96 - The Creator - With Director Gareth Edwards and his Effects Team

The Filmumentaries Podcast

I hope you enjoyed my archival interview episodes in December 2023, one with Producer Robert Watts, the other with actor Garrick Hagon.
Well now we are back to some recent interviews, I can tell you I’ve been busy lining these up ready for 2024!
So… for the first, its a pretty big one, well it’s a very big one - Thanks to the lovely folks at ILM, I was given the chance to interview director Gareth Edwards and his FX crew on The Creator.
I’d be trying to get Gareth on via a mutual friend of ours but given Gareth is currently doing press about the nominations the film has received, so it was perfect timing.
So you’ll hear my conversion with Gareth along with VFX supervisors Jay Cooper, Ian Comley, Charmain Chan, Andrew Roberts and Jay Cooper as well as SFX supervisor Neil Corbould.
There is an exclusive video version of the podcast on the filmumentaries youtube channel so that you can see all of us talking while I paint the interviews with some of the VFX breakdown clips ILM kindly provided. So if you can, head over to youtube to check that out.
So, we talk about:

• Gareth’s unique shooting techniques that enable large scope on a relatively low budget. And also the now famous use of the pro-sumer camera.
• How the collaboration between the on-set crew and VFX teams is crucial for achieving seamless integration of practical and digital elements.
• How anchoring VFX work to practical elements in the frame enhances the realism and believability of the visual effects.
• How real-world locations can provide inspiration and add authenticity to the film's design and visual effects.
• How the future of filmmaking with VFX lies in finding innovative ways to combine practical and digital techniques and finding the best tools to make the pipeline more efficient.
• We finish by talking about award recognition and what it means to them.

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