Asweird , bad , and awkwardas The Star Wars Holiday Special is to watch , evidently , it was just as terrible to film . That ’s evident from an sole selection io9 has acquired from the new bookA Disturbance in the Force : How and Why the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened by Steve Kozak .
Kozak is the co - directorof a documentary by the same namebut chose to expand on it with the written word . The 288 - varlet result is set for waiver on November 15 ( pre - order a transcript here ) , but what follows is a scant selection from the book detailing the absolute hell filming the infamous special was . record all about it below the book cover .
On the second day of shot , cameraman Larry Heider fare to piece of work quite exhausted from the long night before . He had just spent over twenty time of day fritter away tumbler in red-hot pink costume , juggler , and a gymnast — not to cite a cross - dressing Harvey Korman with four arms .
A crop of an ad for the Star Wars Holiday specialImage: CBS
This was not the type of television variety Heider was used to germinate . But that forenoon , as he walk through the sound stage , he instantly acknowledge the cantina ginmill arrange from the film . He did n’t have access to a script , but he before long see this was going to be a melodic number — a specialisation of the Smith - Hemion Productions team that was supervise the Special .
“ It dawn , ” Heider says . “ Okay , now we ’re in Smith – Hemion ’s domain . We ’re doing a melodious now , and we know how to do this . So this should n’t take very long . This should go pretty well . ”
What Heider did n’t yet know was that this scene was much more than just a song . On paper alone , the cantina bar was expected to be by far the most unmanageable vista to shoot . It included Bea Arthur as Ackmena the Barkeep ; Harvey Korman as her eleven - fingered admirer , Krelman ( his 2nd role in two days ) ; and about three dozen extras wearing various alien costumes with either constraining masquerade or complex make-up .
Image: Applause
The weather was far from idealistic , as well . It was one heck of a screamer in the San Fernando Valley that hebdomad that these hundred or so mould and crewmembers had packed inside this Burbank soundstage . The temperature outside had exceed out at about ninety degree that week , but inside it was over one hundred stage and record no signs of have up . By the previous 1970s , most southerly Californians had approach to zephyr conditioning , but due to the noise that it create on the soundstage , it was not being used during tapings . threatening klieg Inner Light were also aimed down at extras wearing masks , either burn their heads or literally melting the inside lining of their masks to their heads for several hour at a time . The extras ’ visual sensation was also being fog , as the sweat from the sinful rut drip from their foreheads into their eye , irritating and blinding them throughout the shoot .
In addition to mask , the costumes themselves were n’t exactly build for comfort . Extra Rick Wagner trace the Walrus Man costume he was required to outwear : “ It was n’t just made with one layer of gunny . It was two , three , four stratum of this stuff , like leather”—along with an actual leather jacket and a mask .
The weighting of the costumes was also an issue . The Cowardly Lion costume that Bert Lahr tire in The Wizard of Oz weigh ninety pounds . The outfits that these extras were have on could n’t have count much less . Most of them in all likelihood were n’t try out for their strength and stamina to remain firm in an outfit like that for several hours at a sentence , much less move around in it as well .
The mask were extremely arduous , too , and most of them , like Wagner ’s , had only two very small openings to see through , turn up on the bottom of the mask . external respiration was an entirely unlike challenge . The masks the extra were give each had a flyspeck hole with netting over it , and that was their only reference of oxygen .
“ You could not breathe in these costumes,”Wagner recalls . “ And that was all the oxygen you ’re getting inside your head , which is crazy . For peradventure half an minute or an hour that would be fine , but all day ride in that matter ? . . . So , you ’ve got all of these people crammed into this space with these costume on and these heads on with limited breathing , and it ’s getting progressively hotter in these outfits . We ’re under heavy light , and at some point I ’m go away to get up and start dancing . And then they contribute in a hummer effect , and it ’s not dry sparkler . This is not the dry meth that was refreshing . It was that chemical- burning , sulfur - smelling shite . You ’re sitting there suffocating , sweating . We were there for minute and hours and could n’t breathe , and you ’re breathing in this smoke stuff . ”
And that ’s when the supernumerary started go across out .
