VFX supervisor Scott Pritchard talks Tie fighter protypes, Sienar and Coruscant environments, the epic Palmo Plaza massacre, and Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO droid, on the second and final season of Lucasfilm’s critically acclaimed ‘Rogue One’ prequel series, now streaming on Disney+.
When it came to the visual effects for the 12-episode Season 2 of Lucasfilm’s hit Star Wars series, Andor, leading the revolution was ILM, who under the watchful eye of VFX supervisor Scott Pritchard and digital artists situated in London and Vancouver, created 1251 VFX shots.
Here’s the final Season 2 trailer:
You can also enjoy AWN/VFXWorld’s playlist of 13 clips, featurettes and trailers from Season 2 here.
The work is showcased in the dramatic opening sequence of the series where Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) attempts to steal the TIE Avenger from the Imperial test facility located in the frigid snowy planetary setting of Sienar. “Two thirds of the hanger was built, and we extended it in post,” states Pritchard. “We had this incredible practical TIE fighter prop that they used for quite a bit of the sequence until Cassian actually takes off and then we took over with our CG version.” As a prototype, the spacecraft left room for creative experimentation with the design. “We had a lot of fun, especially with all of the weaponry. The wing-mounted rotary cannons were modeled after a gatling gun. What would a Gatling gun fire rate look like with laser rounds from a TIE fighter? One of the things that Mohen Leo [Production VFX Supervisor] was keen for was to have this feel quite brutal in the way that it pummeled the hanger and the stormtroopers.”
Playing a major role in conveying the necessary weight for the CG TIE Avenger was the camerawork. According to Pritchard, “If you can make it feel like the camera's either trying to keep up with something that's incredibly fast moving or it's mostly in the top of the frame, you get that sense of weight to it as well. We had the TIE Avenger dragging along the floor leaving scuff marks and scratches as well as sparks coming out of the impact points. There would always be residual momentum whenever it came to a stop or changed direction.” Practical explosions were provided by the special effects team led by Luke Murphy. “We had a lot of pyro going off on the hanger stage itself which was great because we could lean CG explosions and pyro into that look,” Pritchard continues. He goes on to note the toughest aspect of the interactive lighting was the flashing red lights, saying, “Once Cassian takes off, the red lights start flashing and all of that had to be timed to be a consistent tempo throughout the entire sequence. That needed a lot of finesse work in comp and lighting to get it looking right.”
Once the action shifts to the outdoors, the environmental work became entirely CG. “It was a question of balancing all the elements together to make sure that you always had a real clear sense of the action that was happening in every shot,” Pritchard shares. “Particularly, when the ice arch starts collapsing because there's a lot of water and spray being thrown up. It's easy for the frame to become cluttered and unreadable. We always were careful to make sure the range in each shot was the right amount so that the viewer was looking at the right thing. We were briefed on the Sienar planet environment as somewhere you wouldn't want to go. There’s this idea of polar night where it never gets completely dark. It has a very low level of ambient light.”
Different approaches were considered for the snow. “We settled on this idea where it's almost like too cold to snow,” states Pritchard. “You have little flurries here and there but keep the overall snow reasonably dialed down. It's all very localized and we used it to enhance the action where we needed to as well. If Cassian bangs into the side of the canyon, we might have a little bit of snow lying on a ledge somewhere that would get picked up and swirl off which was a nice reaction to the impact.”
Location shooting in the UK and Spain grounded and expanded the city-covered planet of Coruscant, which is home to the Galactic Senate where Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) resides. “It was Production Designer Luke Hull’s idea to shoot in Valencia in the City of Arts and Sciences,” reveals Pritchard. “That was inspired because it was a real challenge for us to marry the idea of the Senate building, this well-known building from the prequels, to Santiago Calatrava’s architecture, which is graceful and has sweeping curves and white stone. You have these two distinct architectural languages that had to be weaved together to appear as one place. We looked at how we could have the Senate Plaza at the center and this wedge radiating out from it that consists of the Valencia buildings. We considered things like how far the senators would have to walk from the Museum of Science, which is where they got dropped off by their transports, to the Senate building. You wouldn't have them walk two kilometers before they got in the door. When we looked at the design of the Senate itself, we had to keep the purity of the original design from the prequels, but weave in these details, both large and small scale, from Calatrava’s architecture so that they sat in the same world. This extends to materials as well. We used a little bit of carved white stone in the Senate itself as well as that classic paneled metal roof structure.”
“We shot in the Barbican Centre for the scenes where Bix Caleen [Adria Arjona] and Cassian go to the store and buy groceries,” continues Pritchard. “It's got that nice Brutalist architecture. We shot there as well for Season 1. We could do things like punch holes in some of the areas of the buildings so that you could see through to far away buildings in Coruscant to emphasize this idea of verticality. The Barbican leant itself well with its walkways and ledges.” The team added in a CG explosion caused by Bix and Cassian. “A light was rigged shining towards the camera to represent the explosion, so you got the interactive light on Cassian and Bix as well as the foreground. The explosion was timed to that. Everything from the midground back was us. We had some concept art of what we wanted that to look like, so then it was a case of constructing those buildings and running the effects simulations on top.”
StageCraft was utilized for the Coruscant safe house shots. “We had different times of day and weather conditions as well as the classic Coruscant flying traffic going past which adds a bit of movement,” Pritchard says. Special effects provided the rain. “If you have a shallow depth of field and rain refracting the LED content in the background, it has a wonderful natural look,” he adds.
