Star Wars: The Acolyte Cinematographer Talks Lightsabers and Collaborating With VFX Team

We talked to Chris Teague about filming lightsabers in The Acolyte.

By Jamie Jirak

Star Wars: The Acolyte is currently in the midst of releasing new episodes on Disney+, and four of the show's episodes saw cinematographer Chris Teague serving as the show's director of photography. Teague was responsible for the cinematography in "Lost/Found," "Revenge/Justice," "Day," and the upcoming fifth episode. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with Teague and he spoke about how he prepared to join the iconic franchise. He talked about revisiting the original trilogy, and how he "wanted to bring a little bit" of that "aesthetic" to the new series. Teague wanted to focus on practical effects, so we asked how he went about collaborating with the VFX team and – of course – about filming lightsabers. 

"Yeah, we had a great relationship," Teague said of the VFX team. "I learned so much from working with them and I feel like our ethos sort of became, as the show went on, 'We are going to provide as much as we possibly can to you in camera, and that's only going to help improve the visual effects.' If they can see some aspect of the frame that we got most of the way there, and then they can just add to it a little bit or evolve it or make it feel more, make the space feel a little bigger or more grand or something like that."

"I mean, that's what they would do," he added. "And they were so wonderfully easy to work with. I think my concern was that we would get into situations where if we felt like we had to replace a background, they would ask me to put blue screen behind everything. But they're just really talented and can take an existing set and just modify it. And I think the results are better that way where you don't have to create something entirely from scratch. You can use a lot of what's there and then just tweak it basically."

"The color is so key for my end of things," he added of filming lightsaber scenes. "It's really the color that the lightsaber projects because visual effects is going to replace the saber itself once they get the footage. But we did a ton of testing and we tested with multiple cameras, too. It was one of the first camera tests we did is, 'How does the saber look with three different camera bodies?' And that was a factor in our camera body choice, and 'How bright can we make it?' and 'What kind of flexibility do we have?'"

"But then the other thing you have to weigh against is the more light you add to these sabers, the heavier they get and your performers need to be working with them and be able to move them very quickly to convey that sense of action and drama on screen," Teague explained. "So it was about finding this almost like a literal balance of the saber so that it served our purposes and theirs as well." 

You can watch our interview with Chris Teague at the top of the page.

What Is The Acolyte About?

the-acolyte-recaps-spoilers-episode-2.jpg
(Photo:

The Acolyte poster. 

- Lucasfilm)

Set during The High Republic, Star Wars: The Acolyte delivers an investigation into a mysterious string of crimes, which pits a Jedi master against his former apprentice in a race to uncover the truth. The more that the pair learn about the situation, the darker their journey becomes, as they confront things that darker than either of them could have imagined.

Related:

The series stars Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, Joonas Suotamo, and Carrie-Anne Moss.

Stay tuned for more from our interview with Chris Teague. The first four episodes of Star Wars: The Acolyte are now streaming on Disney+ with the fifth episode scheduled to drop on Tuesday, June 25th. 

Trending Now: