Roundtable with the cinematographers of Andor Season 2

When Star Wars premiered in 1977, audiences found in Luke Skywalker a hero they might dream of being, and in Han Solo a hero that just maybe they could be. Since then, as the Star Wars galaxy has expanded through prequels, sequels and spinoff series, both of those archetypes have been explored in a wide range of guises. The 2016 feature Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, directed by Gareth Edwards, focused squarely on a band of heroes who felt real and relatable, burdened with doubts and imperfections. Among them was Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna), an experienced leader in the Rebel Alliance’s conflict against the tyrannical Galactic Empire.

Tony Gilroy was a co-writer and key creative on Rogue One, and with the Disney+ series Andor — on which he’s served as creator, head writer and showrunner — he’s taken audiences back in time from the events of Rogue One to reveal the journey that shaped Cassian into the flawed, scarred and utterly human hero he ultimately becomes. Season 1 paired directors Toby Haynes, Susanna White and Benjamin Caron with cinematographers Adriano Goldman ASC BSC ABC, Frank Lamm and Dámian García, respectively. In Season 2, Christophe Nuyens SBC teamed with director Ariel Kleiman for episodes 201-206, Mark Patten BSC collaborated with director Janus Metz for episodes 207-209, and Dámian García returned from Season 1 to partner with director Alonso Ruizpalacios for episodes 210-212.

Panavision recently caught up with Nuyens, Patten and García to discuss how Andor evolved in its second season, the choice of large-format 1.6x-squeeze Ultra-Vista anamorphic lenses — which were paired with a Panavised Sony Venice camera and supplied by Panavision London — and the importance of telling a relatable human story grounded in realism, making a galaxy far, far away feel as familiar as the planet we call home.

Cinematographer Christophe Nuyens SBC.

Panavision: How would each of you describe the look and the visual language of Andor?

Christophe Nuyens SBC: Each block in Season 2 is separated by a year, and when Ari and I knew we were going to do two blocks, we decided each block should have a distinctive look. Tony gave us quite a bit of freedom. He was really precise in the writing, and of course he had particular ideas for certain scenes, but I actually felt I had more freedom on this show than usual. And I think that's Tony and Sanne [Wohlenberg, executive producer on Andor], they trusted us, and it worked really naturally.

The first block we shot was episode four, five and six on the Ghorman planet, and when we read the script, it really read like a spy movie in the Star Wars universe. We started making mood boards and decided to use a zoom from a distance to accentuate certain moments of the show’s ‘spyness.’ We imagined that Ghorman was somewhere in the Italian mountains in winter, so lighting-wise, our sun was always cold, everything is quite dark. But for episodes one, two and three, everything had to be sunny and shiny [on the agrarian planet Mina-Rau], so in those episodes you see a lot of flares from sunlight coming in.

Cinematographer Dámian García (left) with actor Jacob James Beswick (portraying ISB Supervisor Heert).

Damián García: We were always free to make decisions in the visuals. I never felt like we were attached to anything or constrained by any of the other blocks, not in Season 1 or Season 2. There's such a strong line in the scripts, the sets, the wardrobe, the actors, that it allowed us to play freely, without strict rules. I think the thing that dictates the visuals of Andor is the idea that we're attached to the reality of the sets. Shooting in spaces that were really there helped us to create the vibe and the energy of it. And for me, Andor was a little bit like a '70s film in a way, like The Conversation or The French Connection.

We always tried to be very attached to the ground. The camera could only be in places where it actually could be, and the shot is only what you really see if you are there. In those amazing sets that [production designer and executive producer] Luke Hull did, we always tried to keep the camera within the set so you can feel that reality and that truthfulness. It feels like a spy film that happens in the Star Wars universe, but it could happen in any other universe. I think that, for me, is the key of the show.

Mark Patten BSC: Its naturalism is key. Going out and shooting on a real location is what the showrunners really wanted to achieve. That then embedded this genre into a natural world where you could really feel nature and then sit the futuristic elements within it. It adds to that embeddedness of what's going on in the Empire, that these pockets of resistance are starting to bubble and effervesce. The scope of it is so huge, yet it does feel grounded.

It's interesting because three episodes was an hour and a half. It's almost like each chapter contains its own little microverse, as it were. I think my chapter, chapter three, which is episodes seven, eight and nine, it is different. The build to the Ghorman massacre is so strong from Mr. Gilroy, and it explodes in episode eight, yet it’s about the people. We're in that plaza for maybe 35 minutes, tracking all of our characters around this amazing set that was on the back of Pinewood. The challenge for me was never to lose the geography of the place, and to try and follow each character in the melee of what becomes this giant voice against fascism.

