BTS: Andor

IBC

“We’re not writing to the headlines, but you see this sort of conflict and empire building happen over and over again in history, says John Gilroy, lead editor and executive producer of Star Wars spy thriller Andor.

article here

From the opening scene where Cassian puts a TIE Fighter into reverse instead of going forward, there’s a surprising amount of comedy in Andor to balance the relentless ticking clock of the show’s climactic season.

“We have a long way to go and we were telling you a very long, complicated story,” says John Gilroy, series editor and executive producer. “You want to have an occasional moment of levity so we can do something really serious. Just like in life, it's always good to have a sense of humour, even in critical situations.”

This season has raised its head above the usual noise of Star Wars fan culture with an overtly political subtext to the familiar story of rebellion against oppression. The most obvious example is when senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) charges the Empire with committing “unprovoked genocide” on the generally peaceful population of Ghorman. The Empire’s agents have also cynically stoked the fires of rebellion on Ghorman and spread propaganda to mask their true intent to appropriate the planet’s precious mineral resources.  Gilroy says any suggestion of commentary on current events is coincidental.

“These shows were written and put together years ago. It’s just unfortunate and sad if there's a stronger similarity between what's going on now, that's been heightened in the last couple years.”

He adds, “We’re not writing to the headlines, we're not trying to be topical but Tony and I are both big history buffs and if you're reading history you just see this sort of conflict and empire building happen over and over and over again. All these things are touched on in the show.”

Tony Gilroy is showrunner and lead writer on the project and also John’s brother. Tony scripted four of the Jason Bourne movies as well as co-writing Rogue One: A Star Wars Story into which Andor will neatly plug. He set Andor five years before the events of the feature with season 1 covering one year and season 2 the next four.

There’s a particularly striking moment in episode 11 when a brigade of Stormtroopers are preparing to capture Andor. The camera shows fetishistic close-ups of their white booted feet, a gun, a cap and their eyes. Gilroy credits this to the work of Alonso Ruizpalacios who directed that episode.

“With each director you get a slightly different flavour and that's just a really good example of storytelling.  He gave them a signature look which was appropriate to wrap up the show with.”

“Like everyone else I feel the original Star Wars (IV, 1977) was ground breaking and I was fascinated by how, on Rogue One, we were able to touch that first movie,” says Gilroy who edited the 2016 film which was directed by Gareth Edwards.

For those who don’t know, the breathless finale of Rogue One has rebel insurgents deliver plans of the Death Star to Princess Leia. Leading that treasonous act was Cassian Andor (Diego Lunar) whose backstory the 24-part serial elaborates on all the responsibilities and sacrifices of becoming a hero.

“Digging deeper into the life of Cassian Andor, you realise that this guy has this incredibly complicated and long history,” he says. “He arrives in Rogue One, and he’s the consummate spymaster warrior. He’s the one person that the whole Rebel Alliance is going to trust with this assignment. So, he’s the tip of the spear. How did he get to be the tip of the spear? How did he get to have all of the skills that are required for that?”

Even though the timeline was compressed from an originally planned five seasons into just the two, the writers and directors felt that they had a lot of elasticity with the story structure.

They split the years into four blocks of three episodes then had to strike a balance between providing enough context for what happened during the slices of time audiences don’t see, and trusting them to fill in the gaps.

“The structure of the second season accelerated the storyline a little bit,” says Gilroy. “What I liked about jumping a year every three episodes was it added an urgency. It propelled the story in a way I wasn't expecting it to. It turns out that in three episodes spanning a year of narrative time you can cover all your characters and give them just enough context, to see that they've grown and what's changed in the intervening period. When we do give exposition we try to do it in a crafty way so that it doesn't feel like exposition. That’s just good writing.”

The series’ structure presented challenges for how the principal photography was approached. It had to include more sets, costumes, props and effects than the first— across dozens of planets. This entailed the build of 140 sets, 24 filming locations, over 700 costumes, the creation of 152 creatures plus 30 droids, and over 4,100 VFX shots supervised by ILM.

The season was filmed in four blocks —each being able to take its own creative swings under the leadership of directors Ariel Kleiman (Eps. 1-6), Janus Metz (Eps. 7-9) and Alonso Ruizpalacios (Eps. 10-12).

Lead cinematography, shooting the first six eps, was Belgium Christophe Nuyens who continued to shoot as S1 on Sony Venice though this time exchanging anamorphic glass for Panavision Ultra Vista Primes.

They predominantly shot on Pinewood stages but also rented had three stages at Longcross. Like the first season the tone of the show was to mix space fantasy with earth and grit, hence the practical set builds and minimal green screen.

“We definitely discussed [using virtual production] but decided it did not lend itself to what we were trying to do,” Gilroy explains. “Virtual production frees you up in some ways and it limits you in others. In the production design and look we wanted to go more realistic and therefore to shoot in a more old fashioned way.”

Some locations, such as the rebel base on Yavin and galactic capital on Coruscant, will be familiar from Rogue One and from S1, but with fresh perspectives, achieved by shooting at Valencia’s City of Arts and Sciences. In particular, this real location was used to create a sense of the Ivory Tower nature of upper Coruscant, and to place the Senate in an environment where actors had space to walk and talk.

Gilroy began his career working with Francis Coppola's longtime editor Barry Malkin on Peggy Sue Got Married.  His other credits include Pacific Rim, Narc, Duplicity, the Academy Award winning Michael Clayton and The Bourne Legacy (both directed by Tony Gilroy) and Nightcrawler (directed by brother Dan – who also scripted episodes of Andor).

“We have a similar sensibility, a similar taste that I share with Tony and Danny. That affords you some sort of shorthand. There's a lot of trust there. They don't have to look over my shoulder all the time and I won't bring something to them unless it works. I don't really believe in rough cutting things together. I try to get a scene or an episode to really work before I ever show it to anybody including Tony. When he did see my cut for the first time he still had a million notes but it was essentially in good shape.”

Inevitably in a story that traces the trajectory of a hero we know to be doomed, many of the core characters are killed off, but there is a surprise in the final scene of the final episode. Bix is revealed to have given birth to Cassian’s child. Could it be the key to unlock a future Star Wars spin-off somewhere down the line?

“The conclusion is one of hope and life affirming and I think it felt earned,” Gilroy says. “Whether it might have a life of its own in the future would be up to Lucasfilm. That's not why the seed was planted. It was written because it just felt like a great, little surprise and a hopeful ending to a very tragic story."