stayed in touch all these years, and I
just talked to him a couple of weeks ago. But
John and I and a few other people worked on that,
so we got to do all this mechanical design. John
ended upuppetearing on said, I didn't go to location. It

(20:11):
was shot in Toronto, but I helped John with all
that stuff. And then there was walking legs. There was
a shot you know where these legs were walking. I
helped build those. But then, like I said, the movie
was finished rapping and there was a sequence at the
end of the film that that they were trying to

(20:31):
figure out how to do, and they decided to stop motion.
And what the sequence was is that Geena Davis wakes
up from a from a dream, you know, shot like
a nightmare, and she sits up right. And again this
is on all these cut scenes that you can see
these uh, and she wakes bolts up upright from this dream,

(20:52):
and and and the guy laying next to his status,
the guy that got his hand in his foot melted,
and and she's obviously pregnant. She's really obviously pregnant. And
and he's like, what's wrong. She's I had that dream
again and about the baby, you know, the maggot baby
that she had earlier in the film. And he says, well,

(21:13):
don't worry, you know, we that we got rid of
that baby. This one's ours or something. So she lays
back down, closes her eyes, and then the camera flies along,
and in the distance is a branch with a cocoon
hanging down. A crystalis hanging down from it, and the fly.
The camera flies along and and comes up onto the
cocoon and the cocoon and shakes and breaks, and the

(21:35):
sides split off, and these butterfly wings unfolding its human
baby with butterfly wings, and it crawls up to the
top of the branch and you know, kind of dries
its wings, flaps its wings and dries and and then
dives off and flies off and and and the camera
and fade out. And that was how the original movie
was supposed to endow, and so they they decided to

(21:58):
do it stop motion, and on Berg being a stop
motion animator, he was, he was, and he wasn't up
for it. Uh, he went not so much. He wasn't
up for it. He he had kind of given up
stop motion after after Empire Strikes Back. It had taken
so much out of him, and you know, he he
just like he was not at a place where he

(22:19):
really wanted to do something like this, but out of
deference to his good friendship with Chris Wayliss and everything,
he agreed to do it. So he needed a couple of,
you know, a few people assisted obviously making the puppet
and everything. But I built the branch shot of steel
pipe and and we covered it with latex and make
it look like branch, you know, bark. And and then

(22:43):
he asked me to be on set with him as
a as a you know, not so much an animator,
but you know, just assistant. And so I was. I
was on set with him with another stop motion animator,
Tony Liddatti, and and yeah, and we shot this thing.
And it was a real compressed schedule because the movie
was going to be coming out. It seemed to recall.

(23:05):
We shut this like April. Move was coming out in
August or something like that, and we had to do
it very quickly. We had no time. We put in
a thirty two hour day to do the first take
of one of these shots, and like at two three
o'clock in the morning, we were really punchy. John and

(23:26):
I were the only ones that were still awake, really,
because each each frame took about twenty minutes for John
to with all the wires of the thing, and we
would just get the giggles and it was just you know,
the camera operator, John Gaza, he was a camera operator.
He would you'd see him sleeping over by the side
and then John said, okay, ready, and John would wake
up and say shooting and press the button and then

(23:48):
go back to sleep again and goodness. And so it
was this real peal to get it done and it
got finished, and then it was decided it was cut.
And I don't think it was cut from so much
a technical reason, but it just wasn't totally right for
the film, you know it is. John will even admit,
you know, it's kind of rough animation. It didn't fit

(24:08):
with the realism of the movie because we were really
pressed for time, but.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
So you went too fuss that it was removed.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Well, I always wanted to see it, and I didn't
get to see it for years. I saw the rushes,
you know, I saw the rushes at the time, but
I never got to see the sequence because it was
never released, you know, until one of the DVDs came
out and it's like.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Oh yeah, right, yeah, so thank goodness for DVD. Yeah,
so what came after that?

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Then?

Speaker 2 (24:35):
I mean that that's quite a big movie to be
a part of. I mean that must have felt pretty good,
A good and a good reference on your resume.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah, well yeah, it's yeah, it won an a came
Award and it's a bit downhill ever since. Uh yeah,
I'd forgot about that. Yeah yeah that Chris and Stefan
Dupui won Caamy Award for the makeup on it. Uh
so you know that. Yeah, that ended up being only
I like, I started started in November of eighty five,

(25:04):
and I think we were finished with that's thought motion
sequence in April or something. There was a period like
a month or so where there was no work until
we came back to that, and so it was the
six months of work really and so then it was
a matter of trying to make connections in northern California
and find other work. I was, of course trying to
get into ILM at that point. John was trying to

(25:25):
help by, you know, making introductions and that, but you
know that was working. So I was working at another
company that did like Christmas window design, set design. I
was I was acting as a draftsman and a carpenter
and building things for them. And through that connection, one
of the Christmas, the Christmas windows stuff, I would help

(25:49):
do some mechanical design of making the things move. And
this guy named David Schaefer who was an electronics engineer.
He I met him and he was doing all the
you know, interfacing with repeatability, and at that point it
was literally like the old Disney stuff. It was audio
and amtronics. He was using a code on a cassette

(26:09):
tape running you know, running an electronic device that would
be able to repeat functions and stuff. It was quite
clever at the time, but you know, it was all
stuff that he had to create. So a very very
clever guy. But one of the other gigs that he
had was he worked as the R two D two

(26:30):
operator for Lucasfilm for special events and special appearances and so,
so we got to be friends, and he knew of
the R two that I made and everything. And then
in nineteen eighty seven he went down to Disney for
the opening of Star Tours and while he was down there,

(26:50):
he made connections at Imagineering and they he got a job. Essentially,
they offered him a job at Imagineering. So left a
hole for somebody to fill for the R two D
two appearances, and it just so happened. In eighty seven,
Lucasfilm signed a deal with Panasonic of Japan. Yeah, the

(27:11):
commercials to do the commercials. Yeah, so and and feature
George and all the Star Wars characters. So yeah, it
would Daniels, Peter Mayhew as well. And then yeah, my
very first an set was with Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew,
George Lucas, uh, some of the Ewoks that were originally
it's not work Wark Davis wasn't there, but some of
the local northern California and uh, yeah it was. It

(27:36):
was quite a auspicious first day, you know.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
And did you take a moment to just kind of look, Oh,
I was.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
Like, you know, like you know, it was funny at ILM.
It was kind of frowned upon to be a fan.
You know, you couldn't be a fan, and you know,
really it wasn't it wasn't like a spoken thing, but
you know, you know you could tell the old timers
were Liken nerds, you know and everything. So you know,
all those years I had died my my fandom, and

(28:07):
you know, getting getting to do that kind of stuff
was just like, you know, a dream come true. Yeah,
so yeah, I did these commercials and I met Anthony,
and Anthony became a good friend and and you know
it continued doing a bunch of appearances over the years
with with him. And did you shoot he was in

(28:27):
Japan or they shot? No, we shot, well, we shot
most of them in northern California here because the ones
with George, he didn't want to go anywhere for so
we shot them in at il M. A couple one
of them actually, I don't know how well you know them,
but there's one where they're all out in the field,
all the Star Wars characters are in the field and
George walks up. That's right down the road from Skywalker Ranch.

(28:48):
It's a there's a reservoir called the Nicasio Reservoir and
it's right across the street from there. And what was
ironic about it was we were shooting it in late
August or something of eighty seven. It was almost ten
years to the day that I was doing that shoot
in Chicago with you know where where this it all started.

(29:09):
So yeah, it was for me, it was like, oh,
this is kind of neat, you know this this time
it worked out, so yeah, So from that I started,
I made the connection with Lucasfilm to do uh the commercials,
and I think we we Oh the other place we
shot was we did went down to La to shoot
a couple of them and went down there with Peter

(29:30):
Mayhew and against some of the Ewoks and we shot
some stuff and George wasn't in those.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
And that was the one with the There was one
with the like a jamb of the hot animated jamb
of the hot.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, that we shot that. Yeah, we shot that at Island. Yeah,
where he was crying to like a Ray Charles blues tune.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah, such a weird ad.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yeah, And yeah, they're all are bizarre. They're all really bizarre. There.
That one was it was like a half scale Jaba
that was made.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
I've seen it the exhibition that traveled over to the
London as well. Always I wondered for years what that
was from. And then just a few years ago I
saw it online that yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Yeah, and and uh yeah, Tony Hudson is a sculptor
that that did that, and and he puppeteered that, I
believe too. And yeah, they wanted job and job of
course by that point was long gone. They had the eyes,
the eyes and the arms of Jaba at the archives,
but ye, but that's all they have. And that's when

(30:26):
when I realized that Jaba has a tattoo. Yeah, he
has a tattoo on his arm. So anyway, the yeah,
we we we did a whole bunch of those up
here and then we I think it was for the
next three or six years that occasionally they would pop up.
They introduced their own mascot called Sparky, and the Ilum

