Secrets of Gorman, Mina-Rau and much more: The creation of the worlds of Andor. Season 2

Creator and executive producer Tony Gilroy, production designer and executive producer Luke Hull, and Industrial Light & Magic visual effects supervisor Mohen Leo introduce us to Gorman's expansive sets, the new farming planet of Mina Rau, the first live-action incarnation of Mon Mothma's homeworld Chandrila, and more.

When the first seasonAndor was released on Disney+ in the fall of 2022, the production team was already hard at work on the second. Production designer Luke Hull knew from the start that Season 2 would be another intense undertaking, and his team made sure to schedule in even more prep time than before. “It comes from the story and the characters and what’s on the page,” he explains of their approach toAndor’s grounded sense of design and construction. “It's about finding the tone that feels right for the story we want to tell. [Creator and executive producer Tony Gilroy's] approach has always been that every three episodes is a movie. You're trying to achieve that cinematic look that is typical of Star Wars.

“We covered a lot in the first season,” notes Tony Gilroy. “We did Ferrix and Aldani, and we did Narkina 5, and we did a little worked on Coruscant. And that seemed pretty broad, but we're going to go even further."

“With all the success of the first season, it is clear that there is a desire to somehow strengthen it in the second season,” adds Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) visual effects supervisor Mohen Leo. "Most of the original season one team is back... Season two is definitely more ambitious in terms of showing more...unique locations [and] visiting more places.”

Andor Season 2 features a diverse set of locations, including hands-on set design, prop creation, and extensive visual effects. Some places we have already visited now hold new surprises; another, known only by name, was shown for the first time; even more brand new ones. Let's dive into some of the locations and worlds featured in the series so far, including D'Qar, Ghorman, Yavin 4, Chadrila and Mina-Rau.

A familiar planet surrounded by... potatoes?

In the second arc of episodes from Season 2 of "Andor" - all directed by Ariel Kleiman and written by Beau Willimon - Vilmon Paak is sent to help the rebels contingent led by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker). Their current hideout is a familiar place: the grass-covered bunkers of D'Qar, a planet surrounded by asteroids first shown as a resistance base in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and later in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017). The same real-life location in England was used for filming - the World War II Royal Air Force base known as Greenham Common.

“It's still early, so it's not fully built yet. It's not really a rebel base yet,” notes ILM visual effects producer TJ Falls. “It’s just a place where a group of people set up camp and really got into a fight and somersaults. This is the same planet that we see in the films, but long before these films.And it just so happened that it was there that So rushed, and then he packed up and finally left.”

The views of D'Qar and his asteroid belt in space in Andor involved some of the same ILM team that created similar elements for The Last Jedi. And as visual effects supervisor Scott Pritchard explains, a special tribute to ILM's early work on Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) was dreamed up. “We had this idea to pay homage to the original ILM modelers and in particular the asteroid chase, where for some of the background asteroids they used potatoes when they were shooting the miniatures. So our director of environment, Guy Williams, took some potatoes, filmed them and made CG versions of them. There are several of them in the asteroid field around D'Qar.

Gorman was the biggest practical playground for the second season ofAndora

In a production dominated by hands-on construction and location shooting, Gorman became the second season's largest purpose-built set, similar in scale to Ferrix of the first season. “We decided we should focus our efforts on building a plaza in Gorman on location here in Pinewood,” explains production designer Luke Hull, “which then grew into a plaza and many street and off-street versions.So it quickly filled the field there.”

“Gorman is a really fun challenge because it’s a type of city we haven’t seen before in Star Wars,” says visual effects supervisor Mohen Leo. “Star Warsis often done with either small rural towns or, if they are big cities, futuristic, big cities. And Gorman is a big city, but it has so much history... rich traditions and culture that have been around for hundreds of years. He was influenced by places in Italy like Milan, Turin, this rich, proud textile culture."

For Hull, Ghorman is his proudest achievement in Season 2. The central plaza at Palmo was intended to serve multiple functions in different locations within the same larger set. “She had interiors as part of the area, such as the Ghorman Hotel lobby, the café and the IOC lobby,” Hull explains, “which were all built as one unit so that the action could flow freely between these spaces and give each a strong sense of geography.”

Leo adds that “Luke and his team have done a really good job of giving everything in Gorman a European, rich, upscale aesthetic and really contrasting with the brutalist imperial look. The Empire is building this brutal new headquarters building right next to the main square. So the set that was built in the backyard is this luxurious central square, and then digitally we add in post-production this construction site hanging over it."

Other digital artwork was incorporated into the process very early on, with the art department and ILM team collaborating using virtual environments for shot planning.“In season two, we had more previs and we were able to go through and plan shots in models of our sets as a team, which really helped,” says Hull. “It was very helpful for the director and cinematographer to be able to take a computer model of the sets in their correct geography and plan the sequence with Moeen and TJ.”

To expand Gorman's setting beyond the real-life sets, the ILM team filmed aerial shots of Lake Como in Italy, another location familiar to Star Wars fans from the coastal retreat on Naboo in the film Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (2002).

Not only world building, but also culture building.

Gorman is rich not only in its historical architecture, but also in its legendary culture, built on the weaving of precious webs collected from the spiders of this planet. Gorman twill is said to be the finest in the galaxy, and as Andora's creator and executive producer Tony Gilroy points out, even Emperor Palpatine's black tunic is made of the coveted material.

“We built a whole Gorman society,” says Gilroy. “It’s not just about creating the physical part of it. It's about creating a culture... We've developed a whole aesthetic, and a whole language, and a cultural identity, and a national anthem, and a history... The Gormans are very proper people, their customers come all the time. Luten sends Cassian there because for Luten, he says, the idea of ​​Gorman - comfortable, safe, rich Gorman - becoming radicalized is just... it's heaven for him. That's all he wants."

According to Hull, these story elements informed the final design of Gorman's appearance.“Tony wanted their success in the galaxy to be based on the production of fine Gorman twill, woven from the spiders that live on the planet, and that’s where everything came from,” explains the production designer. “The aesthetic transformed into an elegant European atmosphere of the interwar period. The idea was to try to create a place that felt like it could actually exist in the galaxy, but also felt fresh for Star Wars. You can feel the history of the Gormans."

The Empire is increasing its presence on Gorman for reasons known only to a select few under the command of Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). In response to this, an underground resistance movement formed. For the production team, each scene represents an opportunity to ground the narrative in rich context. For example, the meeting between Vel and Cinta with the organizers of The Resistance takes place in the basement of the Twillery building.

“We designed the table as if it were part of the Ghorman silk production,” notes decorator Rebecca Alleway. “The parts were there were [from old] machines that made twill. Apparently they didn't exist and my brilliant procurement team, Corina [Floyd] and Helen [Player], sourced some amazing equipment and kit. And Tim [Wildgoose], my amazing prop master HOD, put them together... It was a fun set because even though you never saw it as a tweel, we had to tell that they were using it as their secret headquarters.We kind of created this whole backstory."

Does this jungle look familiar to you?

Stealing TIE Avenger prototype from the test site Sienar Fleet Systems, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) manages to (barely) fly his ship to the rendezvous point in the dense jungle. However, his partner has gone missing, and in a twist of fate, Cassian is captured by a rival group of rebels, a cell that does not know Andor, and finds himself stranded on this unknown world. It is only after the group is attacked by a Yavin Dudar that Cassian manages to escape aboard his ship, and in a wide shot of the departing Avenger we see a familiar group of Massassi temples. This is Yavin 4. These structures first appeared in the film Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and were last seen most recently in the film “Rogue One. A Star Wars Story (2016), but how The Rebel Alliance managed to establish a secret base there remains a mystery.

“The origins of Yavin are open to debate,” says Gilroy, referring to the broader canon ofStar Warsstorytelling. “You spend two episodes there and you don’t realize until [Cassian] escapes that the jungle he was in... is undeveloped Yavin. This is raw Yavin."

Unusually for a TIE fighter, Hull's art department built a full-scale, practical ship for use during on-set filming.“The ship itself had a lot to do, so it seemed obvious from the beginning that we had to build a full interior [and] exterior ship,” explains the production designer. The structure is “disassembled into three parts, transported and sent to the Yavin Glade.” Leo adds that “it's one of those things that you don't usually see as a full-on, real set. You can actually go inside and sit in the booth.”

They seeded the field and then moved it.

A new planet for Star Wars audiences, Mina Rau became the home (and hideout) for Cassian, Bixa Kalina (Adria Arjona), Brasso (Joplin Sibtain), Wilmon Paak (Muhannad Bhayer) and, of course, the droid B2EMO. “I wanted to bring some sunshine and some bright sunshine into the show,” Gilroy says of the world’s creative spark, which also served as an answer to the underlying question of resources in the galaxy. “Where does all the food for Coruscant come from? They've been kicked out of a community that they really care about, and they've found a new place, and it's sunny and beautiful, and it's going to be taken away from them."

Like Ferrix, this is a world with close community ties built on a local economy that requires hard work. As Luke Hull notes, "The entire planet has been terraformed to grow one type of crop to feed the Empire... [Whether] the people are on the run or [born] there, they all live in these communes [and] are given a certain amount of land to farm and manage... but the grain goes off-world."

