Keeping It Real: Which Effects in ‘Andor’ Were More Actual Than Special

“Keep it grounded, keep it real” has always been Andor creator Tony Gilroy’s mandate to his effects team. For the acclaimed Disney+ Star Wars drama’s second season, Gilroy’s marching order meant building a massive “flying” TIE fighter from the ground up, figuring out a fresh way to film a speeder bike chase, tweaking the iconic Stormtrooper laser blasts and more amid the season’s 4,140 effects shots. Andor VFX supervisor Mohen Leo (who led the show’s digital effects team) and SFX supervisor Luke Murphy (who tackled practical effects) talk with THR about nailing the season’s biggest visuals — as well as the smallest, which often turned out to be the trickiest.

What was the hardest effect to pull off in season two?

MOHEN LEO The TIE Avenger escape [in the first episode]. I didn’t want to start the season off with something that was only computer generated, so we designed a sequence that starts with a practical set where we can use practical effects.

LUKE MURPHY That thing was [actually built] and it sat on its wings. It was one of the most challenging builds we’ve ever done. It had a steel core and materials used in aircraft — loads of aluminum composite panels, carbon fiber. Actors could touch it and walk into it. Then we could literally lift that thing up with a crane and fly it around.

Back in the day, George Lucas famously used World War II dogfight footage for creating aerial scenes. What do you use now?

LEO I try to avoid referencing other movies. There’s almost no excuse not to look at real-world references. There’s a shot in episode three when Cassian arrives with the TIE Avenger and he overtakes a troop transporter — that came from looking on YouTube for Apache helicopter shots.

You also had a speeder bike scene, which has come a long way since Return of the Jedi.

LEO One of the things that always bugs me with Star Wars speeder bikes is you can tell that it’s someone on a blue screen with a wind machine, and then we put the background in. Luke came up with a fantastic solution.

MURPHY We got a speeder bike built onto the actual V-8 of a high-speed all-terrain vehicle. It feels believable because the stuntman is really gunning it. But there was a lot of paperwork involved in satisfying [Disney’s] risk management assessors.

What shot or effect are you most proud of this season?

MURPHY We had to create a 17-ton electric snowplow for the heist sequence. When that vehicle comes down the street and crashes, it rips up the street for 80 feet. It was so cold that the breakaway material we were using in the street was sticking together. So at the last minute, we had to lift up 400 paving slabs and loosen all the material underneath.

LEO We just had to paint away the camera rail and that’s it. We didn’t augment that in any way. It looked fantastic just as it was.

The digital shots of Alan Tudyk’s android K-2SO are incredibly lifelike.

LEO It was so important to have Alan back because he really embodied that character, and for his chemistry with Diego. Something we learned on Rogue One was you have to look at the things Alan might express with his face that you can’t transfer onto K-2SO because [the droid’s] face doesn’t move. So you do a little tilt of the head or a movement of the eyes.

I feel Stormtroopers’ red laser blasts as seen during the hallway fight scene have evolved.

LEO If you look at the original trilogy, because [the lasers] were [painted] manually, there is a larger degree of inconsistency. We started doing something that is thinner and has a pointy diamond-shape-like arrow tip at the front. Another thing is that when a green laser hits something, the first two frames of the explosion are green. When a red laser hits something, the first two frames of the explosion are red.

What looked really simple but in reality was very difficult?

MURPHY The scene where a bubbling liquid is poured [on to Luthen’s spy network communications panel to destroy it]. It’s always the stuff where you go, “Oh, that’s a just a two-minute job” that turns out to be a total monster.