(30:48):
Creature Shop built that and we shot that with George
and R two and and Sparky and and it was
like watching a I don't know, like a Model T
with R two and then this Lamborghini with Sparky because
Artie was Yeah, we used all the original arties, all
the original even into the prequels, we used the original arties.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Were you modifying the costumes a tool? Because I know
for Anthony particularly, it was a very uncomfortable Yeah. He
was always complained.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, no, Actually the only thing so when we jumping
ahead to the prequels, uh, you know, episode one was
a puppet ofc repeo. Episode two was the multi colored one,
which was actually an Empire Strikes Back era costume we
just painted. So that was that was one of his

(31:40):
costumes and we didn't do any modifications to that. But
on episode three again we used an Empire era costume
and it was all the gold plating again, and we
we took two of the costumes and cleaned it up
and replated it. And for that, he was always complaining
that because you know, his body while he was still

(32:01):
amazingly fit for being in a costume thirty years later, yeah,
he you know, your body still naturally SAgs, you know,
in places that you don't expect, and so things didn't
fit him quite exactly the same. And he around the throat,
there's a there's this like piece that goes around the throat,
piece of plastic, and so he was always complaining that

(32:23):
I was rubbing against his Adam's apple, So I made it.
I pushed the points a little bit more forward, and
I carved out the mask a little bit to give
him a little more air there. And then also the plate,
the big round thing on his tour so in the
you know, if you look at it from a profile,
the it all it kind of dug in this way

(32:45):
at the very bottom, so we popped it out so
that it wouldn't beg into him. Plus then the wire
corset that he wore, the original one with some sort
of cast It was like latex or something cast onto
spandex with real wires on it. I found a source
where there were like silicon wires that we used, and
we made a silicon rubber base that everything was tied

(33:09):
to and nothing at a little Pokey's or anything. And
you know, we tried to make that as comfortable as possible.
But still the majority of it was still the original suit.
I don't don't think it was until The Force Awakens
that he got a proper news suit.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
What about the Chewbacca suit, because that, I mean that
couldn't have survived too well.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
The survivor Tribacca suit. We used that as a personal
appearance cost in the original suits, I think they're probably well,
they're probably were cleaned up a bit for Return of
the Jedi, but we use those up until the nineties
for Peter. Really yeah, it wasn't again, It wasn't until
episode two that he got the new suits made by

(33:48):
the Dave Elsie David Leeuwelson, a creature shop in Sydney,
and then I did a personal appearance with well, it
was a series of marketing appearances with Peter in in
when episode three was coming out in two thousand and five,
and we used the new suits for that. But Peter

(34:11):
actually liked the old suits.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Better, really yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Because the new suit, the mask in particular, was had
animatronics in it, which they ended up not using a
whole lot of, but it had servos in its head
and everything, you know, the originals. The original mask didn't
have any of that. It was all operated by Peter
opening his mouth. Yeah. And also his original suit was
simply he wore a big jump uh you know, leotard

(34:37):
and then he wore this mohair sweater you know, jumper
basically all over that and and that was it. Whereas
the the newer suit had a muscle, a little bit
of a muscle suit underneath it, right, Okay, Yeah, so
I think the original suit was a little more comfortable.
Was comfortable with that kind of thing can be, but yeah,
it's a little bit more comfort.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Imagine spending hours in those things. But it seems that
you joined Lucasfilm at a really interesting time though, because
it was kind of post Star Wars when they were
really kind of you know, growing as a company. They
were you know, putting out tendering for particular jobs. You know,
they were putting bids in for particular effects work at
ILM and Skywalker Sound, and then there was LucasArts and

(35:21):
Lucas Education all that stuff. It seemed like the company
was getting bigger. So an interesting time to be there.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
Yeah. They It was funny because they kept then changing
their name and sometimes we were working for Lucasfilm, then
we were working for Lucas Arts. You know, my check
kept changing.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Who I was worked different budgets.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically, Yeah, what happened after I got
that connection in with with the commercials, the Panasonic commercials.
Judy Nails, who had hired me for the commercial, she
was running the other special event things. And so she
she and a guy named David Craig, who was the

(35:57):
very first archives so Lucasfilm arcoves. He was actually worked
for the PR department, but he, you know, he would
do the press releases and everything with Lynn Hale who
was who had just started at the time as well.
But David and Judy did all these So they put
on the just prior to my time, they put on
the tenth anniversary celebration in Los Angeles, and so they

(36:21):
were always putting on like these little events. So because
of that, I was constantly getting doing you know, R
two goes to an event in San Francisco, you know,
for some children's thing or whatever. And then in nineteen
eighty eight, Marin County, where Lucasfilm is based had been

(36:45):
had been there was a board of supervisors that were
kind of against the expansion of Skywalker Ranch because Georgia
wanted to move I ALM into an adjoining ranch that
he owned and joining property that he owned to Skywalker Ranch,
and and they were kind of against the expansion of

(37:05):
the ranch. And so George. Ever since George had moved
back to the Northern California, the Marine County Fair, which
happened over the Fourth of July weekend. Every year was
always courting George to come and do something, have something
happened from the representing Lucasfilm at this County Fair. He always,

(37:30):
you know, he wasn't interested. But this year because of
all the not so much negative press, but because of
the fact that he wanted to get more of the
public at least this is my opinion, but he wanted
to get more of the public back on his side
to support his expansion plans. He offered to have an
exhibition at the Allowden. Exhibition happened at the Marine County Fair.

(37:54):
So it was the first exhibition of all the Star
Wars Indiana Jones and at that point Willow and Tucker
Edge was just coming out memorabilia at this County Fair.
So it was very well publicized that, you know, to
get into the fair was something like ten dollars or
something and that was then free to get everywhere else.

(38:15):
We had forty three thousand people come in over four
days and literally from all over the world. We had,
I know, there was a fan from Germany that flew
in just to see the stuff, and so we had
we had all the original model or not all, but
a lot of the original models. And I helped Judy
and David put this together, so we had original models costumes. Unfortunately,

(38:40):
Indiana Jones, they were shooting Last Crusade in the UK
and elsewhere, so that we didn't have a lot of stuff.
I think we had we had might have had one
jacket and hat or something like that. We had the
Ark of the Covenant and that sort of thing. But
we had the painting from the end of Raiders up

(39:02):
as well. So but it was really heavily Star Wars
and like I said, and also Willow and Tucker. We
had an actual Tucker automobile that George Jones. So we
had this incredibly successful exhibition of over four days. People
were the line. You know, it was a two or
three hour wait in the summer heat to get in

(39:26):
and we fire department would only allow so many people
in at a time, so we had to you know,
keep keep the crowd flowing. And and after that, then
all of a sudden, then Lucasfilm's like, hm, maybe the
stuff sitting in the warehouse is an asset that we
can exploit. So they hired me to clean out the

(39:49):
archives after that for two weeks and I ended up
staying for seven years or something like that. What kind
of state was it in, Well, it was just storage,
you know. It was just a warehouse of things just
toward and they really didn't know what they had because
it was kind of like they finished it put it
in the warehouse, you know. So so my job was
to kind of go through everything, and I unofficially and

(40:12):
then officially became the Lucasfilm Archive. It's actually the second
the technically the second one, because David was the first one.
So I started, I researched what, you know, what I
should be doing, the proper way of doing things, and
I got a bunch of information and research on restoration
and conservation and also ac sessioning, you know, like how

(40:34):
a museum sessions of piece and David had started some
of that, but I convinced them to buy a computer
and I learned how to make a database so that
I could create a database of a sessioning software, which
while there were things like that at the time, I
just wanted something custom plus I want to learn a
new skill. So so yeah, so I started going through things.

(40:58):
You know, there was a lot of boxes of of memorabile,
not memorabilley, but like give people the departments just use
it as a dumping ground kind of.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
So there was like stuff.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
Yeah, so there was like these whole boxes of like
from legal department, you know. So I'd be going through
them and finding cease and desist letters for people dressing
up as Darth Vader at the local supermarket opening and
and things like that. And one of the more fascinating
ones was Alan Arnold did the making Once upon a Galaxy,

(41:29):
the making them. Yeah, and I found the original manuscript
for that, and and absolutely and and what was not
in it was even cool because he was What was
interesting is you know Alan Arnold is I'm sure you
know it was was a well respected journalist, and he

(41:51):
was not used to anybody editing him apparently because the
there was there was again you'd I'd look through this
whole manuscript, original type written manuscript, and there'd be like
big sections with you know, crossed out. A lot of
it had to do with Carrie Fisher and her tendency
to miss shooting days because of her her addiction issues.

