Art Notes: Spider-Sense Jawas!
Well, I’m smiling again now. Sorry to be self-centred but this page brings back all sorts of memories as it’s another one of the earliest ones.
Talk about a blunt instrument!
Funnily enough there’s no real build up in the drama. Conventionally, you’d start with a wide-view, then move in closer—hinting at the presence of others lurking in the shadows. But I kind of got it all mixed up! To be fair though, the gun is introduced for the first time in the last panel.
Wibbly-Wobbly.
Check out the use—once again—of the BIG BLACK PERMANENT MARKER. Oh, how I loved that blunt instrument. So much deep black! You could cover so much, so quickly. And good God!—some colour! Brown colouring pencil on the Jawas for all of one panel… but then I lost interest. Doing the red eyes was probably the fun bit!
Film Notes
Convention
A classic hand-held,from the shadows shot
I seem to remember George Lucas himself saying that he was very much against that conventional ‘wide establishing shot, medium-shot, close-up’ sort of approach and it annoyed his set-designers when they’d see that much of what they’d built wasn’t even in shot. In this scene though, he actually does use that approach. As you can see, there’s often a good reason for those traditional, tried and tested methods.
Cutting-loose
He cuts-loose too though. According to Lucas, his preference at the time was for a hand-held news-reel or documentary style of camera-work. To be honest I’d never really noticed it in Star Wars, but you can certainly see it in this scene as the shaky hand-held camera shoots from behind rocks—indicating a concealed observer; and as we see the pebbles (somewhat unconvincingly) dislodge and tumble down the boulder. Perhaps it was because we went through this scene in film school in the lecture theatre that I can too-easily imagine the presence of the cameraman and the person who dropped the pebbles from outside of the frame?
So it’s an odd blend: Mounted camera using ‘wide, medium and close-up’; and rougher, more self-conscious hand-held shots. Each approach clashing a bit with the other.
Can anyone tell me if he used shaky hand-held camera in the Prequel Trilogy? I know that they simulated it with CGI on the animated battle scenes in Ep.II, with crash-zooms. It’d be another sad feature of those films if that more authentic looking camera style was actually only simulated on computer.
Next: Artoo is NOT alone…
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(wide shot)
'So --'
Artoo Detoo is wandering alone in a Tatooine desert valley, but he's being watched! Hooded figures (JAwas) look out from behind the rocks.
"Blee blee" he chirps.
PANEL 2
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(medium-wide shot)
The Jawas are still watching and Artoo becomes more nervous, his head rotating back and forth.
"B-deep - eep"
PANEL 3
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(Wide, Deep shot)
Artoo is in the distance working his way toward a Jawa in the foreground, who now awaits him with a gun!
I love how the rocks are basically just squiggly lines, It looks like something I would draw.
It’s gas. I was going to reply that it’s hard to know sometimes if it was lack of ability – or just lack of effort, because kids will often quickly dash-off the bits they’re not that interested in. But actually – I suspect the rocks were a new departure on this one and it WAS enjoyable:
“Hey! – you can just do squiggly lines and it looks brilliant! Really quick to do.” A bit of youthful bravado.
Did you know this canyon is the same one used in the end of Raiders for the seen where Indy is going to blow up the Ark ?
Is that right? It’s Tunisia though isn’t it.
I was only thinking recently about the differences between Lucas and Spielberg’s 4th Indy film and the first. One thing that sprang to mind was that canyon-bazooka scene. In the 4th film most of it looks fake, blue-screened and CGI-lit like a fantasy or dream-sequence. In ‘Raiders’ scenes like that canyon-bazooka one have the actors ACTUALLY in a REAL place, in a pretty standard set-up. Over-the-shoulder shot of Ford with the bazooka and echoing voices as if that’s the sound really recorded on location. No post-production ‘touch-ups’. Much better – more realistic.
I find it bizarre that George Lucas wouldn’t like the establishing wideshot. It’s so important for establishing context as early as possible in a new scene. I believe that’s how the Death Star Conference room scenes began though. Even if you do start with a close up or medium close up, you’re still going to need to cut to that wide shot at some point so we know what we’re looking at. Odd. Oh, and I love the colored Jawa. It’s like he lives in a black and white world.
Well, that’s what George claimed. Unless he was being pretentious?
For all I know, this scene might have been shot by a second unit – without his direction.