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How they shot the Star Wars opening crawl

By Rain Noe - October 19, 2010

in Object Culture | Star Wars

For all these years I never really knew how they shot the text crawls that opened each Star Wars picture, but I never imagined it was something this low-tech:

A camera hanging from a track, shooting a printout that's been gaffer-taped under some glass? Are you kidding me? Next time I'm going to look for the cameraman's feet beneath the last line.

Vanity Fair's got a good behind-the-scenes photo essay of the Empire Strikes Back, featuring the above shot and many more that show you how the magic was made. (Here's a heads-up: They weren't above using monkeys and mattresses.)

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Jesse M.

14 years ago

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This is an amazing and very surprising case exemplifying the use of the simplest solutions to solve seemingly complex problems.

P.S. Hey look, Sarah Melgen! I'm famous!
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Mattias Sjoberg

14 years ago

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This is great! So nice to see that you can do incredible stuff that people will love for years without super-hi-tech gadgets and computers. I wish I could have worked at that set...
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