Bringing the cast and crew to Tunisia to shoot the Tatooine desert scenes of Episode I was a seismic move more like a war campaign than a typical Hollywood production. Rick says shooting at Leavesden Studios in England and at Caserta Palace in Italy were small challenges compared to the logistics of moving over a hundred people and hundreds of tons of equipment from England to the middle of the desert. The site they chose to represent Tatooine was located 40 kilometers from the nearest town, Tozeur, situated on the edge of the North African Sahara where temperatures in August average 130 degrees. Podracers, as tall as two and three story buildings, weighing approximately one and a half tons each, were moved from England to Tunisia. Building material for six sets, including the entire desert city Mos Espa, and a support base camp for the entire cast and crew was transported to the site. Sophisticated tents, washing machines, toilets, fans, costumes, props, set dressings all had to be transported via freighters, cargo planes and flatbed trucks. With sand dunes constantly shifting, just maintaining the 40 kilometer road from Tozeur to the location site was an undertaking in itself.

The first structures the construction crew built in the desert location were huge canopies to protect crew from the harsh sunlight where shade can offer a 10-degree drop in temperature. The crew adjusted from their regular work schedule to one more appropriate for the desert heat -- rising at 4:15 in the morning, arriving at the site at 5am and halting work when the heat reached its peak. Next, toilets, offices, a first aid center and cantina were constructed before set building actually began. Over an eight-week period, two cities rose from the desert and the Tunisian set was ready for filming.

At the height of production, the location was a bustling scene of cast and crew hard at work filming, finishing set construction, preparing props, dressing actors and extras in their costumes and creature masks. But perhaps more dramatic than all this hustle and bustle was the show put on by nature when a massive storm swept through the site, bringing rain and wind that devastated the base camp of operations and all but one of the six sets. It was during the third day of shooting that the storm hit. Tunisia Art Director Ben Scott was putting the finishing touches on the Podracers when at about 6pm a security guard approached him and pointed to a wall of sand heading straight for them. The sand reached hundreds of meters high and was just a few miles away.

Rick says he had seen desert storms like this before. The storms might devastate one area of desert while completely missing another close by. "Chances were good we wouldn't be hit," he says with a grin, "but little did I know until the next morning." Ben was one of the first to view the sets early the next day. The huge Podracer engines were broken and strewn across the ground -- three months of work nearly destroyed by just a few minutes of wind that reached 120mph. Ben says he has encountered sets destroyed by fire and floods and that in his experience films tend to attract disaster. "But, I've never seen anything as dramatic as that storm," Ben says.

George and Rick assessed the destruction. They were scheduled to shoot a Mos Espa street scene that day, but the sets and props were too badly damaged. The set would require considerable repair and new paint and plaster. Fortunately however, they found that one set had been spared by the storm and they could continue shooting that day. "If it hadn't been for that set, we would have been in trouble," Ben says. A new shooting schedule was developed and within hours the Main and 2nd units were back to work.

Most of the tents in the base camp were built to withstand winds of 35 to 40 miles per hour, but the storm proved stronger. Badly hit were the wardrobe, makeup, and creature tents which were completely flattened. Costumes, props, and masks littered the ground. A new shelter was quickly constructed so the departments could start servicing the filming crews as soon as possible. The departments were housed together in a new marquee and were back to work full force by morning. Over the next days and weeks, the production recovered and cast and crew finished on schedule and returned to England as originally planned.

Rick maintains the only thing to do in a situation like this is to rally the crew and keep them motivated. He said the energy everyone put into reviving the set, despite the heat and their frustration at the damage, was incredible. Yet this wasn't the first storm a Star Wars production had survived. George actually took it as a good sign, for a similar storm hit during the shooting of Star Wars: A New Hope over 20 years ago...

Lynne Hale
Lucasfilm Ltd.

Extract taken without permission from the official Star Wars website