Flying traffic was created in the same way as Season 1. “We would draw curves on the layout and the traffic would follow them,” explains Pritchard. “Do we want larger vehicles like freight trucks or smaller cars or a mixture of both? The overarching principle was to never look at a shot of Coruscant and be distracted by the moving traffic. One thing that we did do on the StageCraft set was the lighting guys rigged a series of lights that ran along the length of the safe house windows which they would trigger and flash in sequence. It cast this beautiful light on the floor of the safe house set to give the impression of passing cars. While filming, I noticed these amazing metal pipes on the ceiling and wondered if we could do something similar on the wall. Over a couple of breaks, myself and a couple of the Brain Bar crew designed this system where a bright white rectangle would run along the bottom of the LED screen. You wouldn't actually see it, but that would reflect and cast light onto these bits of pipe on the ceiling. We worked with the lighting crew to make sure that the color temperature and the speed of the two lights matched. That was all triggered by an iPad onset. We showed it to the DP, who loved it; basically, from that point onwards, we would sit with him in the video village, and he would say either car above and the lighting guy would trigger the SkyPanels or car below where we would trigger the white rectangle that would run along the LED screen. That was a fun crossover between lighting and us.”
Fans of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story were highly interested in how Cassian came to meet his Imperial security droid sidekick K-2SO. “I was onset for those scenes when we filmed with Alan Tudyk for K-2SO in the safe house,” recalls Pritchard. “He used the same stilts as for Rogue One. Being able to get a sense of the chemistry between him and Diego Luna was important for me to then understand the best ways of bringing Alan’s performance through in K-2SO. Luckily Mohen Leo had made a series of notes from his experience on Rogue One. Alan is such an expressive performer; he would do things like raise an eyebrow, though K-2SO doesn’t have eyebrows. K-2SO has a relatively immobile face. We had a system of translating that. He might tilt his head or do a little eye dart to help that intent of the performance to come through.”
During filming, Tudyk wore a mocap suit. As Pritchard describes, “We start off with a blocking pass of animation that would effectively be the mocap translated and retargeted onto the K-2SO asset. Then some technical tweaks to make sure that contact points were working properly, such as if he were to grab something, and that the feet sat on the floor properly. We would do that for the entire sequence to ensure K-2SO was where he needed to be when he had to be there. After that we would begin to fine tune the animation and make sure that the performance was coming through. It was essential to have the audio tracks as well to hear the dialogue and make sure that the performance matched the dialogue and timing.”
K-2S0 is a modified KX unit, which is insanely strong. “You get to see that physical brutal reality of the KX units in Episode 208, where they wreak havoc in Palmo Plaza,” states Pritchard. “The transfer of weight onto the front foot and leading from the shoulder into throwing or punching someone helped to make it feel very physical.”
ILM did considerable work on the planet of Ghorman, where Imperial soldiers massacre protesting civilians. “We did a number of shots in the Ghorman massacre,” notes Pritchard. “The trick with that whole episode was marrying our work into the amazing work that was being done on set. You had these incredible stunts performed as well as amazing special effects. The principal work that we were doing was the KX units. K-2SO has his own style of walking and slightly anthropomorphized way of behaving. These KX units were droids. Similar to the KX unit that we did on Niamos for Season 1, they were purposefully robotic.”
The set for Palmo Plaza was constructed at Pinewood Studios. “Hybride did the set extensions where an extra tier was added to the top of the gallery surrounding the plaza along with the mountains and the city,” remarks Pritchard. “There were a number of shared shots where we would have KX units or K-2SO inserted into a comp from Hybride that had the set extensions. Then we handled the larger, wider shots of the city. We also had the establisher of Palmo, which is an aerial shot near Lake Como that was modified, as well as two other establishers that setup the action.” Some of the interactive light was painted into the shots. “For example, the Ghorman Plaza in Episode 208, special effects were dealing with the impact explosions and spark events that would happen. We would basically dress the laser bolt coming in just beforehand. We were keen on getting the right look, so you had this hot core at the head of the bolt and then this saturated red tail to it plus a little bit of noise in there for some texture. They’re iconic pieces of Star Wars design.”
The biggest design challenge was making sure the architecture matched for the Senate on Coruscant. “The Senate building is such an iconic piece of Star Wars architecture that everybody knows what it looks like,” observes Pritchard. “You have a limited scope of how much you can change it to fit with the Calatrava’s architecture and vice versa. One thing that the production team did, that was clever, is they actually filmed different sections of the buildings there to represent various areas geographically of the Senate Plaza. For instance, the Museum of Science, which is a massive building itself, represented the walkway where Cassian kills Kloris [Lee Ross] on the way to the limo. Inside, it represented the atrium of the Senate where Ghorman Senator Dasi Oran [Raphael Roger Levy] gets arrested and taken away. There is a big doorway at the end of the Museum of Science that represents one of the entrances where the senators go into the Senate. All of these things were one building; however, represented different geographical locations along the Senate Plaza.”
Pritchard shares that Marc Mailley and his stunt team did a phenomenal job, commenting, “Part of their remit was to try to keep their face hidden from camera when they’re doing these incredible stunts. The stunt performer who played Enza Rylanz, the Ghorman woman who gets launched through the air, she did the most unbelievable wire stunt that must have been 30 feet in one go. She absolutely sailed through the air. There were lots of crash mats on the floor so she could land safely; she was also wearing kneepads. We had a lot of paintwork involved in getting rid of those wires and pad, but we had remarkably few face replacements to do.”
Throughout the season, the visual effects were always meant to play a supporting role. “One of my favorite shots in the whole series is in the limo with Mon Mothma just as they’re leaving the Senate in Episode 209,” Pritchard says. “It’s quite a shallow depth of field so it’s a soft background. But you’re getting these lovely glints off of the top of the Senatorial office building as we fly around it. It’s secondary to Genevieve O'Reilly’s amazing performance.”
Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer best known for composing in-depth filmmaker and movie profiles for VFX Voice, Animation Magazine, and British Cinematographer.
