The Acolyte

Project Overview

“The majority of our work for The Acolyte would take place in episode 1 and 2, including the interior and exterior work on the Palwick prison ship and Osha’s arrest,” Outpost VFX Supervisor Oliver Winwood explains.

Set approximately 100 years before the Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace and marking the end of the High Republic era, The Acolyte follows a respected Jedi Master investigating a shocking crime spree which ultimately pits him against a dangerous warrior from his past.

Outpost’s scope of work for the series ranged from 3D assets to CG environments and set extensions, character augmentation and more. “In the first episode we were responsible for augmenting the warden droid,” Winwood continues. The team were tasked with adding a droid digi-double to a number of shots and building its internal wiring and features in 3D which would be revealed when one of the convicts attacks the droid.

It is this sequence where Outpost also augmented a practical alien character with a tentacle on the top of its head. “In this sequence, the alien with the tentacle rips the droids head off,” Winwood explains. The tentacle was built in 3D using elements of a squid for reference, for example the tentacle was designed with suckers on the underside, and the movement of the tentacle borrowed squid-like characteristics, such as the squeezing and stretching movement of muscle.

“Further creature work would include the Dybbuk; a creature that is used on prisoners to subdue them,” Winwood continues. The Dybbuk is a four-legged, semi-translucent amorphous creature which attaches itself to its target using a probe that comes from its ‘mouth’ on its underside. Through this probe, the Dybbuk secretes a substance that pacifies its victim.

“This whole sequence is following the prison ship as it bounces around in an asteroid field with the ship taking damage,” Winwood explains. “The ship is then sucked into the gravitational field of the planet Carlac, where it crashes on the surface.

“For the prison ship itself, we started with the concept art, working closely with the Production VFX Supervisor, Julian Foddy, to flesh out the design, adding elements such as panelling and various other details, taking inspiration from other ships in the Star Wars universe,” Winwood explains.

“As for the planet Carlac, it had previously been featured in The Clone Wars so we had a starting point for the look of the planet and then we were given creative license to flesh out the makeup of the planet further, being conscious of the fact that it shouldn’t look like Hoth,” Winwood continues.

“Once on the planet we were then tasked with expanding the environment of the practical set for a number of shots, particularly within the Carlac snowy environment,” Winwood explains. These often included cleaning up some of the stunt shots, removing wires, bluescreens and crash mats, creating a high level of danger.

“We also added environmental effects such as snow and spindrift,” Winwood continues. “Examples of this include the full-CG establishers of the crashed ship; the arrival of the Jedi ship, the Polan; the chase through the snowy environment into the caves; and the Polan leaving the planet at the start of episode 2.”

Outpost Compositing Supervisor Antonio Ramos says of his time on the project:

To work on a show within the Star Wars universe is an aspiration of almost every VFX artist, so working on The Acolyte was a dream come true for me, especially as we were able to work on a part of the story which hadn’t been explored before.

“The collaboration with the CG and DMP departments was essential to be able to create a work methodology that was easily adaptable to all shots, also counting on the support of a wonderful team of compositors made up of artists from London, Montreal and Mumbai,” he concludes.