Rogue One: A Star Wars Story doesn’t look like any Star Wars film you’ve ever seen. Gareth Edwards confirmed as much when speaking to press following the first day of Star Wars Celebration 2016, describing how he opted for a unique filming method when shooting the upcoming spin-off.
Though JJ Abrams took the helm of The Force Awakens, it was still immediately reminiscent of the style cemented by George Lucas. However, as indicated by Rogue One‘s sizzle reel, it looks quite a bit different from what we’ve come to expect from that Galaxy Far, Far Away. Edwards elaborated upon why this is the case, revealing that the film had been shot in 360 degrees.
Edwards said: “We went to Jordan to film and we built this set in Pinewood that was 360 degrees, so you could kind of look wherever you wanted. Normally on a set the extras are told, ‘Okay on action you walk over there and on cut you stop,’ and we said, ‘Okay for the next hour you’re cooking food, or you’re doing this car thing,’ and the crew were wearing costumes so if the cameras turned around on them, they wouldn’t be in the shot.”
He continued: “We tried to keep it all flowing and the actors were given the freedom to go where they wanted and do the scene in a way that felt right. So there’s a lot of freedom and it had this organic, different vibe to it than you associate sometimes with Star Wars, and so that felt really exciting. As a fan, I wanted to go to these places. It’s gotta feel right, that’s what was a massive learning experience.”
However, Edwards noted how introducing a unique filming style into such a well-established formula had its problems, concluding: “There’s such a fine line in Star Wars – if you go just slightly to the left it’s not Star Wars, it’s another sci-fi movie that doesn’t feel right. And if you go slightly to the right, you’re just copying what George [Lucas] did. So trying to navigate this thing where it’s new but feels fresh was like the dance that was the process of making the film.”
Watch the new footage from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story below:
