The special effects director for The Bad Batch highlights how every animated Star Wars show influences those to come.
In an interview with StarWars.com, Joel Aron, the cinematography lighting & VFX director for The Bad Batch, noted how certain approaches carried over from earlier projects, such as Tales of the Jedi, into the second season of The Bad Batch.
For example, Aron first implemented the anamorphic lensing style, a wide-screen format that allows for a refined depth of field and the ability to add layers of film grain artificially, in Tales of the Jedi, before adapting them to also work for The Bad Batch.
“When we were starting Bad Batch, we were finishing the last season of The Clone Wars, and there was also overlap with Tales of the Jedi,” Aron explained. “We’re pushing the limits of what we can do within our sandbox to make this show. Our timeline to make one episode hasn’t changed since Clone Wars. We have a matter of weeks to complete all the lighting, mattes, and VFX. At the same time, there are multiple episodes in progress, and we don’t stop between the seasons. We keep going.”
It’s this fusing of styles and constant learning that keeps cohesion between different Star Wars titles, as well as means the animation is always improving as more TV shows come out.
