Behind Hip Hop Yoda: Making a DVD Easter Egg

By Bonnie Burton

It's no secret that all Jedi Masters display extraordinary skills on the battlefield, but it seems one in particular has the impressive ability to rap and breakdance like a hip hop legend. As the Revenge of the Sith DVD makes its way off of store shelves and onto TV screens in homes around the world, fans are quickly discovering the Hip Hop Yoda Easter Egg of the beloved Jedi Master surrounded by clone troopers as he takes a much needed break to show off his street dancing skills.

Fans curious about the backstory of Yoda's breakdancing debut can look to Virginie Michel d'Annoville, one of the Lead Animators on Revenge of the Sith. During Episode III postproduction, Michel d'Annoville was responsible for various tasks such as breaking down any assigned sequence shots and evaluating the animation times. On a supervisor level, she advised each animator on his or her shot and helped to guide the acting performance of the various animated characters.

But as a fun aside, Michel d'Annoville also decided to create the Hip Hop Yoda Easter Egg secretly located on the Revenge of the Sith DVD. Ironically, the rapping Yoda sequence was never initially intended to be hidden on the DVD.

"It was a side project I worked on over the course of a few months on weekends during Episode III production as a surprise for the Animation Director, Rob Coleman," Michel d'Annoville reveals.

While taking a dance class for Industrial Light & Magic employees, Michel d'Annoville imagined seeing Coleman's little green friend bust a move and figured it would be a fun way to say thank you for all his work as the animation team's director.

"I was lucky enough to attend a hip hop class offered through ILM and taught by Jackie Burns," Michel d'Annoville recalls. "She was nice enough to allow me to film the class in order to study the movement. One of Jackie's routines was to 'Don't Say Nuthin' by The Roots. Not only did I like the song itself but the choreography included breakdancing which I thought would be fun to animate. I mentioned to Jackie my idea of Yoda hip hop dancing. She thought it was a really cool idea and that's how the project began."

Once the project was underway, Michel d'Annoville and her team began their work creating the animation, adding and fine-tuning key elements.

"The original idea was only to have Yoda dancing Jackie's routine and integrate the animation into the class video," Michel d'Annoville says. "Then modeler Franz Zach mentioned the idea of having clone troopers in the background following the rhythm of the song. CG supervisor Philippe Rebours came up with the background plate with Technical Director Christian Foucher. They took care of the lighting and rendering of all the elements. Additionally, Cloth Simulation Lead Steve Sauers offered to work on Yoda's robe. Finally, Compositor Mark Hopkins put together all the files and layers. It was the combination of all these amazing talents from ILM that allowed Hip Hop Yoda to reach this level of quality."

Of course, while any animation sequence has its own set of unique challenges, the main obstacle in this case was getting the team to stay together long enough to finish the clip.

"The biggest challenge was to stick with it to the end," Michel d'Annoville says. "I knew once the production of Episode III ended, everyone would be off in separate directions, so there was definitely a deadline. Yoda is entirely key frame animated for about 1,500 frames (one minute) so it was a lot of work and sometimes I felt I would never finish. To save time, the clone troopers animation was pulled from the motion capture library and key framed from the waist up."

Any fan who has been paying attention to interviews with Animation Director Rob Coleman knows all too well about his extreme dedication to get Yoda's mannerisms just right, in so far as dangling off the sides of stairwells to capture the essence of Yoda's painful fall during his fight in the Senate room with the Emperor. Unfortunately, in order to keep the Hip Hop Yoda clip a surprise, Coleman was not asked to breakdance for motion capture footage.

"Having Rob Coleman on tape hip hop dancing would have been an even better Easter egg to have on the DVD!" Michel d'Annoville laughs. "Everybody who worked on Hip Hop Yoda kept the project very secret from Rob, which became difficult toward the end as we needed to use Star Wars production processors to make the renders possible. Once one shot is on the render farm, everybody can have access to it and look at the renders -- the animation director more than anyone else. I was lucky to have Assistant Technical Director Maggie Oh watching my back and keeping the renders going smoothly and discreetly."

Once the project was finished and everyone saw the finished masterpiece, Coleman wasn't the only one impressed with the results.

"I'm not sure how George Lucas found out about Hip Hop Yoda," Michel d'Annoville says. "I received an email from the producer Denise Ream telling me how much George loved it and his intentions to put it on the DVD. You can of course imagine how excited I was to hear that!"

In order to place the clip on the Revenge of the Sith DVD, ILM contacted the band The Roots for permission to use their song as Yoda's rapping soundtrack.

"The Roots were very enthusiastic, however they requested to have Yoda perform a specific dance move characteristic to their style," Michel d'Annoville says. "I was impressed with the way animator Maia Kayser was able to incorporate their request so seamlessly into the original animation."

As more and more fans discover the Easter egg on the Revenge of the Sith DVD, Michel d'Annoville says she hopes they enjoy Yoda portrayed in a more amusing way than they may be used to seeing him.

"I hope the fans will appreciate Hip Hop Yoda with a smile and laugh as much as the Star Wars team did during our Episode III 'monthlies' screening," Michel d'Annoville smiles. "Yoda is a wise, old Master Jedi who can always surprise us."