{"id":16671,"date":"2011-09-01T08:00:09","date_gmt":"2011-09-01T07:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=16671"},"modified":"2011-09-01T08:42:08","modified_gmt":"2011-09-01T07:42:08","slug":"star-wars-interview-john-coppinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/interviews\/star-wars-interview-john-coppinger\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars interview: John Coppinger"},"content":{"rendered":"
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TM & \u00a9 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Already an old hand at creating otherworldly beasties, animatronics engineer John Coppinger sculpted for the Natural History Museum, before moving into film with Dark Crystal<\/em>, and later Return To Oz<\/em>, The Fifth Element<\/em>, The Mummy<\/em> and Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets<\/em>. He was part of the team that no only constructed Return Of The Jedi<\/em>\u2019s pus-dripping crimelord Jabba The Hutt, but also operated him, and later returned to the franchise with The Phantom Menace<\/em>. Join us as Coppinger recalls three decades of crafting critters.<\/p>\n

Can you tell me a bit about how you got involved on Return Of The Jedi<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI was working on the end of The Dark Crystal<\/em> when I heard Stuart Freeborn would be running the make-up department, the creatures, for the third Star Wars film.\u00a0I\u00a0put a letter through his door at the last minute so it would be on top of the pile!\u00a0He gave me an interview, liked what I’d done at The Natural History Museum, and that I’d turned up with a folio, so I got the job of sculpting Jabba.\u00a0 This was quite early, we first had Blue Harvest<\/em> and later Revenge Of The Jedi<\/em> crew shirts.\u201d<\/p>\n

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SciFiNow issue 58 is out now!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What can you tell me about the creation of Jabba?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cInitially there was just me, sculpting, but the team discussed methods from early on and started designs and models of possible rigs as the clay work progressed.\u00a0\u00a0At first it was Bob Keen, Jez Harris, Mike Osborne and me, then Bob Bromley and Richard Padbury joined us when full construction started.<\/p>\n

For the original concept I had just a small plaster maquette to work with, from Phil Tippett at ILM, so\u00a0there was\u00a0a fair bit of freedom on the design details.\u00a0 This was a good thing!<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess the main challenge for me was the sheer size, that and considering how the creature would be moulded and then constructed.\u00a0The folds over the shoulders for instance were there to allow separate arm ‘gloves’ for the performers to be put on after they got inside.\u00a0And around his chin to allow full head movement and also to hide the join when we dismantled him to move from set to set. There were three setups in all – Palace to Bedchamber to Sail Barge.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was the biggest challenge for the crew working him?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cJust about everything!\u00a0No-one, to my knowledge, had attempted such a large, complex ‘puppet’ before.\u00a0Every aspect, including the foam latex material, had to be tested.\u00a0 So there was a lot of R&D.\u00a0\u00a0Most things we tried worked first time out, with\u00a0various amounts\u00a0of tweaking, but some didn’t.\u00a0I tried several methods to make the belly work then someone, I\u2019m pretty sure it was Mike, suggested an air bag – simple, light but looked like a ton of guts.\u00a0So, a win\/win result!\u00a0I guess installing and moving him was a challenge, apart from needing\u00a0so many people to operate him.\u00a0 But that was the fun part in the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was difficult to work out where he was in relation to the \u2018A Camera\u2019,\u00a0and where he\u00a0should be\u00a0looking.\u00a0The inside crew only had tiny monitors and they were fed by a ‘wild’ video camera, not through the main lens.\u00a0Plus operating the radio eyes meant finding somewhere on the set to get\u00a0a\u00a0decent\u00a0view, especially on the Sail Barge which was small, narrow and very crowded.\u00a0So all eyelines and movements involved a degree of guesswork.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you remember your reaction to first seeing him come alive on screen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was excellent, even better than we’d all hoped. Eight, even nine people had co-ordinated in real time to make the character live and it had worked.\u00a0Most days I would go\u00a0onto the set when it was still empty and change the batteries for the radio-controlled eyes.\u00a0That was impressive to test – when the beast ‘woke up’ and looked at me! But of course some of our best\u00a0moves fell by the wayside if something else wasn’t right in\u00a0a shot. In those days we\u00a0could go and view the previous day\u2019s rushes, so we\u00a0saw all the action before it was edited.\u00a0 Even so we were happy with the takes that did make it into the final film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Had everything in the final design turned out as you intended it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pretty much, yes.\u00a0 I was particularly pleased with the eyes. At one point I worried that the right eyelid drooped, then realised that\u00a0as Jabba\u2019s\u00a0face was hardly symmetrical it added to his dissolute, slightly drugged\u00a0look.\u00a0So we didn’t fix it!\u00a0 We always wanted more movement, in the tail for instance, and in the lips but in the end the sum of the parts was enough.\u00a0The lips had cable controls to put in waves of movement but the cables were just too long, when the throne moved forwards, to work how\u00a0I wanted.\u00a0 But that was how animatronics developed – on the next project we found smoother cables and Teflon liners that we didn’t have access to for Jabba.\u201d<\/p>\n

