Visual Effects Supervisor Richard Bluff is well known for his work at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) dating back to his time as a digital matte artist and more recently as a lead visual effects supervisor on such films such as Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), The Island (2005), Transformers (2007-11), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Star Trek (2009), Avatar (2009), The Avengers (2012), Pacific Rim (2013), The Big Short (2015) and Doctor Strange (2016), for which he received an Academy Award nomination.
He is equally well known today for his incredible visual effect supervision and collaboration on the various complex Star Wars TV series on Disney+. He helped pioneer ILM’s LED volume StageCraft, and is a close and long-time collaborator with Ahsoka showrunner Dave Filoni, – as you can hear in this week’s Fxpodcast – when we discuss ILM’s work on the hit series.
Thanks to ILM and Disney, we decided to provide a gallery (Galaxy?) of behind the scenes images to enjoy while you listen to the fxpodcast. (You’re welcome!)
Hayden Christensen returned on this season of Ahsoka, reprising his role as everyone’s “favorite podracer-turned-Jedi-turned-interstellar-baddie”. Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker appeaered in episodes 4 and 5, reuniting with his former Jedi apprentice Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson).
ILM handed so many complex tasks for this show, but the return of Anakin will go down as one of the great sequences for both it’s technical execution and as a huge fan favourite.
ILM used blue, green and also grey screens in many of these sequences due to the use of real smoke on set. As Richard Bluff explains in the fxpodcast, it was creatively important to have the massive 3D sets extensions only just be able to be seen – as if in a dream, during these sequences.
Hayden Christensen is considerable older than the version of Anakin he had to play, yet the actor is in such great shape, the team at ILM did not have to use deaging visual effects on the actor.
Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker required very little digital makeup, except with his eyes in some scenes as we discuss in the fxpodcast.
The challenge for the comp team was working with such a great amount of smoke and volumetic lighting.
The purrgil are space whales, and they had a key role to play in this season of Ahsoka.
The purrgil, ‘space whales’ were first introduced in The Mandalorian season 3. The purrgil are a kind and sentient species that live in deep space and can travel between star systems.
For ILM and Richard Bluff giving the purrgil scale was always going to be an issue, hence the use of clouds in the earlier shots.
As with nearly all Star Wars properties, ILM needed to generate a lot of highly detailed ships and craft.
Above is the previs and below the final shot.
Richard Bluff decided quickly that not only would the team use motion control ‘bucks’ but also horses this season.
Shot during COVID, the principle photograpy team could not shoot in Scotland or on any European locations.
In addition to space ships and light sabre fights, ILM did a lot of environment work for Ahsoka.
Ahsoka on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
