In the summer of 2003, seven soundstages at Fox Studios Australia were transformed into locales on distant worlds or the interiors of massive starships thanks to the skills of over 300 construction personnel. Construction Manager Greg Hajdu oversaw the team of carpenters, leading hands, painters, stagehands, laborers, plasterers, welders and more who built such massive environments as Padmé's verandah, the Separatist control room, the bridge of the Trade Federation cruiser or Palpatine's office complex.
"They all live for Star Wars," says Hajdu. "After the first one we did, they were like, 'Well, when's the next one happening? 'Cause we've never done such a complicated job and we've never had our skills stretched.' It's quite unlike any show we've ever done or will ever get to do probably."
A veteran of over 16 years in the industry, Hajdu counts such films as Attack of the Clones, Moulin Rouge!, Ned Kelly, and Dark City among his construction credits. Despite such experience, he can empathize with the dismay fans often express when they learn the eventual fates of even the most labor-intensive sets.
"Whether it's timber, plywood, MDF... whether it's painted or not, it all ends up in 30 cubic meter skip bins and goes off to get burnt to run power stations instead of coal, basically," he says. Within the span of a day, a set that took weeks to construct is completely dismantled and demolished. The constant workload of a busy production schedule tends to be the perfect remedy for any lingering connections to a doomed set.
"You're so busy the next week or the next day, that it doesn't matter," he says. "You're creating the next bit, so you forget about what was here in Stage 7, because now it's the General's Quarters where Palpatine's Office used to be. It can be hard at the end of the show for some of the crew, because it starts so suddenly, it's so busy and then it stops so suddenly too."
Continues Hajdu, "It's a shame, but it doesn't matter because it's been created. The set has already been captured on film or on tape. It exists forever."
hmm....
