There’s more Star Wars content than ever these days, with the Andor release date just around the corner, but the new Star Wars series does something a little different to its predecessors. We spoke to the writer of the show, Tony Gilroy, about his decision not to use The Volume technology.
Ever since the sci-fi series The Mandalorian used The Volume to create its stunning scenery, various TV series from the Star Wars franchise have utilised the technology to great effect. With Andor though, this technology wasn’t used, and we were curious why this might be.
In an interview with The Digital Fix, Gilroy, who also wrote the Star Wars movie Rogue One, told us exactly why The Volume wasn’t part of the production process for Andor.
“There’s a lot of misinformation about that. The Volume is an amazing development in filmmaking, and it’s just going to get better and better and cheaper and easier to use. The problem with it is, you kind of have to make a choice about what kind of show you’re going to make. Maybe a big movie like Bond or something can say ‘okay we’re going to do these three scenes on The Volume and the rest we’re going to do for real.’ We didn’t have that opportunity,” Gilroy said.
“Our workflow is very much an either-or situation. The Volume means you do all the post-production work first, and then you shoot your plates and do everything on the stage and then you’re done,” Gilroy explained. “For us, we go out and shoot, shoot, shoot, and then we add all the post after. It’s not a good workflow mix, so there’s no opportunity to do both; there’s times we’d like to but you just can’t.”
You’ll have to wait until September 21 to see whether that decision to abandon The Volume was the right one, when the first three episodes of Andor drop on the streaming service Disney Plus.
Until then, why not check out our interview with Andor star Diego Luna. Or, for more general Star Wars content, take a look at our list of the best Star Wars characters.