Speaker 5 (42:14):
And.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
So they they they while it was pretty much, you know,
a very truthful account of all of all this stuff.
It was also they wanted to protect, you know, certain people. So,
like I said, Carrie was the one that seemed to
get the most editing. And and but there was a

(42:38):
series of letters that went back and forth between Alan
and his agent, his agent Lucasfilm, Alan and Lucasfilm that
were like not so much not with these words exactly,
but kind of how dare you dit me? You know, yeah,
and uh and you know, trying to justify the need
for those sorts of things. Well, Lucasfilm went out because
or you know, del Ray, whoever it was that published

(42:59):
it one went out because they had the rights to
do whatever they wanted.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
So despite all that redaction, like, it's still quite uh,
you know, a full on account of making a movie,
isn't it, because it includes that stuff between Harrison and
Carrie and the arguments they had with and He's coming
He's coming up with lines and I'm not allowed to
come up with lines.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
Yeah. And I had also found the original tapes that
he had of those converses, and so I would put
them on and listen to them because I was so
familiar with that book. Again, for me, it was it
was an amazing book. It was probably the best of
the best books ever on the making of a production, definitely,
And I remember particularly this that I think the one

(43:41):
you're talking about was, uh was they put a microphone
on on Irvin Kershner and and one day when they're
shooting in the carbon freezing chamber and uh and and
you know, there it's basically like six hours of of Kurshner,
you know, just converse, converse with everybody. So I put

(44:02):
these tapes on and listen to them in the background
while I was doing stuff, and it was fascinating. You know,
there's a one in particular where and it's part of
it's in the book where Mark Hamill. It was towards
the end of filming and Mark Hamill was talking about
I guess he made some joke that wasn't like received

(44:22):
well by the by Kirshner or something or maybe it
was the UK crew, I can't remember, and it was
kind of like there was a friction between some people
and he's he's addressing it in there, and so it
was it was a real fascinating insight into the making
of that. And there's a whole story that goes with
that too, because when we were I eventually, like I said,

(44:44):
I was Lucas from Mark Ives, and so I was
able to jump between my work as a model maker
and the stuff that eventually did at ILM. And in
between those jobs, I was able to go back to
the archives, which was which was a nice, a nice gig,
and I eventually helped move the stuff to the to
the to the to the ranch. But my dictate at

(45:07):
the time, the lady that was running the archives, or
was in charge of the archives technically my supervisor, was
a lady named Debbie Fine, who was the head researcher
at Lucasfilm at the time. And she basically wanted she says,
just get rid of stuff, you know, just dump them,
just get rid of it. And and I didn't really
want to. I mean, I recognized the I recognized the

(45:28):
the historical value of some of the stuff. Some of
the things were like for legal department, is that I'll
just send it back to legal. Well I found out
later that they threw these things away, you know, they
destroyed them. So so I don't know whatever happened to
that original manuscript it might have that might have been
I'm sure, I'm sure it was destroyed. But these tapes.
It's like, oh, these tapes are so so she wanted

(45:51):
me to get rid of I took them home, you know,
I figured I'll just take them home. It's the only
thing I ever took home, you know, from the archives.
And and so I took him home. And then years later,
Uh Jonathan, oh gosh, I can't remember his last name,
who was making writing the making of Star Wars Empire
and Jedi uh Wrinsler. Jonathan Uh and I were talking

(46:15):
and I think he had just come out with the
making of Star Wars. He had he knew my experience
with the archives and everything. And we were talking and
and I said, yeah, I said, you know the the
there Alan Arnold did these series of interviews. I said,
I have the tapes. He says, you do, I said,
I said yeah. I said do you want to do
you want to listen to him?

Speaker 2 (46:35):
And he goes yes.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
I said, well, can I get him back, you know,
I because I mean, they're they're not you know, Lucasfilm
told me to get rid of them. So uh so
he says yeah, he said, well, we'll transcribe them and
get them back to you. Well, they I gave him
to him. They transcribed him. I never got him back,
but but he did. He did use them in uh
in the thing and uh in the making of Empire
strikes back.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Very cool. I just thought, have him imagine you though,
in that archive of like a crowbar opening a box
and like, what's going to be in here today? Were
there any physical items that you were surprised to find,
like not just e femera, but like props or absolutely?

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah. Yeah. One of the ones was again there were
there were lots of crates of stuff, and a lot
of this stuff was the crates that they shipped stuff
over to London, particularly creature stuff that because they made
all the creatures in California ship them to London for
shooting and then, which.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
You can see in those documentaries. Yeah, you could see that.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And we had those crates, right, and
and so I would open a crate and see what's
in it, and and you know, I'd take out as
much of stuff. Well, there was one like one particular
crate there was relatively large. You know, it was like
I couldn't reach down, I had to climb into it
and it just had you know, paper and bubble wrap
and stuff like that looked it looked relatively empty. It

(47:48):
looked like it just had garbage in the bottom of it,
and so I figured, I bet I better, you know,
search through it. So I looked through it, and in
there was this like a and flannel bag, like a
pillowcase basically, and I opened it up and it was
the mass that they pull off a vader at the
end of Return to the Jedi, and and it was

(48:10):
just in the bottom of this this crate. And I
almost threw the crate away. So so, yeah, that that
was the one big surprise. I mean, there were there
were other things that were like I'd find something, it's
like what, you know, what the heck is it? So
I go and watch the VHS tape of stuff and

(48:30):
and try to place it in the film and and
occasionally find it, you know. But yeah, there there was
a few a few surprises like that.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
The photo archives in there as well.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
There, so when we yeah, when we moved to the ranch,
the ranch, the archive building originally was just there. There's
now two buildings there, but originally it was one building
with the intention of having the second building, but the
model prop costume archives the second floor and on the
first floor was the film archives. They also had George

(49:06):
had bought the Paramount Library Research Library, which was a
series of books and not only books but for research,
but also file cabinets full of like documents and everything
again for research for making films. It's not it wasn't
like about Paramount per se. But it was like, oh,
here's pictures from the Civil War, you know, and there

(49:28):
would be images of that, or there was like I
remember finding looking in and finding like bonds from you know,
years before money, you know, like money from the eighteen
hundreds and things like that, and so they would have
all this stuff for the research of it. The books
were fascinating because you could check the Paramount people could

(49:49):
check them out, and so you'd open it up and
it was checked out by Cecil B. De mill Or.
I remember one Native Americans and it was Marlon Brando.
I checked it out. You know, I don't think it
was their signatures on it, but it was their name
on it, you know, so check it out would put
that in there. So you'd see these famous names within
the books. But they also had some of the film

(50:11):
the picture archives in there too, and so there would
be these big binders full of the proof sheets from
the different productions, and it was fun looking through those
to see what what pictures got killed. You know, they'd
have excess through them that were never meant for a publication,

(50:32):
and again there's nothing you know, it just it was
a lossy photo. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, but I remember
that's the first time I saw pictures of like Mark
Hamill's kid on set, you know, yeah, from Return of
the Jedi. You know he's standing there in sitting in
the Emperor's thrown room and stuff. Yes, yes, so, but yeah,

(50:55):
there there was some of that stuff there. But again
the film archives were there too, which was really interesting
thing because I knew the film markovist and we would
try to pull up on a flatbed because there was
all film still, you know. We we found the original
blooper reel for Star Wars, but without the sound and
other you know, other things like that were you know,

(51:16):
and Ben Burt would come by all the time, look
because he had his archives of some sound effects that
were still there, you know, his original recording as a
matter of fact, the original tape, you know, the real
to reel tape decks and stuff.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
So yeah, I just before my life is over, I
just like to be locked in a room and watch
all of the the film Marker, because I understand. I
think it was when the documentary for the last of
the sequels is being made Rise a Skywalker, or maybe
it was the one before that. The woman I can't
remember her name who directed that documentary, so she went

(51:48):
through three hundred hours of behind the scenes footage from
the original trilogy that had been digitized. I was just like, wow,
let me add it, you know. Yeah, I love to
see that stuff because it's just like an alternate universe
us in there right is like and in dozens of
other films that could have been made without takes.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
And whether it's there's a whole original cut of Star
Wars before that that editor got cut John Jimpson.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, a British editor, wasn't he. I remember seeing some
bits of that on that old CD ROM from many.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Years ago right right there that I think still exists
because David Wes Reynolds I believe watched it.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
I believe he did. There was an article, wasn't there,
and inside or somewhere like that. Yeah, yeah, because I
think George said that it was something like it was
just too formulaic. It was like wide shot medium, close up,
close up, back to the wye, and he just didn't
have that kind of kineticism or he might describe it
that George was looking for. But you've become by this point,
you become like an expert, right, So were people coming

(52:48):
to you to say like, what's this? You know? Or
if something was found, like is this the real thing?

Speaker 3 (52:54):
Or yeah? There was quite a bit of that that
there was. I became kind of really well connected with
the the toy people, the you know, the market those
kind of for for new products and stuff, because they
would have me vet them, you know, it's like does

(53:16):
this look right? You know?

