Behind the scenes with DK at Lucasfilm

Two months after the tie-in books were published by Dorling Kindersley, under tight restrictions on in-store promotion which drew criticism from booksellers, the UK release of "Star Wars: Episode One" this weekend allows the veil to be lifted on how the titles were produced. It is the story of a small team of editors and designers from dk who, in January this year, found themselves catapulted into the centre of one of the biggest and most secretive entertainment projects of all time.

In their five-week stay at the Lucasfilm Skywalker ranch in North Carolina, the team had to produce Star Wars Episode One: The Visual Dictionary (£12.99, 0751370576) and Star Wars Episode One: Incredible Cross Sections (£12.99, 70584) on their laptop computers, crammed into a corner of the licensing building between Star Wars costumes, Star Wars bicycles and Star Wars underpants. They worked at breakneck speed: final working proofs were ready six weeks after their return to the UK.

Mission unmentionable

Project editor Simon Beecroft, senior designer Jane Thomas and editor David John are only just putting the experience into perspective, and constantly refer to the time as "bizarre" and "surreal".

They are highly cautious about what they can reveal of their time in California, having seen at close quarters the notoriously secretive Lucas regime; a nervous PR presence at this interview does not help. During their stay, they were made to lock up all their materials every night and to put all print-outs through the shredder.

Rarely can there have been such an imbalance between the size of a publishing project and the level of privileged access granted to the publisher. They were certainly not allowed to read the script of "The Phantom Menace". The thrill of being among the first people in the world to see screen shots, characters and set designs was offset by the constant revisions that were made to the story and the visuals by the film's designers. At every stage all detail had to be seen and passed through a comprehensive approval process which involved George Lucas himself, who made last-minute alterations and changed many characters' names.

The problems were compounded by the extreme secrecy surrounding Lucas' plans for the next two films. It meant that details of many characters and settings could not be revealed. "You obviously want to give as much information as possible to readers, but the book had to remain vague at certain points," says Simon Beecroft.

Yet despite all this, the team still lavish praise on Lucasfilm—especially the book's author, David West Reynolds, the archaeologist and science writer who has become obsessed with Star Wars. "David knew the plot and absolutely everything about the film—he was invaluable," Beecroft says. "He sees it as a real civilisation that he can unearth." Nor was the relationship all one-way: many of the illustrations, such as the diagram of C-3PO's eye, come from original dk ideas.

But just how did the publisher win the contract to publish not only these books, but all the Star Wars non-fiction titles until 2007? Fiona Macmillan, publisher for licensing and children's fiction, says that DK's first two Star Wars titles—based on the original films—were an "audition" for the lucrative deal.

Factor DK

"It is a unique concept, something that only we could do. Lucas has an internal ranking system it uses to rate the various publishers it is involved with, and two of our titles got their highest accolade," she says. It is also likely that Lucas negotiated a substantial slice of the publishing profits.

The stress, secrecy and excitement are by no means over now: the team are hard at work on two new Star Wars books for next year. They cannot reveal their content.