Summary
Dave Filoni’sAhsokaseries was nominated for five Emmy Awards. The Disney+ series essentially picked up after the events of the animatedStar Wars Rebelsseason 4, although plenty of elements and characters fromStar Wars: The Clone Wars(including Ahsoka Tano herself) were central to the story. The series certainly looked likeStar Wars, and was nominated largely for categories that celebrated that fact, like costuming and makeup.
One of the categories in whichAhsokawas nominated for an Emmy was “Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Season Or A Movie”. It’s not hard to see why, given that the series features fantastical new worlds, space fights, and the return ofAnakin Skywalker, among others. These achievements were accomplished by a number of VFX vendors under the supervision of VFX supervisor Richard Bluff.
Ahsoka’s Age & Full Star Wars Timeline - From The Clone Wars To The Disney Plus TV Show
As one of Star Wars' most beloved characters, Ahsoka Tano has quite a storied history in the franchise. Here’s her timeline and her age explained.
Bluff has worked with Filoni since the filmmaker first made the jump from animation to live-action, collaborating with the director on bothThe MandalorianandThe Book of Boba FettbeforeAhsoka. In conversation withScreen Rant, Bluff detailed their rapport, revealing the way in which Filoni tasked his collaborators with translating animation to the “real” world. Bluff also reflected onAhsoka’s unique lightsaber colors, Clone Wars series, and more.
Richard Bluff Talks Bringing Animation To Live-Action In Ahsoka
Screen Rant: You worked onThe Mandalorian, so you’ve been there with Dave Filoni since he’s made his transition from animation to live action.How did you two work together in taking all the things he used to be able to do with his imagination and making them work in live action with VFX?
Richard Bluff: You’re right, I was there. In fact, I took a picture. I was stood next to Dave moments before he said “Action” for the first time ever as a live-action filmmaker on the set of The Mandalorian. He was the director of episode 1, and the first thing that we shot on that show was the big battle at the end of episode 1 where Mando comes across Grogu for the first time. I was stood next to him, and took a picture of him prior to him saying “Action” for the first time, so I’ve been with him from the very beginning of his live action career.
For me, it’s a case of doing a lot of listening and watching how he works. I’m watching the kinds of things that he’s quite clearly supremely confident with—his characters, the storytelling, scene blocking—and then making sure that I can provide him with as much visibility on our process as possible to make sure that he can influence what we’re doing as often as he wants and needs to. Some filmmakers really want to see every step. Using the analogy of cooking, they’d be tasting the recipe every few minutes, after every single ingredient is added. I had to figure out how Dave wanted to work. Working on The Mandalorian shows with him as he was directing was a case of, “How much is too much information and how much is not enough?” and then finding out what he wants to do.
By the time we got to Ahsoka, we’d been working together for over five years, and it was a very smooth transition into Dave becoming the showrunner, the sole writer across those series, and the director of two episodes. Again, it was me making sure that our team and I were providing him with everything that he needs to make sure he’s influencing the visual effects in the most productive way for him, because that’s the best way to get his visuals on the screen.
Because so much of the stuff in Ahsoka is lifted fromRebels, is there a general process that you had in terms of making those things feel like they were real and had weight and had mass in this world?
Richard Bluff: To a certain extent. Let me back up from there just one second. It’s similar to what I’ve described in the sense that Dave brought elements of his characters from animation into The Mandalorian and into The Book of Boba Fett before we arrived at Ahsoka. I obviously watched Rebels and Clone Wars, but what had become clear to me was that there’s only so much you can actually absorb, because you don’t know what elements and what characters are going to get pulled into his storytelling. You can’t take everything in. Fortunately, there are a number of folks on the show that work on the visual effects side who are very familiar with the characters, but what was interesting when we first started pulling some of those characters into live action is that Dave wasn’t always interested in doing a copy of them.
A lot of times—and it was quite often—he would say, “That’s how animation interprets the story. That’s how animation interprets the characters written in the script. I want live action to interpret that character.” So, it’s not immediately obvious that we take what was in animation, then do a live-action version, and kind of copy it back and forth and make sure all those elements are in there. We have to ask Dave, “How much do you want to bring in from animation?” Sometimes it’s a lot, sometimes it’s a little, and sometimes it’s none at all, so that’s super important. By the same token, you’ve also got the artwork that Doug Chiang’s team develops well ahead of when we actually get into visual effects shop production.
Bluff On The “Mystique” And Uniqueness Of Baylan Skoll’s Orange Lightsaber
WhenAhsokawas coming out, there was a lot being made of the lightsabers and the lightsaber colors, especially for Baylan and Shin. Even Dave acknowledged there was a very specific reason. Can you share how that was explained to you?
Richard Bluff: I can explain to you the things that really affected us. It was clear from the very beginning, it was in the artwork, that Dave wanted to go with a more orange color for Baylan. The other thing is that Dave wanted to bring in a different sized lightsaber, a much longer double-handed lightsaber, which was an interesting thing. You would have to speak to Dave personally to understand his thoughts behind that, but broadly speaking, he wanted to verify that Baylan was kind of set apart from what had come before, because Baylan’s character is really mysterious. His motivations are really mysterious, and not all of it was answered in season one. I felt like the lightsaber was an extension of that—the mystique behind this particular character.
For us, it was interesting from the perspective that if this lightsaber is so long, and it’s double-handed, oftentimes it’s moving through the air slower than a one-handed lightsaber would be. That would obviously affect the stunt choreographers and how they were developing those particular fights, but it also affected us in visual effects. We had to [ask ourselves questions like], “When do we need to do those additional speed ramps to speed up the film to make sure it feels like he’s coming down with force, but also he’s not leaving himself exposed?” There’s a beat or two that the audience sees where you question, “Why didn’t somebody just lunge at him in that moment where he’s got the big double-handed lightsaber behind his head?” All those things became a consideration. But, to your original point, the biggest challenge was the color. The biggest challenge is always the colors with lightsabers, because it’s not straightforward. If you put all the Star Wars shows and movies back-to-back, you’ll notice the execution of lightsabers, and the look of them… they breathe. Let’s just say they aren’t all the same.
There are reasons why, whether it’s the technology at the time or the specific aesthetic of the filmmaker. Once we sat with Dave, we went through and said, “What’s the aesthetic that you want to achieve?” and he was very clear. He wanted to have a version that felt like George’s original, but with all the trappings that you get from the techniques we can apply today. For example, the sparks were a big deal to Dave—the single-frame flashes—but also the control that we had over the core of the lightsaber. They should always be white or white-ish, as close to white as you can get, and then fade into the color. That’s characteristic of a lightsaber, which then emits that particular color of light. That was always really, really, really important. You’d be surprised to hear there was a considerable amount of work that went into those lightsabers and in making templates for all the vendors that worked across the season to make sure that we’re all following the same template.
We would have a collection of the shots that Dave felt were really working well, and we would constantly share that grouping of shots with all the vendors to ensure that they understood where the bar was and why. And T.C. Harrison, who was my associate VFX supervisor on the show, because he came from a compositing background, worked on a lot of those looks at the beginning of the show as a test to [turn into] templates toforsome of the vendors that hadn’t had the experience that ILM does with working on lightsabers.
Bluff Reflects On Lessons Learned From De-Aging Luke Skywalker
It was great to see Hayden Christensen back. You didThe Book of Boba FettandThe Mandalorian, so you’ve worked with de-aging these iconic characters. Was there anything that you learned working with Luke and Mark Hamill that you were able to improve on for the Hayden Christensen appearance?
Richard Bluff: I think what we learned is the impact doing too much can have. When we were working on Luke Skywalker, we obviously were able to do a range of aging, and for that particular character, there was a significant amount of work that we did. And it was less de-aging. It was more face-swapping, because Mark Hamill, in the vast majority of the scenes, was playing off-camera and coaching our double on set, because the posture of the double needed to be someone of that same age. So, that was a different solve. But through all of that exploration and all the work that we did—and, though I wasn’t involved, the work that was done on Obi-Wan—you start to hear what audiences feel takes them out of the story. What is subtle, what’s too much, and what’s not enough.
At the very beginning of Ahsoka, it was clear that what we needed to do was to make sure that all the heads of department were working together. [They] did a really wonderful job with the World Between Worlds, testing how much light was enough light and how much light was complimentary to both of the actors on set. Everybody’s seen people put flashlights underneath their chin and make creepy faces, right? That’s effectively what the lighting was in the World Between Worlds. But [they] did some really smart early dev moving those light sources away from the platforms, away from where they appeared in the final image, to make sure that it was complimentary to both performances and made a pretty picture. Once we got those dailies back, there was very little we all felt we needed to do to Anakin.
Lola (VFX) worked with us on that particular scene to do the de-aging, and they gave us a range. They gave us an extreme version of de-aging and they gave us just a little, and Dave always gravitated towards very little. Once we had a couple of shots that we felt told the story of what we were doing with that character, Dave wanted to bring Hayden in and have Hayden see the work to make sure he felt comfortable with what we were doing. He was very gracious in giving us his thumbs-up, and feeling like it was the character that he played in Revenge of the Sith and prior to that. Clearly, he knows. He was there, he knows how he performed, he knows how he moved, and he knows better than anybody how he looked. So, it was a very collaborative experience and a very respectful experience—we hope—because when you’re dealing with face swapping and de-aging, you have to involve the actor. You have to involve as many people as you’re able to in making those decisions to make sure that’s what we want to see.
“This Is Her Memory”: Bluff Details Why Ahsoka Didn’t Have A Bigger Clone Wars Flashback
With theClone Warsflashback, it was very cool to see that era be revisited with a more mature lens. Can you talk about where you wanted to pick up fromAttack of the Clonesand where you wanted to make your own version of that?
