<P> Filming began on June 26, 1997, and ended on September 30 of that year, primarily taking place at Leavesden Film Studios in England . Leavesden was leased for a two and a half years so the production company could leave the sets intact and return after principal photography had been completed . The forest scenes on Naboo were filmed at Cassiobury Park in Watford, Hertfordshire . Pick - ups were shot between August 1998 and February 1999 after Lucas screened a rough cut of the film for friends and colleagues in May 1998 . Most of the action and stunts were filmed by Roger Christian's second unit, which worked alongside the main unit instead of afterwards because of the high number of shots to be completed daily . </P> <P> The Tunisian desert was again used for the Tatooine scenes; Mos Espa was built outside the city of Tozeur . On the night following the third day of shooting in Tozeur, an unexpected sandstorm destroyed many of the sets and props . The production was quickly rescheduled to allow for repairs and was able to leave Tunisia on the date originally planned . The Italian Caserta Palace was used as the interior of the Theed City Naboo Palace; it was used as a location for four days after it had been closed to visitors . Scenes with explosions were filmed on replica sets in Leavesden . </P> <P> A binder with the film's storyboards served as a reference for live - action filming, shots that would be filmed in front of a chroma key blue screen, and shots that would be composed using CGI . The sets were often built with the parts that would be required on screen; often they were built only up to the heights of the actors . Chroma key was extensively used for digital set extensions, backgrounds or scenes that required cinematographer David Tattersall to seek powerful lamps to light the sets and visual effects supervisor John Knoll to develop software that would remove the blue reflection from shiny floors . Knoll, who remained on set through most of the production, worked closely with Tatterstall to ensure that the shots were suitable to add effects later . The cameras were fitted with data capture models to provide technical data for the CGI artists . </P> <P> The Phantom Menace was the final Star Wars film to be shot on 35mm film until Episode VII (Star Wars: The Force Awakens). Some scenes, mostly of elements filmed by the special effects team, were shot on high definition, digital video tapes to test the performance of digital recordings, which Lucas and McCallum considered the next logical step because of the amount of digitizing--an expensive process compared to recording directly on digital media--for the compositing of computer - generated effects . All future films would be shot using Sony CineAlta high - definition video cameras . Greg Proops and Scott Capurro were filmed wearing makeup and blue bodysuits so their heads could be joined in a computer - generated body . The visual effects crew did not like the original results and crafted Fode and Beed as an entirely computer generated alien . </P>

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