Speaker 4 (53:17):
And uh.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
And then also uh, there's the infamous story the death
Star being found in a in a and I was
in I was.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
A three store or something.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
I was peripherally involved with that story. And and the
the full story, you know, the story that's out there
because I've read the Gus Lopez who has it now
and the people he bought it from. I read their
version of it, and and it leaves out the details
of what was happening at the ranch at the time.

(53:50):
Was the story goes, is that the there was when
I lem was in Van Eys and some in California.
Before they moved to northern California, they had a storage
unit down there. And this is the story that was
told because I got the letter from the people that
found this. The thing and the couple that owned that

(54:16):
storage unit were retiring or moving to the Midwest. They
were moving out of the southern California and they were
trying to get rid of stuff, and there was a
storage unit that was left. I've also heard conflicting stories
about this aspect of it, but anyway, so in this

(54:36):
they had, you know, this stuff, and according to these people,
they had like these little airplane models that they let
their grandkids play with, which has been always been alluded
to be X wing models.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
You know.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
And they had this big ball that was the death Star.
They didn't really quite know what it was. So they
moved to somewhere again Midwest of the United States or
something like that, and they took the stuff with them
and opened a thrift store, and I guess they had
some of this stuff there and the death Star was there,

(55:15):
and the the guys that found it and you recognized
it immediately, and they they saw it and they went
I can't remember the details of how what they their
negotiation was. But the aspect was that they sent pictures
to Judy Niles, who was the head of fan events
at the time, and and she was she was sent

(55:40):
She didn't know. She she was not a you know,
big Star Wars fan and everything, so she would send
them to me and said, do you know what's going on?
I said, that's a death star. I said, that's that's
the that's the model, you know, I said, that is it.
They're what they're what their version of the story is
that Lucasfilm said it wasn't. But what what was happening

(56:02):
was I was saying it was. I said, that is
the real thing. And I remember seeing the pictures and everything,
and and and the and this letter that this person
wrote and and she said, well, we asked George, and
George says, we blew it up. And it said no, no,
they didn't blow it up. They blew you know, they
made an explosion and super imposed it. Yeah, he says,

(56:23):
and he's we've got the death starre on the He says, no,
that's a death Star from Return of the Jedi. It's
not the same one. It's a it's the actual one.
And so anyway, that what they were saying was what
George they were repeating with George was saying officially to people.
I was like, no, we don't that real death Star
was just a model. Was a Matt paying There's a
picture Dennis Muir and lighting it.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
I said, it's it's one.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's I think I pulled up that picture.
He says, here, look, you know well they George says, well,
I'm not buying it from him, because I think he
was asked. They were asking, you know, we could sell
it to you for thirty five thousand dollars or something
like that, right, And George is like, I'm not buying
any of my stuff back cases you give it fair
enough or or you know, forget it, you know, and

(57:07):
fullily enough I was.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
I was sat next to Gus Lopez just a few
weeks ago. I went to a prop store auction here
at BAFTA in London to see how the other half live.
And I'd interviewed Gus for the podcast and I'd sort
of introduced myself. He's a hey, Jamien. While we're chatting,
he's just casually bidding, you know, tens of thousands of
dollars of chatting is just a different world. But he's

(57:29):
got some crazy stuff, that guy. He really does.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
Yeah, i've met Gus. I've never seen his collection, but I.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
No, no, I'd like to someday.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
But I have to say before before we go, I
just I read that article recently that you did, you
and Clayton and marked it on Oh yeah, Skywalker Sound,
and I have to say, so, having all the knowledge
that I have of lucasfilm and its connections and it's growth,
you know, because I was you know, that was one
of the most accurate articles I've ever read, Yes, sky

(57:59):
Sound and the history of the ranch and all that
sort of stuff. So good job on well very because
a lot of them are like pr pieces and this
one was nice.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
And yeah, yeah, well all three of us have been there.
I've been there once, Mark's been there once, Think Claim's
been there a bunch of times. But it was just
we were invited to write about it, and I'd already
kind of written an article about it when I came back,
and that's what led to the guys at ILM and
scold San saying would you write for us, you know,
after writing this kind of report. So yeah, it was

(58:28):
just a very cool experience. And I wasn't going to
sort of pretend it isn't a stunning place. I mean
it's just a beautiful place. I mean, you were there
many many years. Did you find working there in comparison
to anywhere else you'd worked? You know, did you find
it difficult leaving there for instance? Because it must have
been it's such a beautiful places it sets. It just

(58:52):
makes you feel like you're among nature, but you're among
you're with creative people. It feels like the sort of
the dream for so much any people. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
Yeah, well, I mean aside from what it meant, you know,
from being part of that world, you know, Star Wars
and lucasfilm and George and everything, it was just a
beautiful place, you know, to work. I remember one guy
he that worked there, he says, it's beautiful. He's a
beautiful prison. And what he meant by that, I think

(59:26):
what he meant by that was that once you got there,
it was hard to go, you know, like to go
and do any like errands for on your lunch shower
because everything was a half hour away, you know, so
you couldn't you know, once you got there, you had
kind of had to stay for the day because you know,
unless you had you could schedule your day out. But
but I didn't mind that kind of prison whatsoever. It was.

(59:46):
It was gorgeous. And the hardest part about at the time,
they had three places to eat, you know, the main
house had had a dinner service or lunch service, the
tech Bolling Skywalker Sound had had one, and the recreational
center had one, and they each had different different kinds
of food. The main House had more like a proper

(01:00:07):
sit down with you know, very very fancy cook food
and that, and they usually have two options, you know,
of food. The Skywalker Sound had a little bit more
of like a buffet style of types of food, and
then the rec center was more like pub style, you know, burgers,

(01:00:31):
sandwiches and that kind of thing. And so the hardest
part of the decision every day of working was where
we're going to go for lunch, you know, so you know,
they would publish on through company internet, you know, what
the what the menu was for the day, and it's
like that's the tough ch And I was good friends
with people in other departments, for instance, like Granny and

(01:00:53):
Mahara who went onto MythBusters and so you know, we'd
all like correspond to each other, where do you want
to go for lunch today? But no, I was glorious, say,
it was definitely spoiled. And then the other thing was
that the people were just amazing. There's totally true value
M too, total different vibe. You know. ILM was very

(01:01:13):
not like again, not like today where it's all cubicles
and computer screens and stuff like that, but you know,
it was very industrial, dirty, dusty, you know, more hands on,
more in the trenches kind of thing, whereas where you're
definitely more clerical out at the ranch. One of the
more only frustrating things I found at the Ranch is

(01:01:35):
people weren't used to deadlines as much because they had
pro tracted schedules of things, whereas ILM we were always like,
we got to finish this by next Friday.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
So jumping between the two worlds was a little took
a little adjusting at times, but I would never have
given it up. It was both of them. Places were great,
but again the people were was what my fondest memory
of it. And then I have friends still to this
day because of those Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
Yeah, I've said it many times on the podcast when
I've spoken to people that have worked there, and it
seems to be there's a sort of personality type as
much as anything. It's just the outlook that people have
seemed to be common. You know. When I arrived at
Skybalgo Sound, it was Max Smith, supervising sound editor, that
invited me there, and then Laurn Peterson found out I

(01:02:25):
was going there because I mentioned on my Facebook and
he said, oh, I'll go down there as well, and
he gave me the tour with Mac and then we
coumps into John Goodson, you know, and it was just
I was like, these people are the best, you know,
They're just such gorgeous, amazing people.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
Yeah, Lauren and John are amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Yeah, there really are. It's funny. John was saying, Lauren,
I could I could use some help. Actually, I keep
finding things and thinking where does this go? You know,
just a piece has fallen off the bottom of a
star destroyer or something, because I think at that point
they were shipping some bits out for the museum.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
Yeah. John's been up there doing restaurant for stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
We did a big we did a big exhibition in
ninety three and the first person I heard to do do.
Restoration was John Goodson, So.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
That would have been. I wonder when the exhibition was
at the Barbican over here in London, because.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
That was later. I think that that was like yeah,
you know, yeah, it was after I had left there.
This one was for Japan is referred to as the
hot To Exhibition, but it traveled around Tokyo. From Tokyo
and traveled around in Japan and we did a restoration
of about of over one hundred items and what we discovered,

(01:04:06):
that's where we discovered a lot of stuff, and in
particular the Rebel Blockade Runner, you know, the first ship
you see Star Wars was retrofitted for Return of the Jedi,
which I never realized up until that point.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Yeah, because there is a yeah you do see one,
don't you when the fleet is a massing and yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Yeah, And they just carved out windows in it and
give it a little paint job. And so John restored
it back to the original condition. So and he's the
one that with the Star Wars poster and it had
the it had the Playboy pin up. Yeah, John put
the Star Wars poster in it. Never and that's mystified fans.
It's like well, they couldn't have had a Star Wars
poster in there at the time because the movie hadn't