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TM & \u00a9 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Has it amazed you how much of Jabba seems to have taken on a life of its own, both in terms of his presence in popular culture and his blueprint for an entire race?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt certainly has!\u00a0 I put a tattoo onto Jabba\u2019s arm, as a finishing touch, when the painting on set was finished.\u00a0Now if you Google ‘Jabba Tattoo’ there\u00a0you’ll find\u00a0yards of information about Huttese tribal markings etc! At the time we were making\u00a0Jabba\u00a0the fourth book in the Dune<\/em> series\u00a0was published – God Emperor Of Dune<\/em> – and there’s a description of Leto Atreides II, almost fully transformed into a sandworm, that is remarkably similar to Jabba in his underground palace.\u00a0 But it’s Jabba that sci-fi fans seem to remember best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why do you think Jabba’s such an iconic character?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a lot of screen time in Return Of The Jedi<\/em>, a film within the film really, and his palace is like a nightclub that the audience has been allowed into by the bouncers on the door!\u00a0 But the depth of his appeal is a bit of a mystery to me. It’s more than the ‘lovable rogue’ effect and more than the villain getting his comeuppance.\u00a0 Maybe he’s so different, in body and style, that he provides a kind of alternate universe within Star Wars<\/em>. He certainly took on a life of his own on set. The crew has often told the story of how director Richard Marquand understood when we asked him to speak to Jabba as an entity, rather than any one us.\u00a0He would talk to Jabba as if the beast could actually see him!\u201d<\/p>\n

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SciFiNow issue 58 is out now!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How do you feel about the balance between puppetry\/prosthesis and CGI?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think directors and producers now understand CGI as another tool in the box, to be used when appropriate.\u00a0Two directors who instantly got this were Peter Jackson and Luc Besson, way back on The Fifth Element<\/em>.\u00a0 I think the editing of Peter Jackson\u2019s King Kong<\/em> is almost a deconstruction of CGI possibilities: ‘Here’s your next CGI extravaganza, now can we get on with the story?’<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when it’s a useful part of the story telling CGI allows just about anything the filmmaker might want, assuming the budget can cover it, but if it becomes an end in itself it gets too much for me. There’s a whirlpool scene in one of the Pirates Of The Caribbean<\/em> films that goes on far too long, just because it could be done.\u00a0 There also seems to be a backlash where both audience and actors prefer at least some of the action to have an illusion of reality, rather than occurring in a blue or green void.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did have a chance to switch to the virtual world, as several performers\/creature builders did – Dave Barclay, Mike Quinn for instance – but decided to stay in the stone age with my clay and a sharp stick!\u00a0I’ve built computers and love what they do, particularly for writing in my case, but for sculpting I prefer real world materials and tools to sitting in front of a screen.\u00a0Maybe it’s just my age!\u201d<\/p>\n

How much involvement did you have in the Anx in Episode I? The finished product looks very faithful to the concept sketch.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI really liked the concept sketch by Doug Chiang\u00a0and only made changes that translated it from drawing to 3D when I sculpted the character, for example I added details and changed the proportions slightly. I also stood in for Jerome Blake in some of the early costume fittings.\u00a0 We demonstrated the basic rig to George Lucas, with me on 24″ stilts and the head another 36″ above mine, so the whole creature stood\u00a0nearly 11ft tall.\u00a0George realised that standing the Anx beside Yoda would need the camera to be way back, so I’m fairly sure the two Anx characters were only ever seen sitting down. And Jerome was in another character when the Pod Race audience set\u00a0was filmed, so I got the chance to play Graxol Kelvyyn for that scene.\u00a0That was nearly five hours in an oven, so it’s great fun for a day but I’m not sure how the performers\/actors put up with it for\u00a0weeks at a time!\u201d<\/p>\n

What was it like getting out in front of the camera as various characters?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great, I’d spent a lot of time making torture rigs for performers so it seemed only fair to get a taste of the pain myself!\u00a0One of my best days in filmland was being in an original Wookiee suit for the voting scene in The Phantom Menace<\/em>.\u00a0It’s a powerful experience being ‘inside’ such an iconic character – grown men and women turn into little children when confronted\u00a0by a Wookiee.\u00a0And two\u00a0years ago\u00a0I finally got the chance to thank Peter Mayhew for not coming over to the UK to play the part!<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course operating Jabba\u2019s eyes by radio was another high spot, but getting into full prosthetic make-up is both strange and the most fun. I was Ki-Adi-Mundi for a day when Silas Carson was in another character. The other actors thought Silas was having a bad day and being rather quiet, a testament to the skill of the make-up artist Kate Murray. I was also a Priest Mummy for a day in The Mummy<\/em> when the one-armed actor couldn’t get to the studio – I had to remind SFX that I’d rather they didn’t try blowing\u00a0my right arm off.\u00a0 Even so they were bouncing gold bars – rubber grade – off us as the chamber was blown up!<\/p>\n

What do you think the secret is to creating a truly alien alien?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cTruly alien is probably impossible. All the creatures we design are chimeras from real world experience.\u00a0Look at a medieval cathedral and see what the stone-masons came up with, or into your garden pond to find the inspiration for ‘the’ Alien<\/em>. I’ve researched and sculpted real species, when I worked at the Natural History Museum, that would have earned me a ‘calm down, you need a rest’ if I’d designed them for a film.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Star Wars Complete Saga Blu-ray box set is available September 12 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, price \u00a367.49, and SciFiNow’s collector’s edition Star Wars issue<\/a> is available now from all good newsagents and online from the Imagineshop<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catching up with the man who made Jabba the Hutt to celebrate the release of the Star Wars Complete Saga on Blu-ray<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":16678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[7,140],"tags":[2120,2121,2113,94,1815],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/BibFortuna_Jabba_Ep6.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16671"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}