Behind The Scenes at the battle of Mustafar
The Battle of Mustafar is, in my opinion, the greatest lightsaber battle of the entire Star Wars Universe. The Battle takes place on the fictional world of Mustafar: a planet covered by volcanoes and lava flows dotted by alien mining infrastructure. The battle itself consists of Jedi Knight Obi-Wan- Kenobi dualing the recent convert to the Sith, Anakin Skywalker, battling it out on alien mining equipment above great flows of lava. Not a single line of dialogue is spoken during the scene, but the void is filled with the great battle against the two opponents.
For the behind the scenes film, I had chosen to do the behind the scenes on the Battle of Mustafar scene from Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. The scene itself had begun as just an idea George Lucas had, for a unique setting for an alien sword fight. Progressing from just an idea, the concept artists had been tasked with creating illustrations of an alien world, covered in lava flows and volcanoes. Following the concept art, a first draft of the script of the scene was written to show how the scene would unfold.
George Lucas consulting concept art of the scene
Once the script & concept had been established set designers had begun to design a set to match the concept. Once the set had been designed, workers began to slowly shape an alien world from a block of foam. The foam was slowly hacked away before being detailed to make the foam appear like actual rocks before it was all painted. In order to achieve lava flows, the entire set was sat on a table, that would allow the pitch to be altered in order to adjust the speed of the lava flows. The lava flow itself had been comprised of corn syrup with food coloring added in order to achieve the color they had been looking for. The lava flows would flow over a clear plastic and be illuminated from below, to give off the effect of glowing lava.The lava flows had been filmed with a computer
controlled camera rig that would allow for smooth, precise, and repeatable filming, allowing the camera to smoothly pan through the valley of the lava flow in a repeatable sequence.
A set designer Sculpts the foam that will become the rocks of Mustafar
In a separate part of the scene, Anakin and Obi Wan duel each other on a chunk of alien hardware as it plunges off of a lavafall. In order to achieve this feat, the structure was constructed on a movie set surrounded by a green screen. Riggers on the set would raise the structure to near vertical as the actors clung on to it to avoid being thrown off. Interestingly, the actors had both turned down using stunt doubles for the scene choosing to do it themselves despite the riskiness of the stunt.
Following the filming work had begun with editing and visual effects added. The clips would be stitched together in editing. Many parts of the scene had been entirely comprised of actors and green screen, so the cgi crews had to assemble entire backgrounds to the shots. In one part of the scene, the two actors are pelted with a hail of fiery lava, all of which had been added to the scene through cgi.
The sound effects would be composed in a sound lab and added to the scene. For the score of the scene, a symphony had been used in order to produce a track unique to the scene to add a great deal of depth to it.
The actors are filmed on a rising piece of alien equipment in front of a green screen