Suddenly , an completely brand unexampled problem had manifested on Stage 2 . The progeny was not the show going into overtime any longer . Now it was life and end on the solidifying of a TV variety special .
“ The alien kept fainting because it was , like , 103 point on the set , ” writer Bruce Vilanch call back . “ You put those head on and it ’s kind of like waterboarding . ” It was quite a serious shoot , articulate Mick Garris , who operated R2 - D2 for the Special . “ Here are a lot of inexperient actors in suits for the first time , and they ’re on the verge of hotness debilitation . There had to be breaks in the shoot constantly — far more than anybody had anticipate — just for the prophylactic of the actors in these suit . ” As Heider recalls , whenever they were starting to find their rhythm , they needed to stop over to give the costume reference a open frame . “ We ’d have to have the EMT guy come in and give them some oxygen . ”
Producer Ken Welch said that film director David Acomba was clueless about the level of heat that these costumed fictional character were stand firm . “ We were shooting [ time of day ] after [ 60 minutes ] with them , ” Ken add together , “ and David had no sense of the fact of their motivation as human beings . ” According to Ken ’s married woman and co - producer Mitzie , had they not stepped in , “ We would ’ve toss off them . ”
point manager Mike Erwin could not believe how long and stressful the tantrum was to shoot . “ It was just dateless , and it was n’t even that good . Like , once you saw it , you went , ‘ Wow , they could have done that in an minute or two . ’ It just was n’t worth everybody ’s bother and suffering to get it , and then the euphony that they played over and over and over and over again . Here ’s all these people all jacked up on blow and clobber and being unquiet and everything , and they ’re playing that music all the time . It was middling peculiar — I mean , in a sort of gallows means . ”
For the extras themselves , the shoot was quite a disappointment . They had signed on ab initio to be part of what they thought was some sort of Star Wars sequel , and they injure up feeling they were literally trapped in some sort of third - world anguish chamber .
Although Acomba could be blame for putting the show enormously behind docket , a big and more crucial reason for the miserableness of the day ’s shoot was that Smith , Hemion , and their manufacturer had not adequately prepared for the wellness and safe of these three dozen extras . They were used to staging far simpler song - and - dance numbers game on a with child , half - empty leg , where the need for atomic number 8 was never an issue .
The producer were forced to implement extra breaks for costumed actor and extra . These unexpected delays would drive the agenda back even further , carry Acomba ’s animal foot to the fervour to expedite this challenging cantina shoot , which all on its own seemed to be jeopardizing the intact project , each hour depleting more of the show ’s limited resources , whether they be time , money , or both .
come from the documentary and picture show world , Acomba had never directed a multi - camera shoot before . He was used to shooting one camera at a clip . “ We all like him a pot , but he had a very unorthodox way of workings , ” Vilanch recalls . “ He bourgeon this matter like it was a movie , and it freaked everybody out . ”
It was a intermixture of world — motion-picture show and telly — and Heider notes that Acomba ’s approaching was to shoot on videotape but in film expressive style , “ and be more thematic about it . ” Heider did not concur with Acomba ’s one - camera organization , call off it “ troublesome . . . . In a moving picture production , you would do maybe four or five pages in a very long daytime , whereas in television , if you had multiple cameras , you ’d give a little bit of creative vision for expedience in getting a snapshot . . . . There are multiple tv camera on tv shoot for a specific ground . ” He summate that the show could have gotten more done , and much more quickly , “ which would finally make the 24-hour interval a little less expensive . ”
Erwin ca n’t retrieve how many hours the second day of shot go , but he says he would n’t be surprised if he was there for twenty - four hours straight . “ It seemed like Groundhog Day , ” he retrieve . “ It was just like an sempiternal shoot . It never stopped . It just kept going and go and going for so many hour . ”
As the 2nd 24-hour interval turned to night , the several XII union employees were going into their second straight sidereal day of overtime . spousal relationship pace and penalty were serious business organization ; they could n’t be overlook , ignored , or negotiated down .
While most television show were shoot in telecasting studios , they needed to rent a flick soundstage . “ We never could have built that gravid , two - story treehouse in a TV studio , ” say associate producer Rita Scott . “ We need the elevation . ” Thus , they were bound by the rigid matrimony rules negociate by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees ( IATSE ) , which need manufacturer to hire a minimum of film backlot employees for the show ’s speech sound , photographic camera , and lighting needs , as well as dozens of stagehands . These were all union proletarian — almost one hundred of them for this Special — all with potential overtime and repast penalties fall while the Smith – Hemion bean plant - counters were seemingly numb at the cycle .
With this specific union , the rates in 1978 went as follows : the basic daylight was eight hours , but once you go past that , now you ’re in overtime , paying metre - and - a - half . After twelve hours , you ’re into two-fold time , with the summit of penalty — the ever - renowned “ lucky time”—just around the nook . If you work past midnight while in bivalent - time , now you are paying five times each union prole ’s basic rate , with repast penalty being accrued as well .
Using the start and break times for the Special , it ’s pretty loose to see how these three shoot days — most of which set out at 4 a.m. and end at 2 a.m.—nearly depleted the show ’s full budget . A $ 40 - per - hour union worker take for eight time of day , totaling $ 320 per sidereal day , would receive an additional $ 1,200 per day . Multiply that one doer ’s overage for a hundred employees and that cause $ 120,000 in overage paid in one individual sidereal day . That does not take into news report their basic pay and meal penalties — or that higher - paid trades union doer , like directors and others , made importantly more per hour .
The amount of extra time that Smith – Hemion was now obligated to pay up out was laughable . Erwin had expend enough time on television stage to know that you ca n’t just do farseeing days and ante up out that kind of money without have a lot of tension with the show ’s manufacturer . “ For the unions , when you dispatch certain numbers of time of day , you go into golden time and you ’re give , like , $ 1,100 an hour for a bozo to hold a hammer , ” he explain .
However , the problem was n’t just the budget , Heider adds . While he accept that he — like most of the work party — was excited to be acquire dual - time pay , he notes that figure out under those conditions “ kind of bear upon hoi polloi who were get really , really tired . And it ’s not easy to keep doing your good work when you ’re not get enough rest yourself . ”
Erwin concord that there was far more at stake for the cast and crowd than budgetary issues . “ This has a cumulative effect , ” he explicate . “ Let ’s say you go on Monday and you work twenty hour . Then Tuesday you function twenty hours . By the time you get to Thursday , even if you only figure out a few hr , you ’re wholly hallucinating . So , it ’s very , very hard on the cast and gang . That leads to all form of complication , from exhaustion to hoi polloi losing their tempers , to player make up one’s mind to just leave and not arrive back . ”
Newt Bellis , who provided across-the-board technical equipment for the Special , experience that nothing was come on , adding that there was no way the production could keep going at that pace : “ They were n’t get anything on tape . . . [ Acomba ] was trying to work out out what was go bad on , and the time kept rolling and roll . And , of course , [ administrator manufacturer ] Gary [ Smith ] was there , and Rita was break down nuts because people were just waiting around . ”
As this hot August twenty-four hours chop-chop coil into a hot August night , Scott went over to stage coach Peter Barth with sheer exhaustion in her eyes from what was potential to be her second twenty - plus - hour day in a row . She was perfectly serious when she asked Barth , “ Do you think we ’ll ever get out here ? ”
Find out on November 15 when A Disturbance in the Force : How and Why the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened by Steve Kozak is release . Snag a transcript here .
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