The Spacing Guild Navigators


Click on each image to bring up a large version of it

Authentic Guild Navigator Costume.

Authentic Guild Navigator Costume
Made and hand painted by Bob Ringwood (Costume Designer)

Top of Collar to Bottom: 60 Inches
Sleeve Length, to Tip of Glove: 29 Inches
Material: Black Nylon Exterior with Cotton Padded Interior

Auctioned on eBay September 2003 by Business Liquidators. (Did not sell)

Rambaldi and Luigi Rocchetti work on the Navigator.

Carlo Rambaldi (rear) and makeup artist Luigi Rocchetti apply a few last-minute brush strokes on the set.

Second Stage Guild Navigator.

A second-stage navigator makeup, created by Chris Tucker, was ultimately rejected because of insufficient time and funds.

James Devis checks the lighting for the Navigator.

Effects cinematographer James Devis checks the lighting for a closeup insert of the third-stage navigator.

Third Stage Guild Navigator

Ken Worringham lines up an eye close-up of Carlo Rambaldi's full-scale navigator. Allan Annand, focus puller, assists.

Image/Caption courtesy of Eric Swenson
© 1983/84

Third Stage Guild Navigator

Bruno Landis, assistant to Rambaldi, patches up a small navigator model prior to the filming of a blue screen shot.

Image/Caption courtesy of Eric Swenson
© 1983/84

Third Stage Guild Navigator

Carlo Rambaldi, right, and co-worker put the finishing touches on the gigantic third stage Guild Navigator.

Guild Navigator having make-up applied!

Guild Navigator having make-up applied!
Rambaldi's massive third stage Guild Navigator, a mechanized beast with forty seperate points of movements.

Danielle Verse and Christine Overs add ornamentation to a section of the heighliner doorway.

Danielle Verse and Christine Overs add intricate ornamentation to a blowup section of the heighliner doorway.

Image/Caption courtesy of Eric Swenson
© 1983/84

Enlarged heighliner doorway section.

Another heighliner doorway - one of two enlarged sections built - was used for the smaller scale background plate over which the Atreides ships are shown approaching the immense craft.

Image/Caption courtesy of Eric Swenson
© 1983/84

Gus Ramsden makes final adjustments to an Atreides wing section.

Modelmaker Gus Ramsden makes final adjustments to an Atreides wing section incorporated within his heighliner docking bay set. During the scene, as the camera moves up, a pneumatic cylinder concealed behind the protruding ship in the center pulls the craft into its designated docking ports.

Image/Caption courtesy of Eric Swenson
© 1983/84

Ken Worringham photographs the slow ascent to the heighliner cockpit.

Ramsden redressed the fiberglass structure for a subsequent shot featuring the third-stage navigator's sealed box as it rises to the heighliner cockpit. Ken Worringham photographs the slow ascent - which was ultimately cut from the film.

Image/Caption courtesy of Eric Swenson
© 1983/84

Cockpit miniature.

Used primarily in the preparation of the background plates for the third-stage navigator's space-folding scenes, the final cockpit miniature was constructed from wood, fiberglass, and then filmed in a dense smoke environment for maximum aerial perpective.

Image/Caption courtesy of Eric Swenson
© 1983/84

The modular structure affords little room to line up a motion control shot

The modular structure affords Brain Smithies little room as he squeezes in to line up a motion control shot. Photographing the cockpit interior required enormous amounts of light to illuminate the absorbent flat black surfaces.

Image/Caption courtesy of Eric Swenson
© 1983/84

Guild ship model landing.

A stagehand makes adjustments on a Guild ship as it hovers over the Emperor's landing field. The fiberglass model - simplified to its relatively featureless form at Lynch's insistence - was mounted on a small camera crane and then lowered into one of the many slots cut into the miniature set.

Barry Nolan checks the lighting on a heighliner model.

Barry Nolan makes a lighting check on the cylindrical heighliner model - constructed originally by Apogee, but later refinished by Smithies and his crew.

Image/Caption courtesy of Eric Swenson
© 1983/84

David Lynch examines a heighliner setup.

David Lynch examines a heighliner setup through Van de Veer's effect camera, track-mounted on a motion control rig designed and modified by Nolan and his motion control programmer, Eric Swenson.