(01:04:44):
come out yet. It's like, well John put it in
their nineteen ninety three so.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. We can't talk about Don Bees
though without talking about well, why I started with the
archive tour. I mean I watched that thing a thousand times.
I didn't even have laser disc. I couldn't afford it
at the time. I think I was just about to
make the leap and it was like this new DVD
thing was coming, but a friend of mine had it
and I got a little v VHS knockof copy of it,

(01:05:09):
and I wore that thing out watching that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
Yeah, there was that I have to my my appearance,
and that was very disappointing in that the way they
edited it. And again I they they they didn't tell
me much other than they recorded me, you know, doing
an intro and yeah, I'm not a performer and uh
and so I felt very stilted then and then they

(01:05:32):
they gave me like a recorder and just told me
to talk about different things and that's you know, that's
what's in there. And then yeah, I love the fact
that I made it into the little program. There's a
program that goes with it. But they spilled my namern
so did they did they miss up the iron the
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
But people mess up the irony all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
With me, I know, it's all.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
Yeah, but that was that was a very sort of
cool introduction to wow, this stuff is still there and
that kind of what year was that that would have been, well, we.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
Moved archives over in ninety one July ninety one. That
would have been like ninety three then, wouldn't it. I
think probably around that time ninety two, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Because that was when like Stars Inside it was starting
to appear later a bit, a little bit later, and
then it was Stars Galaxy magazine and like all these
special edition talk was coming back, and then of course
you were heavily involved in the special editions.

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
Yeah, I mean yeah, that yeah, the there there was
like that dark time between Jedi and the special editions
where almost and again there's just from an observation, not
an actual thing. But like George didn't even want to
talk about Star Wars. He's like, I want to do
other stuff, which I completely understand, and so but at
the same time, I think everyone recognized that was their strongest,

(01:06:58):
strongest thing. So that's when the what was the Shadow Shadow,
Shadows of the Empire, Shadows of the Empire came out
and everything.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Yeah, that was kind of like a soundtrack and a
book and a game everything, but the movie, Yeah, I
saw a multi media explosion.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
But yeah, and then there were the games. I you know,
Lucas Arts Games was starting to boom at that point,
and there were a lot of games. And I got
to meet a lot of the game designers and they
every everybody would use an excuse to come to the Archives.
You know, it's like and I was like, yeah, come
on in. You know I didn't I didn't mind. I

(01:07:34):
like the company, but uh yeah, and that's I got
to know a lot of people from that point of view.
And then the other thing was was fun at the
archives was particularly when once we moved to the ranch.
You know, we'd be having lunch or something and there'd
be some celebrity and you know there, and we're like
invite them up to the and so like Nelson Hall

(01:07:57):
is a good friend that he was, you know, my
cohort up there, and and uh oh gosh, uh Graham
Nash was he was a big fan of Crosby, Stills
and Nash and a Graham. Nash came h for lunch
with somebody and and Nelson's like talked to the He
knew the person that Graham was talking to, so he

(01:08:18):
invited Graham to come to the archives. And Graham's this
is lovely. He says, you know, my son would would
really enjoy that. I'm going to be back here in
a few weeks, where you think you could give him
a tour when he comes back. So Nelson gave his
son a tour and and and became kind of became
uh pen pal buddies with non uh and uh and

(01:08:42):
stayed in touch for years. So yeah, so we always
talked about grant Imahara would shoke. He says, oh, you're
using your powers for evil again. You know, every time
we would invite somebody famous into the Archives, I.

Speaker 2 (01:08:54):
Did get a few looks when I was sitting there
in the having lunch with Lorn and Mac like, people
like he's doing over there with Lawn Like you know, oh,
he's not famous. You know, I sometimes would get mistaken
for Moby a few years back. So yeah, so I
wondered if that crossed I did have. I did look
up to see a few people staring at me, but
I was beef burger.

Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
I was at ILM one time that during the prequel time,
and because I had spent so much time on first
unit with on the shooting that George knew me, you know,
and knew me by name and everything and uh. And
there were again kind of an unwritten rule, they don't
don't interact with George, you know. They were particularly the younger,
you know, c G people that could. They didn't want

(01:09:37):
anyone to get starts for So George was in line
to get a coffee at Java the Hut. This is
we We had Java the Hut, which was a little
shack that was at the old ILM studios, and and
I was standing in line with Nelson and we were
waiting to get a coffee and George came out of
the line and he saw me, and he goes and

(01:09:59):
he said, ho, hi, and you know how you doing
and everything, and we chatted for a few seconds and
then he off he went. And it was very funny
because then there was all of a sudden this all
the people around me, who none of them who I knew,
but they're all employees kind of like, then, who's he
that that George knew? You know, it must be somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
So when you when you sort of realized that the
special Editions are coming, that was an exciting time for you,
like in terms of your employment, but also in terms
of your fandom as well, if you like, because it's like, wow,
I get to see these films again on the big
screen and get to be involved. I mean, how cool
to be Boba fair. I mean, it just kind of

(01:10:40):
it's kind.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
Of crazy that one happened. That one happened kind of
not by accent, but that was like a last minute
edition the other ones because I'm I'm in all three
of the special editions, either as a Stormtrooper, Imperial officer
or something like that.

Speaker 5 (01:10:53):
You're in the band, in the Band and Jedi the
Jedi Rocks sequence. Yeah, but a lot of that came
about was like you know, again it was Nelson and I.
I did a lot of that, and they would need
extra stormtroopers. And because I had done stormtroopers, I did
a stormtrooper the Panasonic commercials with George Nelson and I

(01:11:15):
both were in that for and so we were all
the right size, you know, so we need a stripcher.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
Okay, I'll do it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
I guess trying to find well, this is going to
be a New Hope, I better find a New Hope
stormtob board. Was it like everyone was investigating.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
Yeah. To be honest with you, I even as the
archivists at that point, I didn't realize a deep dive
that some of the fans ultimately would go into. To me,
they were all stormtroopers. They all looked roughly the same
there there. I don't think there was actually I think
there was one helmet there, you know, eventually I found out,
but I don't think there was. There was only one
helmet from New hep period. The most of them were

(01:11:52):
from uh, Empire, Jedi or combination of both. But I
know when they were doing the sequence with the do
Bachs in in the desert and and they had it,
they brought in a couple extra you know, storm trivers
for that. We sent costumes off, but the backpacks and

(01:12:14):
everything had to be remade, had to be faked because
none of that existed. So very very little of the
New Hope actually was in the archives. Uh. That was
you know, costume.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
Bits and sold in a thrift store in.

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
The Yeah, somewhere outside or outside of L Street somewhere,
you know they yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
Yeah, maybe, but with the buffet costume in good condition?
Was that together or did we well that one.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
It's funny because I did an interview with the Boba
Fet Fan Club, a group of fans, and I have
been told that, you know, my cop my costume that
was cobbled together for that was a combination of a
bunch of different eras of Boba Fet. And the story
behind that on was we we were we were shooting

(01:13:03):
the the Jedi Rocks thing I helped provide you find
the help. The mass that I wore with was the
bith the big band member. Nelson was wearing the greedo
looking character, which was sculpted because Gredo long Long had
disappeared and it never made it through the archives, but
it would have been unusable because of the rubber. And
then and then some of the other characters were newly made,

(01:13:26):
you know, all the dancers were newly made costumes. And
we were shooting that sequence that day and George is
directing and Eric McCallum producing, and it was shot at
I l M on the main stage where we shot
pretty much everything and uh, George and Rick were talking
over by the video monitors and laughing and and and

(01:13:50):
then Rick came up and to me. We were in
a break and Rick came up to me. He says,
it's done it because he knew I was the Archives.
I had left the Archives at that point, but but
it was only a few months prior. And he says,
is there a do we you? Is there a fat
costume at at at the Archives? And I said, well

(01:14:10):
yes and no. So the the big Smithsonian exhibition was
going on, which I think became the Barbican Exhibition evctually,
and Uh, I said, we had just sent the one
pristine bulba fet costume to to the UH to this

(01:14:32):
to be photographed for its Smithsonian and it was so
we didn't have one complete one. I says, I probably
could pull together one. I said, but no, there's not
you know, one together. And he says, would it be
would you be able to do I said, yeah, I
could do it. He said, okay, Uh, lunchtime, can you
run up there and get We'll send you up with
a pa. You run up and get the bubba fet costume?