Hull was responsible for choosing the type of crop that would be grown on Mina Rau, eventually settling on a variety of ancient rye that could be sown in England.“Somehow we found a farmer and convinced him to grow it instead of wheat that year in his field,” explains the production designer. “Rich Hill, the location manager, found a very nice field, not far from the studio actually. It gave us great... skylines because obviously it had to look huge. We had to expand all of this in post-production.”

The film crew built a complete mobile home and assorted equipment in a rye field located near the small village of Watlington in Oxfordshire. However, before filming began on the main unit, the SAG-AFTRA strike began in the summer of 2023. That hasn't stopped the field from continuing to grow. The production's greens department had to improvise, cutting sections of grain from the field and storing them on a sound stage at Pinewood Studios. Various sets were then moved as scenes were not completed until the final week of filming in early 2024.

Star Warsin your home...

An important aspect of the narrative of Andor is the elements of everyday domestic life. We've seen hints of this in past stories, such as the food scenes in A New Hopeor Star Wars Episode I the Phantom Menace. The Phantom Menace (1999), but Andor integrates these mundane yet authentic qualities on a more complex scale. We've seen Coruscant many times before, but in this series we go to residential areas, shops and office spaces.Episode 2 depicts another of these places: the luxurious but rugged Dedra Meero ApartmentDedra Meero (Denise Gough), which she now shares with none other than from Cyril Karn (Kyle Soller).

"Tony's text is so different from anything that's been done in Star Wars" before, explains set designer Rebecca Elleway. “To be able to go further and develop the characters, develop their worlds, their homes, where they lived... I remember how excited I was to design my first kitchen Star Wars... It was such a big challenge. [We] always go back to what 'Star Wars' is, look at all the original references, and then draw the characters... That meant we just had to be really creative and find new ways for us to make these sets cluttered and real and characterful, but not in a conventional way."

Property expert Ben Wilkinson adds that home economists Catherine Tidy and Olivia Somari have been busy preparing various dishes needed for the season, including "fondue, but with some weird gelatinous bug" that Cyril's mother eats, Eady Karn (Catherine Hunter) when she puts on your awkward visit to the apartment.

Traditional mountain wedding.

Because it was filmed during a global pandemic, the first season of Andor did not include extensive location filming in countries outside the United Kingdom. This changed in the second season.Chandrila has existed in theStar Warscanon for many decades as the homeworld of Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly), but she has never been visually depicted in cinematic history. “You really just go on a journey to imagine where Mon Mothma and the Chandrilans came from,” comments executive producer Sanne Wohlenberg. “You're always looking for something new and fresh in the world of Star Wars.”

Mothma Estate is located in a mountainous region. Ultimately, the Montserrat Ridge, with its distinct spiky formations northwest of Barcelona, ​​Spain, was chosen as the location for real-world filming. The ceremonial walk before the wedding of Leidas of Mothma (Bronte Carmichael) and Stekan of Skuldun (Finley Glasgow) were filmed there, and various interiors of the estate were created in Pinewood. “It’s like the perfect landscape fromStar Wars,” comments Hull. “These are soft stones that seem fake or not very common in the world.”

For the design of the estate, Hull and the art department explored the unusual combination of historic Japanese stone castles and the minimalist, nature-infused architecture of Scandinavia. The ballroom, where the memorable wedding dance takes place, included a stone floor with a unique star map. “I've always felt that the best thing about the Chandrilans is that they take pride in their place in the universe,” Hull notes. “The idea was that the floor was like a star map of their position in the galaxy, which we made in a slightly smaller version on Coruscant [at the Chandrilan embassy]. Dance became the main focus, I think, for Tony and everyone else.This ballroom becomes more like an arena for many people to interact.”

To decorate the wedding, Elleway based it on the work she previously did for the Chandrilan Embassy in the first season. “Ikebana is the art of creating Japanese flowers,” she explains. “So I knew that if Mon made flowers for her daughter’s wedding, it would be like the ikebana flowers at the embassy. So I dove into it.”

As Wohlenberg summarizes, being able to create aspects of Chandrilan culture and tradition could mean a lot of interesting surprises and insight into the characters' emotions. “The way you clink your glasses when you give a speech, the way you applaud, the way [they] do all these things and the way they dance is what makes it a little extraterrestrial,” she says. “I think the big surprise that Tony somehow incredibly and so beautifully [presented] for Mon Mothma's journey is that the] very elegant and civilized Chandrilans actually let their hair down when it came to the wedding. It was a world up for grabs, and I think we took advantage of it.”