New moon on the rise

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Robert Pattinson, centre, with Nikki Reed and Kellan Lutz as members of a vampire clan in "Twilight," the big-screen adaptation of the first of Stephenie Meyers young adult novels. Photo by The Los Angeles Times.

Robert Pattinson is having an Obi-Wan Kenobi moment.

Inside a soundstage where The Twilight Saga: New Moon is shooting, the lanky English heartthrob stands in front of a tall, wide green screen murmuring a tender admonition: "You promised me nothing reckless."

Motion-capture cameras hurtle toward him across a length of track affixed to the stage floor, while a team of technicians studies his stance and the tilt of his head.

The plan is to digitally insert Pattinson, who plays swoony good guy vampire Edward Cullen, into a scene that was filmed much earlier - one in which he appears as a spectral vision to his co-star, Kristen Stewart, cautioning her headstrong character, Bella Swan, against hanging out with some unsavoury-looking biker types.

For the effect to work, Pattinson's image will need to be dropped in at exactly the right position, so despite the cast and crew nearing the end of a very long day, perfectionism is still the standard.

The team working on the sequel to last year's Catherine Hardwicke-directed Twilight, which brought in an unexpected $365 million worldwide for Summit Entertainment, has moved quickly to sustain the momentum of the sexy, youth-oriented franchise.

Between takes, Pattinson chats with the crew while director Chris Weitz stands several feet away, his arms folded behind his head.

Visual effects, "that's not my thing," he concedes with a wry smile.

What does interest him is literature.

New Moon marks his third consecutive literary adaptation after having directed About a Boy, from the Nick Hornby novel, and The Golden Compass, the big-budget fantasy based on the first chapter in author Philip Pullman's award-winning His Dark Materials series.

It was his experience making that film - which should have been a dream project, given Weitz's reverence for the source material - that made the idea of taking the reins on the second Twilight film so appealing.

During post-production on Compass, Weitz was unable to persuade New Line Cinema to allow him to move forward with the ending he'd originally planned for the $180 million film, one that was decidedly grim but faithful to Pullman's vision.

The movie was released with an alternate ending that the studio felt would be more satisfying to audiences, but something about the project failed to connect; it earned only $70 million domestically, though it did fare better overseas.

"It's one of the great sadnesses of my life that it didn't turn out the way I intended it," he says.

New Moon, a story about surviving the ultimate heartbreak and loss, is Weitz's chance to heal his wounds and find a new creative path.

It's a path that winds through the gloomy forests of the Pacific Northwest and the Italian village of Multipulciano.

The last three days of the shoot were to happen there, but before then, Weitz needed to complete the complicated camera manoeuvres that would enable him to transform Pattinson's Edward into an apparition.

For anyone unfamiliar with the world of Twilight, a primer: In author Stephenie Meyer's first tale, 17-year-old Bella Swan moves to Forks, Washington, to live with her small-town sheriff father.