(01:14:56):
I said sure, And he says, who can wear it?
I s and I had done it once before, and
I said, I you know, if it's me. He goes, okay,
well you play it. Then he says, George has this
great idea. He wants Boba trying to hit on the dancers.
I said, oh okay, And so lunchtime rolled around along.
They gave me a pack lunch and I ate it

(01:15:18):
on the way up to the ranch while the PA
drove me up there. And I had like ten to
fifteen minutes to pull together costume from memory. And the
hardest part was finding pieces that were in good condition.
You know, while the costume is beat up by design,

(01:15:42):
there's a difference between beat up and broken, you know.
And the helmets were pretty good condition, that body armor
was pretty good condition. The backpack I had a hard
time finding, and the only one that I was found,
and I was thinking, well, as long as I don't
turn around in it, all we need is a silhouette
of it, you know, so the rocket pack and the

(01:16:02):
little nozzle, rocket nozzles on the side and everything, And
so I was looking for pieces that weren't broken, because
a lot of the rocket nozzle, either rocket pack or
the nozzles were chipped or cracked or whatever. So I
found one that was kind of good, but it had
a actually designed in the back a slash which is

(01:16:25):
supposed to be the battle damage from the Battle over
the Sarlac bit. Yeah, so I figured, well, as long
as I don't turn around, that one would be fine.
So I pulled all this together in a matter ten
to fifteen minutes and got back to the to shoot.
We finished shooting what we were shooting, and then at
the end of the day jumped into the costume and
shot this sequence. And that's how that's how it came about.

(01:16:50):
I you know, I think we only did two or
three takes and was over in ten or fifteen minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
And was that you also in it for the a
New Hope bit with the new Jabba.

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):
No, that that was Mark Austin. Yeah, yeah, he's he's
so Mark was. It was a funny story because, uh,
when I worked back on The Fly, a movie called
The Fly. Uh, the the Guy Hudson was a guy
I worked with. And guy started out in the UK
in London, uh in with Brian Johnson effects on Alien

(01:17:24):
and a whole bunch of other films. And he was
actually according to Guy, he was the one they tested
tested the chest burster on uh when when they you know,
for for Alien Anyway, Guy did a whole bunch of
stuff in the UK and then and then he worked
on Enemy Mine and made this connection with Chris Wayless's
company because Enemy Chris worked with Enemy Mine on Enemy

(01:17:47):
Mine and he Guy eventually made it to the US
and I worked with him on the fly. So Guy
became a friend. And and through this weird connection, Mark Austin,
who's from the UK, was working at an ad agency

(01:18:08):
and somehow Guy knew the his boss or something. So
Guy was over in London at one point he had
already been working here, had been working on movies and everything.
So Guy and Mark met, you know, at at a function,
a company function or something, and they stayed in touch.
And then eventually Mark made it to il M and

(01:18:30):
Guy was at at that point working at ILM as
a match mover, and and they they they were buddies,
you know, they they were friends. And and I think
it's the first day Mark tells, the first day that
he worked at ILM, he saw a guy. Didn't know
he was working there anyway, So I get this call
from Guy one day he says, I've got he used

(01:18:51):
to call the fans squids. He said, I've got I've
got this the biggest Star Wars squid. I know. He
says he wants to he wents to come to the archives.
Do you think you could show him? I said, yeah, sure,
bring him up. So Guy and Mark came up, and
that's how I first met Mark. And then I found
out Mark was this huge Bubba Fett fan. And it

(01:19:11):
was like a religious experience for Mark to hold the
Boba Fet helmet and he got to put it on
and everything. And years later we were doing this thing
for marketing. They in the ramp up. It was, it
was special editions were already happening, and it was a

(01:19:33):
ramp up to the prequels. And they had this Mark
huge marketing summit, a licensing summit they called it, at
the Ranch, and as part of that, they had entertainment
throughout the day. So we opened up the proceedings at
the Stag Theater and Skywalker Ranch with all the attendees
there and and Darth Vader strode in with you know,

(01:19:56):
twelve storm Troopers or whatever, and and gave a speech
which was pre recorded by James Earld Jones. That was
customed for the thing, and we had our local actor
play Vader. And then at the end of the presentations
that day, George came out, but he was preceded by
c THREEPO and RTD two who introduced again with custom

(01:20:16):
dialogue from Anthony Daniels. But it was a grant E
Mohara that played three and introduced George, and then George
talked about he had just started writing the prequels the
night before, and then everyone was to retire to the
scoring stage, which was set up like the cantena from

(01:20:37):
Star Wars. And so what we needed, what they wanted
is the Canteena to be populated with creatures and denizens
of moncisely. So what we did was recruited all these
ILM people. We had about thirty or thirty five people.
I put out like a casting call, and some people
got to wear costumes with masks, and some people were

(01:20:58):
just you know, with their face with makeup or whatever on.
And we just populated it with this, and of course
I called Mark up. I said, we got we want
to have Boba Fett. You want to play it? Yes,
you know, and so Mark got got to be Boba Fett.
So when the special editions came along for it to
do that sequence, which is only a couple months later,

(01:21:19):
I believe, or right around the same time when it
came up that we needed a Boba fette, Mark was
selected for that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
So that's how he That's very cool.

Speaker 3 (01:21:31):
He probably would have done what I did had had
they had more time, but because it was the same day.

Speaker 2 (01:21:35):
So yeah, I wonder if you'd be able to answay.
I've been trying to dig into this for many, many years.
You know that bit in from Stars to Jedi the
making of a saga where they talk about George actually
wanted to Matt in a jab of the Hut, and
there's like these designs, these penciled or pen drawings of
the original actor Declan mulholland, wasn't it, and then a

(01:21:57):
character sort of over the top never been I would
to figure out who those drawings are by. They're not
by Nilo, they're not by Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:22:05):
It looks like Joe, it looks like Joe's style.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
It does look like Joe's style. But yeah, I just
wondered if you ever came across anything to do with
that scene, because it's something, you know, I found out
back then, and I've always wondered about, Yeah, it really
was George's intention, because otherwise why would there be a costume,
And maybe I wondered if it was maybe like a
re release idea at some point in the eighties, you know,

(01:22:28):
when the films came out again.

Speaker 3 (01:22:30):
My feeling always was, I, I have no proof whatsoever,
and I've always been mystified by well, I assumed that
was a Joe drawing. It could have been a Ralph.
Maybe it was Ralph trying. Yeah, maybe, but if if
if it was truly at that time, it would have
been Joe or Ralph, it wouldn't have been anybody else,
but because Neilo didn't come along till lampor right, So yeah, yeah,

(01:22:54):
but I always felt that was retcond you know, you
know that it was something that they did after around
the Jedi time, and George said, oh, this is what
it would have looked like, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
Yeah, I wondered if it was to do with like
the trilogy re release or something when Jedi came out
with it, Oh, should we just do this now? And
that's because I always had in mind maybe, but yeah, no, interesting.
And then of course you were there for the prequels
as well, like building U R two units, puppeteering droids.
I mean, it's one thing to join the company that

(01:23:32):
made the film that inspired you to get into the industry.
It's another to then do the sequels or the prequels
to those movies. I mean that must have been the
rule blast few.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
Yeah, yeah, that was I mean, I kind of It's
funny because every couple of years when I was at
ILM start, you know, starting in the late eighties early nineties,
there's always this rumor, Oh, George is going to start
up the prequels, Oh Georgia, you know, and it was
not always unfounded, you know, I don't know if somebody
was just being hopeful. And so then when it finally

(01:24:01):
started and I heard him, you know, I mean we
knew it anyway, but then I was at that licensing
summit where he actually says, yeah, I just started working
on the prequels last night. It was all of a sudden.
The whole place was energized, you know, and you know,
they ramped up with the art department, which Doug Chang

(01:24:24):
heading that up on the third floor of the main house,
and you know, friends started working. John Goodson started working
for them. I would be giving them tours of people.
Gavin Bouquet came out when he was selected as production designer,
and I was showing him stuff that we had, you know,
and we struck up, you know, a good friendship and everything,

(01:24:45):
and so I was always looking for was only looking
for a while. How am I going to get into this?
How am I going to get involved in this? And
so I was working at ILM and I got you know,
I got to be involved in some of the early stuff.
The models hadn't started yet because they had they were
slowly ramping up, but they were doing stuff like they

(01:25:07):
needed a battle droid built full size and the Droidika
the three leged and built a full size for reference
in London. And of course the early days of how
we're going to do this kind of thing, people figuring
it out, so they needed these kinds of things which
they would have probably in this day and age. I

(01:25:28):
wasn't involved with that, but then they did the C
three po puppet and so I got involved with that.
I was asked to be on that crew. So I
got to model the head and a couple other bits
and pieces of it. And Michael Lynch, who was running
the the that project, was going to be the puppeteer
for it, and then we got this call one day.

