Unearthing the Front-Projected Bluescreen: ILM’s Millennium Falcon Last-Minute Innovation (1976-77)

Ten Years Ago ….

The hashtag #VFXarchaeologyoriginated organically from a single anomaly observed in a behind-the-scenes photograph of the Millennium Falcon cockpit set. On March 13, 2016, analysis revealed that the expected bluescreen backing in a black and white photo appeared unnaturally black (it should be white), prompting the initial speculation:

“Seeing that the blue screen is black – this was not a panchromatic B/W stock, or the light is off, or filtered.”Post

“…all the cockpit shots were blue, I think. Interesting that they would mix it. New hashtag. #VFXarchaeology:)”Post

Challenging Times

Back in the United States, ILM continued to work on the plates for front projection with an increasing sense of doom. They were spending around $30,000 per week now on operating costs, but were hopelessly behind schedule. “As a result of the six-week delay and a couple of other things, we were behind just about the period of time that the hiatus encompassed,” [John] Dykstra says. “So my head was in a shit because it looked like we weren’t going to have the plates out on time and people were getting really depressed. They were working really long hours, but they weren’t happy about what they were doing because they knew it was second-rate. But we felt we had to do it because it was going to cost $10,000 a day to have a crew sitting around if we didn’t have the plates out on time.”

“… I was worried about be approach to the Death Star sequence,” [Gary] Kurtz says. “We desperately needed the plates, but we weren’t getting them. And the shots that ILM did send were not right. I said we needed long shots of the approach, and they were giving us short pieces for front projection. They kept saying that we’d have to cut away. Instead, we spliced them all together … New plans and budget estimates were made, and Dykstra, Edlund, and [Robbie] Blalack were scheduled for a trip to Elstree. “Everyone was very clear that if photography in England of the actors against the bluescreen, which was to be shot in VistaVision, wasn’t correctly lit, then we were going to have to do a salvage job on top of our normal workload,” Blalack says.”

“Dykstra and ILM were a different kind of problem. While Lucas had no intention of dismissing Dykstra, it was clearly time to have a heart-to-heart with him and his ILM team. Dykstra arrived in London on June 23 to meet with Kurtz and Lucas at Elstree, with Kurtz doing most of the talking since Lucas, now sicker than ever, had lost his voice. ‘We sat down with John and went over the optical effects,’ recalled Kurtz. Because the front projection effects had been unusable, it was decided that Lucas would shoot against a blue screen instead, with the effects shots to be added later. But scrapping even the few front projection shots they had meant starting over-and the clock was ticking, with roughly a year left to finish the effects.”

“I remember when I first suggested to George Lucas that we shoot all the STAR WARS material in England by means of blue screen, rather than front-projection. I knew I was really sticking my neck out, because there is nothing that makes a director more paranoid than going to dailies and seeing all of this perfectly timed and matched action with a blue background that, by itself, is totally useless. He is, thereby, putting himself completely in the hands of the person who is going to do the special effects for him. Since, at that time, we hadn’t had any experience with him, and we were learning also, it was rather tenuous. But we wound up doing it that way, since the front-projection techniques didn’t work out to be logistically possible.”

“Originally intended for front projection. Could not hold focus on stars, [so] the front projection screen behind Falcon gun port was used as a front projection blue screen instead. The bluescreen was then self matting, and perfectly flat. Projector fixed to same focus so no soft fringe, because bluescreen was front projected from a small source, very little spill from light that was roto’d out. Front Projected scotchlite screen returns light directly back along its axis – reducing blue spill from lamp. For movie 2010, BOSS film reengineered the Apogee front screen projector to make the Blue Max/Flux process.”

“Standing on-set in England, due to many technical issues laid-out in the making of book. There was no way they were going to be able to hold focus, and get the actors to deliver their lines with these short shots ILM sent over… Richard was ready, pulled a blue filter out of his pocket, and told them to put it on the projector. They would save the setup by projecting a bluescreen, rather than building one. It would be evenly illuminated as well, and there would be little to no blue spill, due to the fact that the foreground lights would wash-out the contaminating blue light, and the retro-reflective 3M screen would throw 98% of the blue light right at the camera through the half-silvered mirror.”

“Any blue reflection is generally center-mass on the object and easily rotoscoped out of the shot — avoiding many issues in compositing.”

“There are no front projections, no sodium screen mattes, and only one video technology sequence (Princess Leia’s holographic message) seen in STAR WARS. According to the film’s special effects unit 2nd cameraman, Dennis Muren, no drastically new techniques were employed anywhere in STAR WARS. Conventional blue-screen “mattes” were used throughout the film, just as they had been used throughout the TV series STAR TREK..”

Advantages Unexpected

“Using a front projection blue screen eliminated the blue reflection because the screen doesn’t put out any blue light. One light source can light up a 20- by 40-foot screen with an even light field. This can provide much higher light intensity for working at higher f-stops. It is easy to change out blue or green screens for whatever color is needed. The space needed is a lot smaller than with rear projection.”

“We had, obviously, planned to shoot this setup as a front projection scene, but when the plate for the background scene arrived, it turned out to be improperly balanced. So, in desperation, the only thing I could think of was to try to turn the front projection screen into a blue Screen. I sent out for a couple of Eastman 47B gelatin filters to use in projecting blue light onto the 3M screen. We had been using correction filters such as the 10CC and 20CC in front of the projector light source and they survived all right because they were so light that they didn’t absorb much heat. But when I put the 47B filter in front of the projector, it crinkled up like a piece of lighted cellophane. I sent someone out to look for a piece of deep blue plexiglass, but, in the meantime, one of the Japanese assistant cameramen came to me and, through an interpreter, suggested that we build a water cell, dye the water blue and use this as a filter. By this time I was desperate enough to try anything, so I told him to go ahead. We were scheduled to shoot the next morning and the boys worked during the night to build the water cell. It was about eight inches square and two inches thick—a bit large, but we felt that the more water we had, the longer it would take to heat up. The Japanese lad who had suggested making the cell came in with several shades of blue dye. I examined the color samples on the labels and picked one that seemed to be the correct shade. He mixed up a brew of the dye with water and we mounted the water cell in front of the projector. It turned out to be as good a blue as one could ever hope for. So we went ahead and shot the sequence, and when it finally was put together it was truly impressive. … We did learn from that experience, however, that it is possible to turn a front projection screen into a blue screen by putting a blue filter on the projector without any plate in it, and treating the scene as a normal blue screen shot.” -L.B. Abbott

Trumbull would use front projection to add this element to the footage while filming. However, as the more complex visual effects, such as shots of the scout ship UFOs flying, had yet to be created, sometimes the screen would essentially act like a traditional bluescreen onto which visual effects would be added during the postproduction process. -Close Encounters Of The Third Kind The Ultimate Visual History

“In the eight years that have elapsed since the release of the motion picture Star Wars, the compositing technique known as ‘bluescreen’ has enjoyed a phenomenal growth… One of those demands, heretofore difficult to meet, has now been satisfied: bluescreen on a large scale – 50′ by 150′ or larger.”

Erland SMPTE paper reference

Ten years of  #VFXarchaeology

Almost forty years after it was filmed, the missing piece of this puzzle came to rest — bandied about in various online threads. In the process we learned a lot about front projection, as well as the basics of photochemical bluescreen compositing (John Knoll even pitched in remotely).