In the second part of a two-part story, Mark Newbold, writing at ILM.com, talks to TJ Falls (Vice President of Visual Effects at Lucasfilm and Visual Effects Producer on Andor) and Mohen Leo (Production Visual Effects Supervisor on Andor) about the second season of Andor, the influence of Rogue One, collaborating with Tony Gilroy, their favorite moments, and more.
In part one of our conversation, TJ Falls (vice president of visual effects at Lucasfilm and Andor’s visual effects producer) and Mohen Leo (Andor’s production visual effects supervisor) discussed location shooting and the logistics of bringing Andor (2022-25) to audiences worldwide. Now, we continue our dive into the Emmy-nominated second season and the teamwork required to shepherd the story from the page to the screen.
It takes an army to bring a film or TV series from the imagination of the writers to screens around the world, and that means teamwork is key, as Mohen Leo explains.
“This project was somewhat unique in terms of how collaborative people were. You have certain projects where the director’s attitude is, ‘This is what I want, I don’t care how you do it, just figure it out.’ This was a case of everyone collectively understanding that we were trying to get as much value on screen as possible. That meant I could go to [editor] John Gilroy and say, ‘Hey, that choice you made will cost a lot of money; is it really worth it? It doesn’t feel like this is where we want to put all the effort.’ There were specific instances where he would say, ‘Okay, give me some time, I’ll have a look. If there’s a different way to cut this, I’ll let you know.’ Sometimes he came back and said, ‘Yep, I’ve managed to get rid of the shot and it feels just as good.’ That allows us to take those funds and put them elsewhere to make something else bigger and more exciting.”
Photos: Alan Tudyk (top) performs as K-2SO with motion capture (Credit: ILM & Lucasfilm).
Flexibility, trust, and an understanding of team dynamics meant that the Andor team could make required adjustments and pivot, making the most of the skills at hand and sharing the load across departments, something that started at the very beginning of the series.
“That comes from the partnership we had through season one to season two,” TJ Falls notes. “It was an intentionally designed paradigm between [showrunner] Tony Gilroy and our producer, Sanne Wohlenberg. Our brain trust [Tony Gilroy, John Gilroy, Wohlenberg, Falls, Leo, and production designer Luke Hull] was involved in every key decision. As the show moved from start to finish, we were involved in those conversations, so it wasn’t the top brass dictating what the need was; it was a collaboration of ideas to make sure that it was the best version possible for Tony.”
Leo shares an example. “The Yavinian doodar, the creature at the end of episode two [‘Sagrona Teema,’ directed by Ariel Kleiman], that came through the trees, snatched the two rebels, and carried them off into the jungle. There was a lot of handwringing at the beginning because, from a visual effects perspective, you question whether we really want to build a fully computer graphics creature just for one shot. That’s a big ask.
“It’s also in the back of your mind that it’s going to turn into something much bigger,” Leo continues. “Then you try to cover yourself to make sure that it works for all these other things, but throughout, Tony kept saying, ‘I just need the one shot.’ Tony wants this, but we can’t spend too much money on this creature, so how do we make it possible? Ultimately, everyone worked together with the director [Ariel Kleiman], the director of photography [Christophe Nuyens], and the editor [Craig Ferreira] to make it possible to have this creature in there for one shot, and it worked out great. On many other projects, you would have abandoned it because there would have been this fear that it spirals out of control.”
Read the article in full here, and stream Andor on Disney+ now.
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