(01:25:53):
We were also at the time ILM was very busy
with the commercial division, so we were bouncing back and
forth between film working commercial work and everything like that.
And I might have been working on a commercial when this,
but we got this call one day there was already
started shooting in London and and because I was the
you know, one of the key personal appearance operators, and

(01:26:13):
then I trained Nelson Hall and Grant Yamahara to also
do some of that. But then we would use Grant
for C three pos, so either Nelson or I would
operate R two when Grant was C three PO. We
got this call one day from production saying Rick McCallum
wants to talk to you three of you about our
two issues that they're having on location in London. And

(01:26:37):
so we got on this conference call and it was myself, Grant, Nelson,
I think there was the head of the model apartment
at at il M, and H and then Rick on
the other and Peter Hutchinson, who was effects supervisor. And
I felt so bad for poor Peter because he really

(01:26:59):
got the raw deal on on the whole thing. But
they're basically saying that, oh, AR two is not working
and and this and that, and it's like, well, I
think George basically forgot how to shoot ART two.

Speaker 4 (01:27:10):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):
I didn't say that at the time, but you know
that It's just like R two is very limited in
what it can do. You know, there's surfaces that it
can't run over, you know. And George I had worked
with George ready enough to know how he works, and
and he tend to direct AR two like an actor,
you know, and walk up the steers over there, you know.

(01:27:33):
And there's just some things AR two can't do, you know.
And and so the the effects crew were very capable, amazing,
amazingly talented group of people, but they were overwhelmed with
all the other stuff that they had to do, and
they really didn't have the time to do what they

(01:27:54):
needed to do with this character. So George is I guess,
progressively getting frustrated at you know, the functions and stuff
like that. So at the by the end of that call,
Rick decided, Okay, here's here's what we'll do. Well, you
guys at ILM, you you build an R two and
then we'll have these guys do some modifications to an
R two here, and then you know, we'll we'll get

(01:28:18):
a fine functioning R two out of the whole deal.
So I sat down with a team of people and
we came up with a way of coming up with
any of the possible things that they could throw at
R two that you know, because the problems we were
hearing is running over certain surfaces, not enough power to
push through. So so we we came up with solutions

(01:28:40):
for all these and we built an R two essentially
in about three weeks. And then I went over to
London and shot, and so they had they shot at
Leifsten for a few weeks, went to Tunisia, shot for
a few weeks there, and then they were come they
came back to London and so I got there the
towards the end of July ninety seven and I think
it was, and and stayed until September and shooting. But

(01:29:05):
by that point the hard R two stuff was kind
of done, you know, and so the AR two that
I brought over got regulated as a background R two unit.
It wasn't the blue and mine was yellow, and so
I shot a lot of stuff with second unit. I
did a couple of shots with first unit, the R

(01:29:27):
two leaving the Naboo Starfighter with with Liam Neeson and
Ewan to go on to the desert and the introduction
of the first time Anakin Obi Wan meet I was.
I helped with that. Kenny Baker was archer in that shot.
But so it was pretty easy. It was a pretty

(01:29:51):
pretty easy gig for me. And again I felt I
felt really bad because I was kind of put in
this position, Oh, this sky is gonna come over and
show you it's done to the crew, and and I
was I didn't want to be in that position. So
I was trying to be as nice as possible to
the to the effects crew, and and I would say
everybody but one person, uh welcomed me with open arms.

(01:30:14):
And and and I again, I'm still friends with a
couple of people that I met that day. Uh there
and we got we had a lot of fun shooting
the background r twos. You know, there's a team of
us that did all these background r twos and and
we had a great time. And then when they announced
when that they're going to be moving production to Sydney

(01:30:36):
for episode two and three, I thought, well, this is
my opportunity, you know. So I wrote a letter to
to Rick McCallum and I said, just f yi, I said,
you know, if you think the R twos are ready
to go, they're not because again just the needs of production,
things are pulled apart and you know, they're just kind
of thrown into a crate shipped over and they need

(01:30:58):
to be gone through. And I said, you know we
need R two is not not ready to just go
before cameras, and I'd be happy to be involved in
some way. And so he welcomed that, and he's put
together a budget. He says, go and check out, you
know what condition everything's in. Give me a budget and

(01:31:21):
we'll go from there. And I did that, gave him
a budget, He accepted it, and we worked more than
if you Yeah, well I was I was a paid
I wasn't getting the money directly. I was paid as
an employee. You know, I knew that he had a limit,
you know, I couldn't. You know. Rick was a very

(01:31:42):
very fiscally minded producer. Yes, as one should be, I suppose,
And so yeah, so I pulled together team and Nelson Hall,
Granny Mahara, a couple other people and we for three months,
I think it was. We we pulled apart all the
r twos, Grant cleaned up all the electronics. We we

(01:32:03):
we cleaned up everything. We restored the original blue color
that that had been overpainted on episode one, and and
got this, got a whole collection of AR twos for that.
And then when I went over to Sydney for episode
two and three to do that, and then also I

(01:32:24):
was meant to operate see three Pao puppet when we
got there, because the original in the original script you
first see see three Paol as a puppet and then
he padme clads him with with the armor, which is
and again a cut scene that's never been really revealed.
And uh, when I we got there, Tony Anthony Daniels

(01:32:46):
uh said he wanted to give it a try as
as the puppeteer. And I was more than happy to
relinquish the duty because the idea of being in the
desert wearing that thing is was not something I was
looking forward to. So so Tony did it and and
he was great.

Speaker 2 (01:33:02):
So yeah, amazing, like you said earlier, amazing he was
still in shape to be able to fit in that thing.

Speaker 3 (01:33:08):
Well, it was really interesting is because he talked about that.
You know, he called while I was in Sydney, he
was still in London, and we talked about, you know,
what's going on and how we're you know, and he says, yeah,
I started dieting, and and he got there and and
he fit fine. You know, we put the costume on
the first day he arrived and showed George. You know
that he walked on set and even though he wasn't

(01:33:28):
called that day for on set, but he came on
set and we made this big thing and George commented
and everything, and but he fit the costume fine. But
he continued to diet and so as we as the
week's rolled along, it was fitting looser and looser. Yeah,
it's like you can always tell. The hard part was

(01:33:48):
putting the little trunks up onto him, and you know,
it's a little squeeze in the beginning. At the end,
it just.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
And then you went on, I'm sorry, we've been just interjected.
We've been to for an hour and a half. Here,
if you've got another ten minutes just to kind.

Speaker 3 (01:34:02):
Of oh, I'm yeah, I'm completely good. Yeah, good, as
long as you're yeah, rattling on too long.

Speaker 2 (01:34:07):
No, No, it's brilliant. I mean it's great, this is
my stuff I love for us. And then you know,
after the prequels as well, just having that time working
for ILM and you know, other museum projects and things.
We Starship Troopers. He is in there, yeah, Galaxy Quurtet,
Glex Request, Yeah, Galaxy Quest the other day John Duncan,

(01:34:32):
Oh yeah yeah, John Duncan, Yeah, building the protector and
oh yeah yeah yeah yeah. So very cool to be
able to sort of do more big projects like sort
of tempole movies. What was your involvement on some of those?

Speaker 3 (01:34:49):
Well, and a Galaxy Quest. I supervised them. The dry
dock model, Uh, you know that the protector is in
when they leave, so it's a it's a small all bit.
I mean, we we worked on it for quite a
bit of time, but it was it was a fun
engineering project because it had to be self sustaining. It
was kind of like the dry dock from the original

(01:35:10):
Star Trek, you know, so we knew it had to
be self sustaining and it had to be able to
be hung and lit and all that sort of thing. So, uh,
you know, trying to engineer that and come apart in
pieces because we it had to you know, had to
be able to get a camera and stuff so still
maintain its structure while being able to pull half of

(01:35:31):
it away. So that was that was fun. Parts of
the Caribbean was another fun track. I had just come off,
you know, one of the Star Wars movies. And then
I was working on the Matrix sequels, which was not
through ILM, but it was through a bunch of ILM
model makers that they a local they they created essentially

(01:35:53):
a model shop locally here in northern California to work
on the Matrix sequels. And Michael Lynch again, who was
the original project manager on C three po puppet and
also puppeteer, he led that team and and so I
was working on that for a little bit and then

(01:36:14):
I got a call to come back to ILM to
do Terminator, which is a female where the female terminators
I can't.

Speaker 2 (01:36:23):
Remember is that three three?

Speaker 3 (01:36:25):
Yeah? But when I got back, they weren't quite ready,
so they threw me out of Pirates Caribbean. And because
I had three D modeling experience, I was able to
I was able to help build the ships and we
figured out a way to do it with laser cutting.
And all sorts of stuff, and we worked with a

(01:36:45):
real ship, right, which was amazing. So it was real
fun to do. That project is one of the more
fun ones that I got to do because we were
learning a new skill and also you know, working with
materials and in a style even though we were using
modern technology, we're using in a style that was hundreds
of years old, you know, making making these pirate ships.

(01:37:08):
And so we built I think three pirate ships for
the first film, and and then there was a spate
of ships all of a sudden. We did a ship
for Hook for Peter pan uh that it was the PJ.
Hogan when with Jason Isaac's place captain. Yeah, and that

(01:37:29):
was that was a drama, that one, because we ended
up building the ship twice through miscommunication, not mine but
someone else's. And then uh, and then we did a
ferry for War of the Worlds that that turns over
by the trying to get on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
that was a lot of that is a model that uh.

