Stuart visited his former pupil at the Leavesden Creature Effects Shop where the live action creature effects were created for Episode I. Nick and his team transformed humans into bizarre alien species using rubber masks, makeup and body suits. They also built radio-controlled puppets and animatronics that achieved an amazing range of movement and facial expression.
For Episode I, they built a new younger Yoda puppet. When Nick and animatronics supervisor Chris Barton examined the 20-year-old puppet built by Stuart for The Empire Strikes Back, they found there was little to improve upon. They streamlined a few things and built it with silicone instead of foam latex. Silicone is a translucent material that allows for greater detail and flexibility of movement. They made additional improvements after talking with Frank Oz, the voice and puppeteer of Yoda. The Episode I Yoda has a radio-controlled smile mechanism and eyebrow movement. "But, the actual lip-synching of the puppet will still be done by Frank Oz," says Nick.
Deciding which method to use to create a creature effect depends on the answers to some very practical questions, says Nick, including cost, time, and prominence of a character in the film. If a character appears only in shadow in a few scenes, CG is probably too expensive an option and they might decide to use makeup which can take four to five hours a day, or build a rubber mask and body suit. For some characters that are entirely CG, Nick's team built stand-in puppets or properly proportioned costumes so the actors would have something real to react to during shooting. This also provided ILM with an accurate lighting reference to use when adding special effects during post production.
The creature effects team was very in tune with what types of creatures look natural in Star Wars galaxy environments. One of Nick's first tasks was to search the Lucasfilm archives for creature effects to use as reference material and to refurbish for the new film. Nick says that even though the technology of creature effects has advanced a lot over the past 20 years, they still try to do things as simply as possible. "I think it's important never to lose sight of the fact that, just because the technology is changing with new materials, new processes, and new equipment, we're still making rubber heads that we put on people."
