05/25/2022
Happy Birthday Star Wars! In celebration of the 45th anniversary for the release of A New Hope AND the 39th for Return of the Jedi, we're taking a look at the legendary DP, Gilbert Taylor. Everyone knows that Star Wars had groundbreaking visual effects, but it was Taylor's classical widescreen compositions and clean lighting that helped ground the fantastic story in a believable world. One of Taylor's biggest challenges was lighting the Death Star,
"John Barry’s sets, particularly the Death Star, were like a coal mine. They were all black and gray, with really no opportunities for lighting at all. My work was a matter of chopping holes in the walls and working the lighting into the sets, and this resulted in a ‘cut-out’ system of panel lighting using quartz lamps that we could put in the walls, ceiling and floors. I thought I was going to get sacked, but Fox agreed that we couldn’t have this ‘black hole of Calcutta.’ So George concentrated on the actors while I took care of my end. This lighting approach allowed George to shoot in almost any direction without extensive relighting, which gave him more freedom."
Taylor's approach was very different from most sci-fi films of the time, but like most things about Star Wars it was highly influential on the look of films that came after.
