麻豆约拍

Ok, I’ll get this out right now. I’m a bit of a Star Wars fan. Well, not just a bit, but a big fan. In fact, I was born on May the 4th (as in May the 4th be with you – now known as Star Wars day!) in 1977, the year the movie was released. And I have always loved the films.

Let me take you back to 1983. I was six. I was only a baby when the first one, A New Hope, was released and just 3 when the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, was in cinemas. So here I was, an excited six year old, about to see The Return of the Jedi with my dad at the flicks in Southend.

It was awesome! I sat in the third row, staring wide eyed at the screen, as my childhood heroes battled it out with Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett and Imperial Stormtroopers. On the way home, my dad bought me an Ewok action figure. It was a very special day!

Fast forward, or rather jump into Hyperspace, and I’m on a train heading home from filming for ‘Inside Out’ in London. It’s February 2016. And I’m idly flicking through my phone, as is the norm now for many of us, whiling away a tedious journey. And all of a sudden I see that Luke Skywalker, aka, Mark Hamill is doing a talk with the Cambridge Student Union, following the huge success of the franchise’s reboot, with The Force Awakens. Right! Here’s my chance to get an interview with the legendary Jedi.

To cut a long story short, it never transpired. But it fired me up. I had always wanted to make a documentary about Star Wars and maybe, just maybe, I would be able to do it.

I knew I couldn’t do it alone, so, just as he was about to studio direct the lunchtime news, I put it to one of my best friends, Matt Wildash. ‘How do you fancy making a doc about Star Wars?’ His eyes lit up! He’s just as big a nerd as me when it comes to Star Wars. It was a no brainer. He was in.

We pitched the idea to the powers-that-be. It was to be a film about the British people behind the biggest movie franchise of all time. Growing up I’d always believed it was a Hollywood blockbuster, every frame shot in LA. Turns out that’s just half the story. It was more an Anglo-American co-production.

The first thing we filmed was Star Wars Celebration in London in the summer of 2016. Basically a massive fan convention. We filmed and filmed. Three days solid. To be honest we didn’t know how much we’d get further down the road. So we got loads in the can.

But this was just the beginning. I managed to find an address of the Oscar winning Costume Designer, John Mollo. It was an old address, but the letter was forwarded and a few weeks later, the Director, cameraman and myself were in his study. In front of us, his original workings and sketches from the 1970s. All of which depicted what would eventually be seen on screen. As a filmmaker it was brilliant, as a fan, it was awesome!

Then, Elstree. The home of ‘Strictly’. But in the 1970s it was home to the filmmaking talents of George Lucas and his team, bringing the Galaxy to life. We filmed in the very studios which were home to ‘The Millennium Falcon’ and ‘The Death Star’. I also interviewed the Production Supervisor, Robert Watts there, a charming gentleman with many great stories to tell.

Production then stalled, as the Director and I had to concentrate on our day jobs. We were doing a lot of the documentary in our own time and it soon became clear, this was fast becoming a labour of love.

In early 2017, I had my work cut out, tracking down more of the original team. After long days and nights, with many conference calls to people in California, we were up and running again.

We set about the bulk of the filming. 10 days bouncing around North America and sitting down opposite the British filmmaking talent of yesteryear. The Art Director, Les Dilley, who went on to work on Alien and Raiders of the Lost Ark. A charming, modest man with an Academy Award, but who still can’t believe it happened to him. Then, Peter Beale, the Executive in Charge of Production for 20th Century Fox. He’s a man with legendary tales of ‘creative’ cast lists and battling against studio deadlines.

It was an exhausting but incredibly exciting trip. Then, back in London, we met the Set Decorator, Roger Christian, who was over in the UK from his home in Toronto. He regaled me with stories of building sets with aeroplane junk and shared with me the secrets of how he made the lightsaber itself. He calls it the ‘Excalibur’ of the film:

Well, after months in the edit suite, The Galaxy Britain Built is finished and ready for transmission. And what a privilege it has been to work on. They say never meet your heroes. But sometimes, just sometimes, they can be very wrong.

• '' airs on 麻豆约拍 Four on Thursday 21 December, and on iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast.