Star Wars has just released a new animated show and it’s special. Maul – Shadow Lord is here and it is an exciting crime thriller that follows one of Star Wars’s most unconventional protagonists.
The creativity is off the charts for this show, and I was able to speak to the team behind that vision; about their thoughts when crafting the complexity of this series. I heard from Executive Producer Athena Yvette Portillo, Writer Matt Michnovetz, and Supervising Director Brad Rau, about what went into the creation of Maul – Shadow Lord.
The entire team was excited to share their vision in creating the backdrop of Janix, fight sequences, and more.
Maul has so much to offer as a lead, so I asked the team what was the best part of working with a character like Maul.
“I think how it brought us all together as a team,” said show EP Athena Portillo. “And the collaboration of incorporating Sam Witwer into the making the character authentic, keeping the character authentic. Getting to witness all those collaborations have been a lot of fun.”
Brad Rau, the supervising director chimed in, “We knew we wanted to show a vulnerable side of Maul. We were all really fascinated with that. Witwer was really fascinated with that. And the more we talked, the more we started making the show. And we expanded some of those moments slightly in a fascinating way.”
The animation style has been a big talking point after the first trailer drop, which got me interested in the thought process behind the animation of the series.
Athena Portillo broke it down, “We’ve been wanting to upgrade the body mechanics and the facial animation for quite a while now, and we had a good development lead up time to that. So the first thing we did was go into the character rigs to try to see what was missing in terms of pivot points and blend shapes. Once we upgraded those, then we, also, were able to upgrade the body mechanics and the animation. We were able to ask Sam if he could please provide us with video reference that we then utilized as reference and for his nuances and emotion through the character. So that was that was a lot of fun.”