What has been seen cannot be unseen.
Save us with more photos Gene.
Yeah, I gotta agree with you. I find that image ....... disturbing.
OK, a few more assorted TIE clips -
I found a clip that was scribed "TIE LED TEST" (or something similar) and just showed various exposures of the back end of the TIE (just the engines). There had been some debate as to what type of light was used for the TIE engines - an incandescent bulb or an LED. Well, it looks like it was a set of LEDs:
LEDs will work, they just didn't put out a lot of light. That means you have to increase the exposure time and though you can get them to work, it will take more time. What's interesting to me is the fact that the bluescreen is switched on. For a light pass, they were just generally burned in and (usually) just shot against black. It might be a pass that will help the matte as well as a light pass. But the pylon should be on in that case. Weird.
I don't really know what they were testing in this one. Just seems to be an exposure test:
Quick VFX 101 lesson. You don't have to fill the entire frame with a bluescreen to shoot a model. So long as the TIE ship stays within that little blue box during the course of the camera move, the rest of the frame can be garbage matted out once the matte around the edge has been pulled. And if any of you remember getting the VHS of Star Wars or Empire when it first came out in the 80's, you'll likely remember the boxes around the ships that changed shape as the model moved. These were the garbage mattes. The enhanced contrast of video made the slight exposure difference more visible. Someone will likely be chastised for allowing the shadow of the TIE to fall on the bluescreen. That's a no-no.
This frame was from a front projection test. It was shot on 6/15/76. The screen is 7'4" wide. The camera box is 11' from the screen. The model is 2' from the screen. (All according to the scribing on the film):
Though they had considered using front projection for the ship shots very early on (ala "Silent Running"), the crazy camera moves they would be doing pushed them in the direction of bluescreen photography. I'm just not sure the exact date they made that decision (I suspect it was before this test was shot.)
One thing that ILM failed at was the fact that they didn't have process plates ready for the stage photography of the actors in the cockpits. (And thus, had to shoot them against bluescreen). This could be a test for that process. based on the date, it's towards the middle-end of the first unit stage photography.
Enjoy.
Gene
PS - The green halo'ing around the really bright areas is an artifact of the scanner that I'm using and it can't entirely be gotten rid of. Least, not that I've been able to ascertain.