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LEAVESDEN FLYING HIGH
LEAVESDEN FLYING HIGH
How 007 and Obi-Wan Kenobi paved the way for a new studio complex
They may have been famously set on screen in a galaxy far, far away but technically the four Star Wars films have sprung to life less than an hour north of London. More than twenty years ago writer-director George Lucas gave Elstree an international shot in the arm when he created his blockbuster sci-fi trilogy. Now the complex production of the newest slice of his stunning saga, Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace, has helped confirm and fur- ther consolidate the reputation of nearby Leavesden as Britain’s latest major studio facility.
Lucasfilm’s The Phantom Menace arrived to begin production on the 286-acre site in January 1997 almost exactly two years after another, perhaps even more enduring, movie monolith had first helped breathe life back into a disused Rolls Royce factory at Leavesden Aerodrome where once Wellingtons, Mosquitos and Halifaxes were manufactured.
Searching for the ideal location to film James Bond’s 17th adventure, Goldeneye - the first to star Pierce Brosnan as 007 - Eon Productions knew the instant they set foot on the site that everything about its immense interior and exterior space seemed tai- lor-made for the megadollar movie’s ambitious sets.
Eon leased the site for a year and funded its ini- tial conversion purely on a one-off basis for Goldeneye. It was during those pre-production months leading up to the start of shooting in January 1995 that Daniel Dark first walked into Eon’s offices at Leavesden. Dark, thirtysomething son of flamboyant British producer John Dark, had been working in Spain for three years when he decided he wanted to come back and work again in the UK.
“I remember seeing this cavernous place for the first time. Nobody had used it for a number of years and it was very eerie. Everytime you opened a door you thought there might be a dead body behind it. Anyway, Eon decided where the stages were going to go and how the workshops should be laid out. Then they said ‘see you in a couple of months time’ and left me as the newly-appointed studio manager to pretty much supervise the building of it all.
“While we were filming later on, I as well as lots of other people on the show were walking around saying ‘Isn’t this place great? Wouldn’t it be nice if someone came along and purchased the site.’ And that’s exactly what happened,” says Dark.
That “someone” was a company called George Town Holdings, a subsidiary of the Malaysian-based conglomerate DKH. GTH first started looking at Leavesden during the filming of Goldeneye and acquired the premises that same year. Outline plan- ning permission for the development of the studios, a studio tour, business park and residential complex was granted in November, 1995. The site is now mov- ing ahead under the auspices of Leavesden
Developments, a 100 per cent owned subsidiary of any another DKH holding, Millennium Group Ltd.
As studio manager with Eon and now under the new regime, Dark admits he “just happened to be the guy in the driving seat when the present owners came along and bought the place.” Long before mov- ing fulltime to Leavesden, Dark had first cut his film teeth in production eventually graduating to assis- tant director. Then he “flipped over” to special effects spending the next 10 years “playing with boys’ toys, blowing things up” on, among other things, a couple of Bonds as well as part of the Oscar-winning SFX team on Aliens.
Out in Spain he helped create a new studio facil- ity near Marbella for the ill-fated BBC soap, El Dorado: “My father’s original idea was to do a sort of Dallas/Dynasty with the emphasis on the glitzy and
glamourous. The BBC wanted Eastenders in the sun. The great thing from my point of view was that we took over a green field site in the middle of nowhere and converted it into huge permanent sets within one hundred days. It was a totally Spanish crew, no man- ana, just hard, professional work.”
Leavesden in leafy Herts - may not be quite as sunny as his old Spanish sojourn but its specs are surely more spectacular. Dark’s own office is in the aerodrome’s one-time control tower, itself part of an eight-acre production block under just one roof. This allows cast and crew to move from workshop to stage, dressing room to stage, office to canteen without having to face either the elements or pry- ing eyes - a distinct advantage for productions which demand tight security and a closed set. The complex also houses fully equipped make-up and
Photo main: Liv Tyler on the Leavesden set of Onegin - the exterior ice skating sequence on the River Neva outside St Petersburg.
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