Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500164
A N D O R | P E R S P E C T I V E 5 1 designing Andor frustrating, but in total contrast, after setting out our stall for the grittier look of the show, I have received nothing but support. It's now 2023 and my team and I are halfway through the second and final season of Andor. I still speak to Tony nearly every day to push ideas back-and- forth and everything we're designing is totally fresh and new from season one. Tony, Sanne Wohlenberg (the executive producer) and I were keen from the start to try and do something a bit different with Andor. I did not want to change or obliterate the Star Wars aesthetic, but rather attempt to subvert it, play with it and reframe it, to make it work with Tony's writing, which was much more domestic, character-led and complex. I also felt everyone knows what Star Wars looks like now, so I don't need to focus on showing that or being sucked into that as a central concern. I wanted to make worlds that I felt could exist in this galaxy, I wanted to be able to walk through them with our characters on screen, they needed to be fleshed out and detailed. I remember being very phobic of any design that felt like we were walking into a piece of concept art like an arena to play out a scene. The Volume is an interesting tool, but Tony's writing did not suit that approach, so the series was keen early on to build sets that offered scale through scope, and to try and use locations more. The production threw a lot of ideas up at the start, we kicked the project off with a writer's room as we essentially started from scratch, so the writing and the design were developing alongside each other, which is such an enjoyable way to work. I remember wanting to stay away from "familiar" Star Wars territory such as spaceships and deserts, and Tony's writing put the story into people's apartments and day-to-day work environments. Finding interest and detail by zoning in on the minutiae of the galaxy. We had, however, set ourselves quite a complex task. Mundane everyday environments don't immediately gel with the A. FERRIX: PLAZA TOP. CONCEPT ILLUSTRATION. BY CHESTER CARR. B. FERRIX: RIX ROAD EXTERIOR SITE PLAN. MODEL BY ART DEPARTMENT TEAM. LEAD MODEL MAKER ALEX HUTCHINGS. B