Richard Bluff: It was very little to do with, I think, what visual effects wanted to do and everything to do with what Dave was imagining. Those were some of the most important scenes to him when he was writing the scripts. When he would send me text messages about where he was at with a particular script or what was coming down the pipe, he was always kind of teasing me, “Hey, get ready for Howlers. They’re coming.” I knew very, very early on that he wanted to have this flashback sequence, and he was constantly prepping me in terms of why it was important, what was important about it, and what the story was that he was trying to tell. The interesting thing about that particular scene is the fact that because it is a flashback, Dave wanted to do as much as he could to make the visuals not give away information the young Ahsoka wouldn’t necessarily know.
For example, when you look into the background, he didn’t want it to be abstract, but he didn’t want it to be clear. He didn’t want to distract the audience from what the memory would be by putting things in the background that are just too cool or too interesting. Looking back at the Clone War battles in Attack of the Clones, you could watch a different part of the screen and go, “Wow, look at the battle down there,” and that’s what those shots were intended to do. That’s not what Dave wanted to do, because it all came down to what story he was telling in the moment, which was trying to pay homage to what’s happened before but also tell a story from Ahsoka’s point of view.
She wouldn’t be paying any attention to what’s going on over there, because she’s in the moment in the foreground with Anakin. That’s why you see things in the background that just appear to you. The tanks appear as a silhouette. Is it a feeling that she knew there was a tank over there because she heard the explosion, or did she see it? Because we show very little of it—it flashes in a moment, then disappears—we hope the audience picks up on what it is that Dave’s trying to do in those moments. This is her memory.
One Key Scene In Ahsoka Was Inspired By Inception
The last scene I want to bring up is the one where Ahsoka is defending her ship from the hull. She’s having a lightsaber battle in outer space, which feels very close to something you’d see in animation. How did that come together?
Richard Bluff: You’re the first person to ask a question about that sequence, and it was one of the most challenging. It was always going to be, in Dave’s mind, a sequence that would be featured more in animation than it would in live action. The challenge was, “What do we bring from a practical shooting perspective and visual effects perspective to verify that we ground it in reality as much as possible without taking away the charm of what that sequence is?” which is the kind of beat that you would see every week in the Clone Wars or even in Rebels.
Right from the get-go, the thing that I was constantly wrestling with was how to put physics back into the scene. A lot of times we would talk to Dave about the rules behind how much gravity there is. “Should we be in the upper atmosphere for the stunt, or should we be in space?” We had to be in space because that was where the story was being told, so there were conversations about things like, “Are there boots helping her stay on the surface?” and “What helps her do the flip when she gets out the way?”
One of the things that we talked about very quickly was something that Scott Fisher, the special effects supervisor, had been involved in: the rotating hallway in Inception where the hallway and the camera remain locked, but the characters are kind of moving around, so you start to question what gravity’s actually doing. [It was] for that one particular moment where she kind of does a backflip, we started to develop a practical execution where the idea was that she was leaping off the wing, and it was the fin of the T-6 that effectively catches her, and she’s propelling herself through there.
What she’s not doing is a backflip where then, all of a sudden, magic boots are pulling her back down. It’s the idea that she knows the geography of the ship, and she’s doing the flip, and if the wing wasn’t there, she would just keep going, The wing catches her because she does a backflip. So, we did this pretty elaborate rig on set where Ahsoka’s stunt performer Chau (Naumova) was able to do a flip, we had the camera locked to the rig, and we had an elaborate overlay with the ship. Through a lot of trial and error, we got something that we felt was plausible. A lot of times it’s a case of the impression of what you see rather than the logic of what it is that you’re seeing, but it was challenging to get the visual effects into that headspace because we just want to throw logic at everything, as Dave would often remind us.
“He Watches It Regularly”: Bluff On Finding Pride In Dave Filoni’s Joy
Do you have a moment from the show you’re most proud of?
Richard Bluff: It’s a hard question to answer because in every episode and every sequence, there are moments. But I think the most pride I get is when I hear Dave talk about his pride in the show and the fact that it took such a long time for him to kind of bring his characters into a live action series. I’ve worked very, very closely with Dave for five years, and I’ve heard for many years what he wants to do and how he wants audiences to react.
[I’m glad] to know that he’s very proud of the work. And he watches it regularly. He texted me a couple of days ago that he watched an episode again, and he again passed along how grateful he was for all the work that the visual effects team did, which I hopefully try and pass along. That’s where the pride comes from, because of how much work Dave puts in, how good his scripts are, and how well-developed and thought out the visuals are. To hear Dave tell us that we elevate his expectations, that’s it. That’s as much as I can do, and that’s where my gratification comes from.
About Ahsoka
Ahsoka follows Ahsoka Tano, former padawan of Anakin Skywalker as she investigates a growing threat to the New Republic, Grand Admiral Thrawn. With help from her allies from the days of the Rebellion, Ghost crew members Sabine Wren and Hera Syndulla, they will hunt for this familiar threat while also searching for their friend, the lost Jedi Ezra Bridger.
Also check out our interview withAhsokacostume team membersElissa Alcala & Devon Patterson.
Ahsoka
Cast
Ahsoka follows the journey of former Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy. Released in 2023, this series takes place within the Star Wars universe and features Ahsoka navigating through a complex political and cosmic landscape.