Cinematographer Mark Patten BSC.

How much interaction did the three of you have over the course of preproduction and principal photography?

Nuyens: With Mark, quite a bit because he had the office next to me, and we had a connecting door. We talked about challenges, ideas, and I gave him all the info on the lenses I had after shooting with them for a while. Mark shot in a lot of sets I opened, so he worked with my gaffer and kept a bit of the same look.

Patten: Sometimes on these big shows, you don't have that cohesion between different blocks. But having been in that process before, I wanted to be led by Christophe and ensure that his vision was respected. And he's created an incredible level of what Star Wars has achieved.

When we went to Spain, all three of us were working on that site, so there was an overlap between all three of us. It was great to be amongst peers who could really gel and make sure that 12 hours of storytelling has a very strong overlap. I'd like to think there is a narrative through-flow and a DNA that is Andor. I think the show has a strong identity, and I do hope the collaboration between all three of us visually comes across.

Denise Gough as Dedra Meero of the Imperial Security Bureau.

What lenses did you work with for Season 2?

Nuyens: Rogue One was filmed on the Alexa 65, so I thought for Season 2, we should go full frame. That was one thing to bridge the gap with Rogue One, and that’s why I went searching for the Ultra-Vistas. I saw test shots from those lenses several years ago, and they looked so beautiful. I still remembered them, and fortunately Panavision was able to get us the four sets we needed. I was really happy.

VFX also had Primo 70s because they needed spherical lenses. I didn’t use them, but I had looked through all the full-frame lenses at Panavision and said, ‘These are really good. Take these.’ We did use zoom lenses, [including] the 75-210mm anamorphic zoom. And for some wider lenses, I used T Series expanded to cover full frame. I’d used them on another job, and I like them a lot.

García: On Season 1, we used a lot of C Series and also a lot of G Series. The Cs are stunning, and I like very much the texture of the G Series. I like that they're so understated and so clean, but not clinical. They were very elegant, and I really like the contrast that the G Series has — they're a little bit more contrasty.

The Ultra-Vistas are very interesting lenses. It was a good idea to have them because it was a new season and a new perspective. Every lens has such a different performance, so it took some time to understand them and be able to say, ‘For this shot, this lens will be great.’ There were things that I was discovering along the way, like, ‘When we're shooting at this particular stop, this happens, which never happened before.’ So it was really learning to understand each lens separately, but that was fun, and it was part of the new adventure. There's such a beautiful texture in those lenses, and the skin tones are beautiful. It feels very much like cinema. That's something that I really enjoy in the lens.

Preparing to roll camera inside the ISB headquarters set.

Nuyens: Really quickly, we had our favorite lenses. We had one 40mm that was really good for wide shots, and another that was incredible for close-ups. So the camera assistants were making notes while we were shooting — ‘This is the lens Cristophe wants for this and this.’ You have to get to know these lenses, but once you do, they have such a nice patina, which I was looking for. I don’t see how a show like this could be shot on clean, clinical lenses.

Patten: I was speaking to my DIT today, and I said, ‘How many lenses did we have at the height?’ And he said there were over 100 lenses at one point spread over all the units that were shooting for the Ghorman massacre. Each character was Ultra-Vista, but in terms of how that character would move through the space, I felt that I could sit back a bit with a long lens to stack the image and get the perspective of the scale and the depth, which I really wanted. I was shooting on the anamorphic zooms to get that.

Imperial Stormtroopers advance during the massacre on Ghorman.

How did each of you approach framing and camera movement as you planned your episodes?

Patten: I went really old school and analog and got this giant whiteboard, and with a permanent marker, I drew the plaza, and then used fridge magnets with each character's face on it, and we started to plot out where Tony's writing was. The key thread was to follow each character’s journey through the plaza. It was very important that we must never lose where they are. If it's successful in terms of being clear where each character is at any one moment, then I feel that visually and narratively, Janus’ and my job has been done. The key was never to lose the character.

Nuyens: Something that was really important for Ari and me was to avoid shot-reverse-shots and instead try to move the camera through the scenes. We were trying to make it filmic and fluid. I think that's where Ari and I really found each other. The first time I met Ari was in Pinewood, when I arrived over there, and immediately we had a good relationship. Tony and Sanne did a fantastic job searching directors and DPs. They put good people together, so it worked really well.

