Film director and editor Duwayne Dunham is best known to Star Wars fans for his editing work on Return of the Jedi. He returned recently to the saga to direct two episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Interview by J. W. Rinzler
Star Wars Insider: How did you come to work on The Clone Wars?
Duwayne Dunham: George Lucas wanted to have guest directors from live-action come in to bring a different sensibility to the animation process. George is always saying, “Oh, give me that shot, but do this...” and the guys who create the story reel animation sometimes don’t understand what is needed, so I would become almost an interpreter. I would try to learn how they’re doing it, but do it as if it were live-action.
The first episode you directed, “Pursuit of Peace” for the third season, features more intrigue than action. Was it a tough episode to direct?
The way I look at things, everything’s hard to direct. Sometimes you think, Oh, I wish I just had a story with four people in one room; but when you get one of those you think, I’ve got to have something else! That script that I got was very dialogue-heavy and had very little, if any, action.
Did you add any action to it?
Yeah, I did. The whole speeder bike chase wasn’t in my script. There was also a conversation in a dark alley and I said, “No, I don’t want the conversation in a dark alley! I want that bar. Give me a bar or a nightclub!” So we did that nightclub scene with the dancers and saxophone players. Then I said, “These guys will jump Padmé, and there’s a fight, and then they’ll get on this speeder bike, and then the guy’ll shoot his rocket-hand-thing and it’ll blow the other off his feet!”
I worked with Dave Filoni to change it to bring it to life, and add entertainment. It’s funny, because when I was doing that, I’d be doing these shots and quite often the guys would turn to me and say, “We’ve never done a shot like that!” I heard that when we changed it, George said “This is the model for how we do this kind of story in the future,” because he wanted more episodes that were character driven, and not just endless action.
You weren’t told to stick with what was on the page?
I was working within the parameters of the production and I was very conscious of the schedule. I would just say, “Do we have musicians?” “No, we don’t have musicians.” If you look closely, they’re not playing instruments, they’re playing bottles. They just look like instruments. We didn’t have instruments!
We used whatever assets we had. Each episode gets a few new assets, and that’s Dave Filoni’s territory. I was very happy with how it turned out. George was very happy. He never says too much, but I was a little nervous and excited to be in the editing room with George again. Sure enough, about two minutes into it, he’s flying around with these new ideas!
Do you remember anything in particular that he changed?
The second episode I directed [Season Four’s opening episode, “Water War”] had a lot of changes! I think you’re allowed around 300 assets per episode. That means props or things that actually animate and move. We had 1,500 and I’ll bet you there’s more in there now. There were three episodes to that story. I had the first. Dave and I did a huge amount of work on the script because it didn’t work, so we worked to improve it. I also helped the editors, because it’s the start of a three-part story arc. What didn’t work was the main character, the kid [Prince Lee-Char].
So you were creating a kind of template?
Yes, and I was very happy to do that. When I was given “Water War,” it was really interesting because Ackbar hadn’t been seen since Jedi. It was all underwater, so we were able to develop water cameras like you might find on a diver or scuba-gear, so all the characters would be moving independent of one another in this liquid space. It was mostly about plotting out those battles. And then of course there was the “shark,” Riff Tamson. We wanted him as much like a shark as possible. We tried to figure out what his outfit looks Like, how big it is, what he does, and so on.
I ran that episode for Dave early, and when he saw the first act he just went “Whoooooa!” when he saw how big it was. He said, “Just do it. Keep going. This is good. Don’t worry about how many assets you have in it.”
Did that come back to haunt you?
Oh, yeah! In two different ways. I remember sitting down with George the first time. George is on my left and Dave on the right and the editor, Jason Tucker, was running the machine. George said, “Take that dorsal fin off Riff. He’s a man, not a fish!” The very next thing I said was, “Can he still swim around, like this?” and George says, “Of course he can! He’s a fish, not a man!” Dave and I just burst out laughing—that’s just George’s way!
What did George change editorially in this episode?
He changed a lot! I thought that I really had nailed it, because I’d paid attention to George when I was working with him on Jedi. But George kinda tore apart the very first scene in the Senate. It was too talky for him, too much dialogue, and so I watched what he was doing. He sees something and his mind puts it together in a certain way and he’s just absolutely genius at it.
He took whatever development we had done with that main character to the next step. I thought we had pushed it as far as I dared, but then George pushed it even further.
One of the things that I had to do, which was very difficult, was to take out around 600 assets. After all the work we’d put into that thing, now I had to go back and take out massive amounts of moving parts. I started by saying, “Okay, I’ll get rid of 10 here and 15 there...,” and of course it gets down to, “I can’t get one more out anywhere!’ But you’ve still got 200 to go!
The next time I saw it, George had done some inter-cutting at the beginning, when they’re trying to almost coronate the prince, where it had been pretty linear. The battle starts and they escape through these tubes and I can remember Dave saying, “I never would’ve thought to put anybody in those tubes!” But to me those tubes were the greatest things; I was putting speeders in them and everything.
The shark attacking them was like Jaws.
That’s exactly what it was. George and the editor, Jason Tucker, had done some inter-cutting to the beginning when the battle starts and they wind up at the frontlines with Ackbar. He just made it less linear, more interesting, and therefore more entertaining.
Were you pleased with the finished episode?
Yeah. My only regret on that one was that I personally didn’t have enough editorial time. That’s my comfort zone. I loved working with Jason Tucker. That’s what I love about making these episodes: You’re kind of doing the three phases of filmmaking at once, writing, editing, and directing. It’s a great way to work.
I keep telling the guys that I’d love to come back! I just had so much fun, because you just don’t get to direct that much and this is so instant and it’s exactly like live-action! We’re not using real people, but doing the shots is exactly the same. It’s the same kind of rush when you break it down into individual shots and pieces, and then you cut it together. If it doesn’t work, you can just go back and have the guys tweak the shot a little bit. It’s really great!
FIRST FETT!
“Way back when production designer Norman Reynolds first brought the Boba Fett costume to George during preproduction on Empire, I just happened to be the right size to put it on; it was all white then (above, right).
“Decades later, when I was working on my first episode of The Clone Wars, I was sitting in a room with all the guys when the new Star Wars lnsider was delivered. We’re busy and we didn’t even look at it, but then 20 minutes later, there’s 10 people lined up at the door all with these magazines and pens! Someone said, “Can I get your autograph?” I opened up the magazine, and there’s a photo of me in that white costume standing next to George. We threw Boba into the sarlaac pit all those years ago, thinking we got rid of him—but he still won’t die!”