(01:37:52):
And then and then we did The Pirates two and three,
and so it's like in the course of five six years,
all of a sudden it was built. I built like
eight or nine ships, you know, so there's a thing
while yeah, it runs in cycles, and but yeah, there
was a lot lots of and lots of commercials and
it was an amazing time to be an island. Like

(01:38:12):
you said that that the transition also part of the
the end of the golden age of model making and
then into the digital You know, I was there when
Jurassic Park was being done. I wasn't involved whatsoever, but
you know, just that that energy of like, oh, we're
doing something new and exciting, and we're all like, okay,
you know, our time is numbered. We're going to be

(01:38:33):
Blacksmith's here. You know, we're not gonna Uh but we
got busy and busier and busier, and you know, there
there's apparently a figure that and I think it was
episode three we made more models on episode three than
they did in the original trilogy. Wow, we had almost
one hundred, over one hundred people working in the model shop, huh,

(01:38:53):
which you know the original trilogy I think had twelve
to fifteen or something. Yeah, yeah, at any given time, so, uh,
we were we weren't doing model ships per se. We're
doing a lot of environments and things like that. But
and then and then getting the occasional fun little job
like episode one, we got to had to refit the

(01:39:13):
Anakin's uh pod racer cockpit for inserts, so we did
all that. Ben Bird got to direct that. So it
was fun to be to be doing all the you know,
shooting second unit or insert unit stuff, you know, little
bits and pieces that you know, did a lot of
the switches and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My wife's
hand is Anakin's hand in the pod right at one

(01:39:36):
point the we did uh lots of R two pickup
shots at I l M see you know things that
we missed either on both episode one and two and
three as well. I watched episode two recently just because
nothing was else is and it's like, oh yeah, I
forgot I did. I've worked on that. You know. It

(01:39:58):
was just there's lots of little pieces of and stuff
that we got to do. But there's an amazing time to
be at Islum. Yeah, and and then you know, like
I said, that transition to digital and then ultimately they
moved out of the location and then we got sold
to another company and and yeah that's unfortunately that's when
it started all going away.

Speaker 2 (01:40:18):
But yeah, yeah, it must have been difficult for you
at that point to leave somewhere that you've been so
long that you've you know, your heart was there, I
guess definitely.

Speaker 3 (01:40:27):
Yeah, Well what more is it like the the passage
of the time of of of like you know, I
will never be together again doing all this. So, you know,
we occasionally have these reunions every year there's a Model
Shop party, a reunion party, which is not just limited
the Model Shop. It was like whoever was at Islam
or on. Yeah, and so it's great to see all

(01:40:50):
the people and unfortunately to see some of the you
know know that some of the people have no longer
with us, but yeah, there. We had the in twenties seventeen,
well we didn't do it in twenty twenty because of
pandemic twenty twenty one, and then twenty twenty three we
had the fortieths of Star Wars, Empire and Jedi and

(01:41:10):
I got to be got to be there. I got
to meet Marshall Lucas, which was amazing, oh nice, and
got to thank her for you know, all of her work,
and she was she was, you know, really the heart
of lucasfilm. I think at the time, you know, she
and she got so much love and attention at these
parties too, so o great.

Speaker 2 (01:41:32):
I didn't realize she'd been to those. That's really nice
to hear. Yeah, you know, I once went to a
thing here in London some years ago, now, maybe ten
years ago. Gary Kurtz was the guest. It was just
a small venue, made.

Speaker 3 (01:41:42):
Bad to meet Gary at the first one too, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
Did he Yeah, maybe thirty people in the crowd and
a friend of mine runs those And at the end
there was you know, questions and answers kind of thing,
and Gary was, you know, he's quite a formidable guy,
you know, and he was talking very measured about things,
and I asked about Marshia and he lit up, changed completely,
and he was saying, thank you so much for your question,
you know, and he sort of went into you know,

(01:42:05):
how she was really the sort of emotional heart of
those original films and how much you know, she's kind
of been written out of the history to a certain extent.
So yeah, it was nice to hear that. It must
be cool, though done, looking back at all of this
stuff that you achieved, all of these amazing jobs that
you had over the years, do you do you take
a moment to kind of go. That was pretty damn cool.

Speaker 3 (01:42:29):
Yeah, it's funny because I, yes, I do the you know,
my kids are not nearly as impressed, but but I did.
I actually did two projects in the last year. One
in Australia. I worked on a TV series in Australia

(01:42:49):
which is a lot of fun, and it was we
were making Nome puppets. It's called Gnomes. It'll be out
well hopefully it'll be out worldwide, but it'll be out
sometime this year. And it's uh, it's a six part
series that was the way to described as hot Fuzz
meets Gremlins, and.

Speaker 2 (01:43:07):
It's totally the vibe, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:43:10):
And yeah, it's a bunch of garden homes attack a
small village and we got to do rod puppets and
you know, all sorts of like little physical effects. I mean,
I'm imagining most of it will be replaced or you know,
layered with cg but but we had a blast, and
I I, you know, I never out what I've done,

(01:43:32):
but it's always fun when, you know, when somebody recognizes
it and they say, oh yeah, what what else U really?
You know, and then they start asking stories and I
get to tell the stories on that one, I got
to work with Justin Dix, who worked with me on
episode two and three in Australia. And then I did
a commercial locally that's running in the US for a

(01:43:54):
company called Rubric, where my wife and I made this
cloud puppet. And and you know, again, people at the
last day, people were like wanting to take pictures because
I was Boba Fett, you know, and I they knew that.
I I don't know how they necessarily knew that, but
I guess people like start looking you up on call sheets.

(01:44:15):
It's like, well who am I working with? You know?
So so yeah, it's it's it's it's fun to to
look back. And like I said, I missed the most
is the people and that environment of like we kind
of can do anything, you know. There there was there's
always this this feeling like if if you didn't know

(01:44:36):
how to do it, there's somebody there new or had
an idea and set you on a path to do that.
And that was what was That was what was the
most empowering and coolest part about being part of that team.
And then everyone was great, and you know, like you said,
there was almost like a personality of people that work there,

(01:44:59):
and you could always tell the people that weren't going
to make it because they didn't they were they didn't
quite fit in with it. And it wasn't a matter
of like aligning, you know, politically or morally or anything
like that. It was just that there was you know,
there was good people that that there were opinionated people,
there were you know, but but you work well together
and you looked out for each other, which was really great.

Speaker 2 (01:45:21):
So yeah, well, a cool place to work. I mean,
the coolest thing about this podcast is I get to
talk to people like you done and I really appreciate
your time today and all of the stories. I'm sure
you and I could talk for six hours if you
had the time.

Speaker 3 (01:45:33):
Next time you make it out here, let's get together. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:45:36):
Well, I'm actually making it out to LA this month,
but not not going as north. But yeah, no, that
would be good. It'd be good to good to see
you in person. But I appreciate your time today and
maybe come back on the podcast if you know, if
there's a specific film to talk about or something in
the future, because it's so you know, you've worked on
so many it's just a sprinkling of what you achieved.

(01:45:57):
But yeah, thank you from all of us on this
side of them anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:46:00):
Well, thank you, and it's, like I said, as well
as honored to be asked to be honest, I really
I like your show, so it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):
Oh thank you. That was my conversation with Don Bee's.

(01:46:27):
I love this one. Don's got that perfect mix of
being a fan who made it in and then ended
up right at the center of preserving the very thing
he grew up loving. I love all those archived stories,
the idea that some of this stuff was just sitting
in crates or nearly thrown away and rescue last minute.
It really makes you appreciate how much film history hangs
by a thread. If you enjoyed this episode, do check

(01:46:49):
out the rest of the film we mention this podcast.
They're over one hundred and forty episodes now with the
people who actually made the films and helped make the
films that we grew up watching, as well as some
new films as well. If you'd like to support what
I do, you can head over to patreon dot com
forwards last Jamie Benning, where you'll find early episodes, bonus content,
and a few extras, all of which keeps the podcast going. Honestly,

(01:47:11):
your support is what makes this possible. I don't make
money on this on advertising. Patreon is the way.

Speaker 3 (01:47:18):
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:47:19):
If you can share, you can leave a review, you
can join on Patreon, you can retweet or repost or
whatever any of the posts that I put out there.
You can follow me on Instagram, blue Sky Mastered, on Facebook,
just about everywhere. Thanks for listening and I'll be back
for some more jabbering on on the next episode of
the Film Youmentaries podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:48:00):
Mm hm, we are getting way media.

Speaker 3 (01:48:24):
H

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Ep 146 | Don Bies — Inside the Lucasfilm Archives (R2-D2 Operator)

Episode Transcript

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep 146 | Don Bies — Inside the Lucasfilm Archives (R2-D2 Operator)