The first weeks, we were analyzing the scripts without thinking too much about images. ‘What do we think about the story? What do we think about the characters? Where does this go?’ And then we started to ask, ‘How does this planet look?’ And we started narrowing in on the details. Then, at the end, it was all shotlisting. In the beginning, we didn't have a lot of sets yet, so we started with general ideas, ‘this should be one move.’ Then, as Luke would finish a design, we started shotlisting again. And then, once we had sets, we would refine again. We were really thorough, and we had really good operators also. Joe Russell, our A-camera operator, is one of the best Steadicam operators. In episode two, he did the oner where Mon Mothma arrives at the estate [on Chandrila] — there were a lot of stairs, walking backwards. We did 15 takes, and Joe did it like it was nothing. That was at Pinewood. The sets they built were incredible. They were huge and beautiful and so detailed. We had a lot of VFX extensions, of course, but there was a lot of set to have a good base.

Lonni Jung (portrayed by Robert Emms, left) speaks with Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) on Coruscant.

García: I did my three episodes on Season 2 with Alonso Ruizpalacios, a director from Mexico. I did two or three films with him beforehand, and we share the same taste. We both really like to find frames, and the sets allowed us to play a lot. Luke's sets were outstanding. I felt it was always part of my responsibility to do justice to these sets and all this beautiful architecture. We had to be as good as these sets and these scripts.

Alonso and I always try to preserve a certain rhythm and a certain pace on the shots. For instance, episode 10 has a rhythm with its flashbacks, and then episode 11 is very different, and the ending of 11 and the beginning of 12 are part of the same hectic rhythm of the raid, when the soldiers are coming towards the flat. At some point in episode 11, the camera starts to move, and it continues moving, and we were very careful to keep the same pace on the dollies and handheld and Steadicam, so when you see it, it has a certain flow. Once it starts to move, it doesn't stop until the very end.

Senator Mon Mothma (portrayed by Genevieve O'Reilly, right) and her daughter, Leida (Bronte Carmichael), await the latter's wedding on Chandrila.

The show is called Andor, but it's not just Cassian's story — there’s an ensemble of characters each going through their own story arc. How did you navigate all of those story threads?

Nuyens: The thing is that we had a good amount of prep. With Luke Hull, Mohen [Leo, visual-effects supervisor] from ILM, we really discussed every character, every set. And for me, it’s nice that there are so many worlds and so many characters — I could play around. For example, the ISB [Imperial Security Bureau] office is bright and white and not a lot of colors, and the scene with Dedra in the apartment [on Coruscant], it's all white. And then you go to Yavin where everything is dark and gritty. And then you have the wedding [on Chandrila], which is beautiful and shiny. That was fun to play with all those different settings and planets and worlds. And when we found something, we tried to stick to it to keep it consistent.

Patten: The scale was immense, and yet it never wavers from Mr. Gilroy's writing. I'm very honored to be a part of that. The scripts are so razor sharp, and the dialogue is so to the point. There's no fat anywhere. It's just pure muscle.

It's extraordinary being on a show like Star Wars because the scale of the departments is so huge that you forget actually what's involved. You've got creature shops, you've got starships being built. You just go into another realm of filmmaking. It's its own galaxy, and yet, at the crux of it is a story centered around this one individual who carries this narrative across the galaxy. The naturalism and the fact that it is a story about people, I think that's key. It does go to the genre of science fiction, but it comes back to humanity, and you can relate. We might be in these amazing sets, but it's the humanity that really gels the narrative. To be involved in that and to dive into the construct of these worlds was an immense honor.

Series creator Tony Gilroy (left) with O'Reilly.

What does it mean to each of you personally to have worked on Andor and been part of this team?

Nuyens: It was an incredible experience, and I learned a lot. I had a lot of time to experiment with pre-lights and lenses, and it was so nice to work with ILM. It's important that on every job I do, I have the feeling I'm evolving and moving forward, discovering new things and new directors and new people. And that was definitely the case on Andor.

Patten: Standing on Yavin airbase and having the hardware surround you, being a bit of a Star Wars nut, I’d get there early in the morning before everybody was there and walk around by myself and just think, ‘Am I really here?’ The scale of that was palpable. Even if you're not a fan, you've got to pinch yourself. As a kid you watch it, then suddenly there you are with a droid or an X-wing pilot next to you. And it was an honor to work alongside everybody involved. These big shows rely on a cohesion between the heads of department as they're handed the baton to get through the course and finish the race. It was a very special project and something that I'm very, very proud of and so lucky to be involved in.

García: It was such a joyful process. I feel very proud because it's a show that I like very much. I met super-talented people, and I was able to work with amazing sets, amazing wardrobes, amazing scripts, amazing actors. For a cinematographer, to have a great director, a great crew and a great story is the best thing that can happen, the biggest joy that you can have.