How The Star Wars Visions Season 2 Sith Short Uses Color To Convey Hope And Darkness
The Disney+ animated short anthology "Star Wars: Visions" will be back with its second season in early May. In season 1, we were shown some gorgeous shorts set in the "Star Wars" universe by Japanese studios. For season 2, "Star Wars: Visions" is going worldwide for inspiration. On the final day of "Star Wars" Celebration, fans were treated to a "Star Wars: Visions" panel, which gave us a new trailer for the nine new shorts, a few cast reveals, and key art. The filmmakers, including Rodrigo Blaas of Spain's El Guiri animation studio, were on hand to discuss their shorts and some of the things they wanted to get across.
Blaas's episode is the first one in the lineup, and it's entitled "Sith." Though we still have to wait for a little under a month to see these, you get enough of a glimpse from the new trailer to see how much "Sith" stands out in terms of its color palate. As you can see from the images here, the short is awash with warm color tones, including reds, oranges, and yellows, on top of all the black accents. It has the feel of a fire planet like Mustafar. /Film was on hand at the "Star Wars: Visions" panel, where Blaas talked about the choice to use these colors.
' We want to be bold in our choices'
During the panel, Rodrigo Blaas was asked about his short, which he wrote and directed. Blaas explained:
"We really wanted to be respectful [to] the specific mythology, the lore of 'Star Wars,' but at the same time we want to be bold in our choices. And there were two things that were very important for us. One was, again, [to] be bold in our choices in filmmaking, the language, but also, we talked a lot about color in this short. [...] What if we could use a palette of red into orange to yellow to convey hope and darkness? And that's what we tried to [do] for different frames of this short."
Blaas also said that they tried to reference "Star Wars" lore in things like the architecture, the objects around the characters, and the swordsmanship. You can see in the trailer there's a sense of heaviness around the clips from "Sith" (which appear near the beginning), like a pressure you can't escape. There is very little that relieves the yellow, orange, and red, and even the character who appears to be a Jedi has a yellow lightsaber. That color exists on the light side of the Force, but it definitely adds to that sort of smokey/fiery tone that looks like a landscape in hell.
Lucasfilm
Even in the corridors that the short's character fight in, you get the same oppressive feeling. The light coming off their lightsabers looks like what would happen if you peeled a crayon, turned it on its side, and rubbed it across a page, or smeared paint across a screen. It immediately makes you focus on the palate. I would imagine that the "hope" side of things happens later in the short.
Color as language
Reds, oranges, and yellows can signal warmth and comfort if used in a softer way, but here we see them as danger, fire, and anger. The little pops of white look blinding or like white hot metal that will melt anything in sight. Even in the short clips we get in the trailer, you feel uncomfortable watching (in a good way), and the tension and danger are clear.
I really like the fact that the animation in these pieces is more varied than in the first season. Not that I didn't love those clips. It's just nice to see the expansion of styles. "Star Wars" lore is pretty vast; as we've seen from series like "Andor" and "The Mandalorian," as well as the long history of animation in the "Star Wars" universe, it can support stories in different styles and genres. Plus, the franchise is always better off when fresh ideas are introduced.
In addition to Rodrigo Blaas, "Star Wars: Visions" season 2 will includes shorts by Paul Young from Ireland's Cartoon Saloon, Gabriel Osorio from Chile's Punkrobot, Magdalena Osinska from the United Kingdom's Aardman, Hyeong-Geun Park from South Korea's Studio Mir, Julien Chheng from France's Studio La Cachette, Milind Shinde from India's 88 Pictures, LeAndre Thomas from Japan's D'ART Shtajio, and Nadia Darries from South Africa's Triggerfish.
"Star Wars: Visions" season 2 will premiere on May 4, 2023, aka May the 4th.