When he heard that a "big film project" was coming to Abu Dhabi and extras were needed, Iranian video and photography director Mojtaba Komeili guessed it was Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens and he jumped at the chance to work on the biggest franchise in movie-making history.
What made the experience even more special was that he got to share the once-in-a-lifetime experience with his father, Ali Komeili, who was also hired as an extra. The duo portrayed refugees in a camp on Jakku, a desert planet in a remote section of the Outer Rim Territories.
How did you get involved with Star Wars?
I registered my father Ali Komeili for casting – he is a theatrical actor. I went there to sign the papers and they said: "There's a big project coming up, do you want to be involved?" I read in the news that Star Wars was coming up, so I guessed what it was. I'm a very big fan of Star Wars and [the film's director] J J Abrams – so I thought it would be great to see J J at work.
How long did you spend on the set?
My father and I had two periods of shooting in Abu Dhabi, the first five or six days and then another for four days. It was cool to work with my dad on this.
The special thing about Star Wars was the range of so many different types of people involved – doctors, lawyers, DJs, composers – mostly artists. Everything was so fun and we made a lot of new friends.
For me, as a director, I really enjoyed meeting the crew and J J – it was a great experience.
What did you say to Abrams?
The first time we just said good morning. I told him: “The reason I’m here is just to meet you.” He is so humble, so down to Earth. We shook hands. The second time, we were face-to-face and had a conversation. He asked me about my job here.
Which character did you play?
We were all refugees in that camp and we were filmed in all different parts of the set.
There were two locations in Abu Dhabi. I was on the main one – as I remember, there were only 10 extras working at the second set. They took my father off to shoot one particular scene at a market but mostly my father and I were together because our outfits were in the style of a father and son. It was a normal costume rather than an alien outfit, although almost everyone else had to wear a mask or hood or something.
It was great that I had a chance to meet Michael Kaplan, the costume designer. The day that we did the dress rehearsal, Kaplan decided that for me and my father, there was no need for us to wear a mask covering our heads. I was like: ‘Wow, that’s cool,’ because most of the other extras were wearing hoods or masks, or they were aliens completely covered in make-up or masks.
So my face was completely exposed to the camera – I’ll be able to see myself on screen.
But actually it ended up being bad, in a way, for me because they put me where the camera was only 50cm from my face, so somebody from casting came and said: ‘Oh sorry, can you just change your position to somewhere else?’ They wanted to make the background neutral for that scene, mostly with people in hoods or without seeing the faces.
What were you asked to do on set?
Walk, talk, eat – and run for my life when the Stormtroopers attacked the market and the big explosions went off.
Some of the funny things we used to see on set were many items made of plastic that were painted to look like metallic boxes. Many times, people thought they were hard metallic boxes and would sit on them and you can guess the rest. Casting supervisors were informing the cast to not to sit on the props on the set.
What was the biggest challenge you faced?
The heat and the bugs that were driving everybody mad. I’ve never seen those kinds of bugs before. The same with mosquitoes – there were plenty of them, too. Everybody was annoyed by these bugs, even the crew. Most people were shouting into the microphone: ‘Please, somebody do something about these bugs.’
Also the heat – it was very hot, especially for the people in the alien and robot-like costumes. It was really hard and I remember for some scenes they had this kind of air-blower that you would use to blow leaves in a garden, they had three or four of those to pump air into the costumes just to keep them cool.
What was the most interesting thing about being on set?
Seeing how they create the visual effects, as I am in the video-production industry and we produce videos and do visual effects for commercials.
It was really interesting that the only green screen that I saw on the whole set was the landing gear of the space ship and one green screen to just cover the background. The rest, there was no green screen – it was all practical, especially the explosion, which was so amazing.
What was the atmosphere like on set?
This is the most important project for Disney and for J J so far, because the loyal fans are so sensitive about the world of Star Wars. But during filming, the crew was really relaxed and everything was perfectly organised.
J J used to do beat-boxing on his microphone between the takes. He was even doing the sound of [the droid] BB-8 in many scenes when there was a conversation between BB8 and Rey.
J J was so confident about what he was doing and, hopefully, the result will be the best Star Wars ever – as he made the best Star Trek ever, Into Darkness.
artslife@thenational.ae
