Star Wars Episode I: Production Notes

GAVIN BOCQUET (Production Designer) is a graduate of Newcastle Polytechnic, where he studied product design, and the Royal College of Art, receiving a Master of Design degree in 1979. He started his motion picture career as an art department draftsman on The Elephant Man and Return of the Jedi. Four years later he was promoted to Assistant Art Director for the films Return to Oz and Young Sherlock Holmes.

By the time Bocquet began work on Empire of the Sun, he was a full-fledged Art Director. Other Art Director credits include Dangerous Liaisons, Eric the Viking and Cry Freedom where he had the pleasure of working with Stuart Craig who, along with Norman Reynolds, are the men he considers to be his mentors.

Bocquet's credits as Production Designer range from the British television series Yellowthread Street and the U.S. series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, for which he received an Emmy Award and 2 nominations, to the feature films Kafka and Radioland Murders.

DAVID TATTERSALL (Director of Photography) was born and raised in Great Britain. He attended Goldsmith's College in London where he graduated with a first class BA (Hons) Fine Arts Degree. He then studied at Britain's National Film and Television School, where he specialized in camera work.

Tattersall's student films King's Christmas, Caprice and Metropolis Apocalypse were highly regarded. King's Christmas was nominated for Best BAFTA Short in 1987, Caprice was selected for the Edinburgh and Milan film festivals, and Metropolis Apocalypse was shown at Cannes in 1988.

Tattersall has worked steadily on numerous feature films and television productions. His credits include The Bridge, Radioland Murders, Moll Flanders, The Wind in the Willows and Con Air.

On television, Tattersall worked on the Yorkshire series Yellowthread Street, and for American television, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, for which he won an Emmy Award and A.S.C. nominations for Best Cinematography.

After training at the Wimbledon School of Art, TRISHA BIGGAR (Costume Designer) worked with several prestigious British theater companies including the Glasgow Citizens' Theatre and Opera North in Leeds.

Biggar then moved into designing the costumes for films such as the award- winning Silent Scream (winner of the British Academy Michael Powell Award for Best Film of the Year and the Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Festival, among other awards) and Wild West (winner of the Edinburgh Film Festival Critics' Award).

Her television drama credits include the mini-series Moll Flanders (for which she received a BAFTA nomination for Best Costume Design), The Missing Postman and The Mug's Game. She designed the costumes for the BBC films Saigon Baby and Truth or Dare. Other series designed by Biggar are The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Love Hurts, Van der Valk and A Class Act.

PAUL MARTIN SMITH (Editor) grew up in the United States, Canada and Europe. He worked in summer stock theater in Nantucket, Massachusetts before studying photography at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. He broke into the film business as an assistant cameraman on documentary films for the USIA. In 1971, he produced the documentary The Animals are Crying, which won several awards.

Since 1973, Smith has worked in London, America and Europe editing over 70 hours of drama, comedy, documentaries, commercials, corporate programs and music videos. Among his numerous credits are the feature films Born American and The Matchmaker, the television movies The Canterville Ghost and Unforgivable, the series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Earth 2 and documentaries Gunfight U.S.A., Cold Spring New Dawn.

It was BEN BURTT's (Sound Designer) sound design work -- creating the voice of R2-D2, the hum and crash of lightsabers in battle, and the zooming rush of the speeder bike chase -- that gave the original Star Wars trilogy its convincing feel of audio reality. Twenty years later, Burtt worked for over six months on the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, re-mixing and re-editing sound effects, music and dialog from the original track.

Born in Syracuse, New York, Burtt earned a college degree in Physics. In 1970, he won the National Student Film Festival with a war movie called Yankee Squadron. For his work on the special effects film Genesis he won a scholarship to USC, where he earned a Master's Degree in Film Production. Burtt has been in the film business for over 23 years as a sound designer, mixer, editor, writer and director. Some of Burtt's interests include "my kids, the history of film, mountain biking, skiing, and reading history, astronomy, and science."

In Burtt's 15 years as a sound designer for Lucasfilm, he won Academy Awards for Sound and Sound Effects Editing in four films: Star Wars, E.T. The Extra- Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Burtt also did sound design for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Always, Willow, Alien, More American Graffiti, Howard the Duck, The Dark Crystal, Nutcracker, The Motion Picture, The Dream is Alive, Alamo and Niagara.

In 1990, Burtt became independent and started working as a director. He directed Second Unit for 20 episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, also serving as picture editor for four episodes of Young Indy, and occasionally, sound designer. Burtt directed and co-wrote the Young Indy movie "Attack of the Hawkmen." He directed the IMAX film Blue Planet and directed and co-wrote the IMAX film Special Effects. Burtt was also a writer on the Lucasfilm Droids animated television series, including the one- hour ABC Droids special entitled "The Great Heep."