Kamino's Hallway - Why Not Build It?

Okay honestly, of all the scenes that were CGI this one I think I can understand the best. There was only one character really involved in all of these scenes, and I think Ewan actually handled the lack of environment very well.

as well the casual pace of the characters, with no urgency on anyones part, meant it could be filmed in a smaller area.

Of all the CGI sets in the prequels, I probably find this one (and maybe some of the jedi temple scenes) the absolute-least-offensive. Andi n the case of Kamino it helps lend to the alien atmosphere.

 

Kamino's facilities has to have a entrance.

 

“At that stage, Attack of the Clones felt like a ‘virtual film’ because we got the script only three days before we started shooting,” recalls producer Rick McCallum. “We had to build these sets to a script that didn’t exist.”

..and there might be the source of the problem. Simply put, nobody really knew just how many sets needed to be built. Watch the first 3 1/2 minutes of this video[gets relevant @0:56] and keep in mind that this never happened in the production of Episode II.

Note that 5 months before filming subtitle and that these storyboards come from a completed script.

That said, I do agree with Ralok-One: Ewan nailed it.

 

It's all about that CGI.

 

It was built. It's a miniature.

It was not translated to CG.

The various elements of the actors (EM, JL, BT), the CGI creatures and soldiers, the miniature, matte paintings and other CGI structures in the background were then all digitally composited into the final image.

Why would you build a set that large when you are still going to have to do all of the above on top of that? If it's a set that is used in multiple scenes you might build a portion of it.

 

But why would they not translate this scene's miniature like they did with many of the other scene miniatures? Was it unusable?

 

I don't even know what you mean by translate or what you mean by " this scene's miniature like they did with many of the other scene miniatures".

They are miniatures. Full stop. They shot them on stages with motion control cameras and then used that footage for the movie. That is the process at it's simplest. They did many other variations on that technique but that was the vast majority of the shots for the large sequences like Kamino, Mustafar, Geonosis, Naboo, Tatooine, Coruscant, Utapau and the like.

 

From what Lucas said the reason they did CGI so much was because it was less money than building an extravagant set. He had more freedom and money to work with if CGI was used more. That said, I think maybe he should have scaled back some of the extravagant CGI sequences and things (such as the clone troopers) and combine green screen with practical sets more. But I get why he did it the way he did.

 

Right. But you were saying the had the miniature for the hallway scene on Kamino and for some reason chose not to use it. That's what I don't get. That technique worked great. Why not use it here too?
I've seen the miniature for the Kamino exterior and I know they had full size sets for some of the interior. That's what leads me to think this scene was all CGI aside from the actors because they were building in prepro without a script, without a solid guide as to what they really needed to build, and the set for this scene just slipped through the cracks.

 

I have the Lorne Peterson book Sculpting a Galaxy: Inside the Star Wars Model Shop.

Here's an excerpt from the book about the Kamino corridor models that might answer some questions-


"For the shot when the Kaminoans give Obi-Wan Kenobi a tour of their cloning facility, we used models in conjunction with digital matte paintings. Three corridor models, one straight and the other two curved, were mixed and matched to form different parts of the tour, and these appeared extremely close to the camera. The outer glass walls of the corridors were vacuum-formed acrylic built at 1/12 scale. The shapes were sculpted and cast, and the castings were meticulously cleaned up. The crew was extremely careful to control the paint's level of specularity because there's a fine line between too much gloss and not enough. Though the cloning machinery was entirely digital, the back walls of the hatcheries and training area were a large, clamshell-esque model."


To give an idea of the size of a 1/12 scale model, the Hasbro 6" Black Series Figures are 1/12 scale.