ANIMATING THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

by Paul Mandell - Fantastic Films #18 1980

Empire animator Phil Tippett talks about Taun Tauns, Walkers and Probots, the production problems he faced, and how he made the whole thing work!

Berkeley-born Phil Tippett saw Ray Harryhausen’s Seventh voyage of Sinbad as a youngster and managed to turn his enthusiasm for stop-motion animation into a career. Much of his spare time was spent sculpting and doing practice animation, and his association with David Allen and Jim Danforth helped him considerably. Phil’s first job occurred at Gene Warren’s Project Unlimited in 1969 for the film Some kind of nut, where he animated a little car for a front light/back light matte shot. It soon led to prolific work as a freelancer in LA commercial houses, Cascade Pictures and Excelsior being among them. He sculpted the stop-motion Plesiosaur for The Crater Lake Monster and built prototypes of prehistoric animals for Jim Danfort’s unproduced Timegate.

Together with Jon Berg, who also worked at Cascade, Phil designed and animated those weird chess pieces for Star Wars and sculpted some masks for the Cantina sequence. Their work on Empire surpasses anything they have done to date on a technical level. Walkers and Taun Tauns are bound to become household words in fantasy film jargon.

FF: The stop-motion Taun creature sounds exciting. What was the genesis of the figure, and who designed it?
TIPPETT: When I started on Empire, George Lucas had been working on the Taun design with Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnston. At that time, the way the animal was going to be designed was still up in the air. There was talk of full size mechanical things, men in suits, stop-motion puppets – they ran the whole gamut of approaches.
I drew up a number of designs based on some of the things Joe had done, as well as some alternatives. Lucas went for a design of an animal suited for stop-motion, and we spent the next month refining the thing with Irvin Kershner and Gary Kurtz. In September of 1978 we sent a design mock-up to England. They in turn sent back a mock-up with a number of practical and aesthetic changes. From that point, I began sculpting the final puppet, while Jon Berg and Tom St. Amand found time amongst the Walker parts to put together a testing armature.

FF: When did test shots begin?
TIPPETT: That happened at the beginning of 1979. Ken Ralson began integrating the motion control equipment with stop-motion requirements. Dennis Muren and Richard Edlund made a number of contributions. With relatively little adaptation, we got some promising shots.
We went to the beach and photographed reference material on horses much like we had done with an elephant a few weeks earlier for the Walkers. We set up a situation similar to Muybridges’s Animals in Motion, which helped us understand animal movement as it related to film.
I spent the next months shooting tests, running fur tests, Walker tests. Jon Berg and I developed a final armature that would work better with the motion control equipment. Doug Beswick and Tom St. Armand refined and constructed it. The final Taun was ready in August 1979.
But for one reason or another, we didn’t start the bulk of the Taun shooting until January of 1980. We were involved with a number of other projects as well as the stop-motion, and we completed the Taun shots two and a half months later. That’s where the planning paid off! There was no time for mistakes. All activity on the stage had to be shut down by mid-March in order to give the optical department time to composite every thing.

FF: How did the stop-motion footage count compare to a typical Ray Harryhausen film?
TIPPETT: Actually, we had few stop-motion shots compared to most pictures that rely on the technique to carry the superstructure. The work we did on Empire was more integrated into the flow of the action. Some shots were story points, others were spectacular vistas. The technique was applied to the situation and not used for its own sake.

FF: Could you describe the effort that went into the building of the walking machines?
TIPPETT: In September of 1978 Jon began working out the immense engineering problems that would enable the Walker designs Joe cooked up up to function as stop-motion puppets. The design itself was so unique, Jon had to develop a whole new system of joints and gears, many of which were incredibly complicated. He worked like mad for three months developing the first prototype.
We shot a number of tests during this period, just learning how to handle this huge 18x20 inch contraption. We then hired Tom St. Amand who spent the next four months building three final Walkers. Joe Johnston and Nilo Rodis worked closely with the model shop in realizing the final puppet. We began shooting the Walkers in mid-September and had essentially finished by December.

FF: We know how frustrating animation can be when something goes wrong, like puppet lurching or a light blowing out in the middle of a scene. Did you have those problems?
TIPPETT: Occasionally a shot will screw up. You’ll try to solve all of the problems that you can foresee. But there are always one or teo horrendous headaches that would come up. Many of the Taun and Walker shots were completely finished products as seen through the camera, with the exception of lasers and some other effects. It would take us some time in setting things up.
We had a good crew which makes all the difference in the world. Dennis organized and developed most of the setups, Mike Pengrazzio painted backings and glass, and Nilo Rodis set up most of the miniature snow sets. Jody Westheimer and Mike McCallister, our camera assistants, would set shots up under Dennis’ direction. Jon Berg and I would rig and animate the Walkers or the Taun. Doug Beswick came in and animated on all of the shots requiring three Walkers.
So you’ve got all this stuff going on and finally you’re ready to shoot. But you get an hour into it and then something goes wrong. Start again and the bulb in a light blows. Try again and the shutter would stick in the camera. Again and you’d move the puppet the wrong way! The odds are stacked up against you.

FF: Were there many retakes?
TIPPETT: We got most of our shots on the first take. But all of these problems are indicative of what we’ve been up against. Occasionally we would have to re-orient our approach to a troublesome shot. Especially with the Taun puppet, since we were dealing with blurs. In attempting to solve that problem, we created five more that had to be fixed.
In this type of effects work you are constantly solving practical problems, mechanical problems, timing problems, and on and on. The solution to these problems had better be invisible on film. Almost every shot on Empire, be it terrestrial or in space, required a new solution.

FF: Did you blur the Walkers as you did with the Taun?
TIPPETT: We didn’t blur the Walkers, except when the Flex camera was doing cockpit point-of-view shots.

FF: Were there stop-motion outtakes, shots we will never see in the film?
TIPPETT: We shot the Walkers and Tauns like everything else in Empire, to replace a rather small slug of film in a particular roll. Everything was organized to that those shots were taken care of first. We were able to add a few extra things. Most of them are in the picture. But the only shot that didn’t make it was the two-legged Walker that Joe, Jon and Tom came up with. That shot showed a Speeder strafing the scout Walker. It didn’t cut in.

FF: How did the rotoscope department enhance your shots?
TIPPETT: Roto added lasers, shadows, articulate mattes and garbage mattes on a number of shots. Sam Comstock carefully matched moving plates to our elements.

FF: Was working on Empire a satisfying experience? Taun creatures and walking machines were obviously far more complex than the chess game animation in Star Wars.
TIPPETT: The pace was hard, and while we had less stop-motion shots to do than say Ray Harryhausen, we spent more time making them work. We are in the process of developing some ideas for another picture – we really haven’t had time to reflect in the past year and a half. As it was on Star Wars, most of us were impressed by the way we were treated by the producers.
We had a good working relationship which is generally not the case in film, no matter who you are. We were allowed time to develop and refine, and were treated with respect. Which is something you rarely get in Hollywood. What was most interesting about the project was a large group of people working toward a common goal. We learned how during the course of Empire, and it wasn’t all easy. What will be interesting to see will be the quality of work done under these conditions, as differing from the approach that has been taken since Mighty Joe Young – of single effects artists working alone, and having to be responsible for virtually everything.