Blaster in hand, Felicity Jones’ battle-ready Jyn Erso stars in a behind-the-scenes photo for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but our new heroine arguably isn’t the biggest takeaway from this new action shot.
Hailing from Empire – and no, not that one – here we see Gareth Edwards adopting a hands-on approach as he captures a scene involving Jyn Erso and, presumably, some off-screen baddies. A director clutching on to a camera isn’t one to steal the headlines, of course, but the fact that Edwards is operating the rig lends him the chance to capture the action up close and personal, rather than orchestrating the sci-fi action from afar – or, as is often the case on studio movies, appointing a second unit director or another confidant to assume camera duties.
It’s all part of the filmmaker’s strategy to ensure Rogue One is “very naturalistic,” according to Felicity Jones, who told Empire that, “the whole methodology with Rogue One was to keep it very naturalistic. Gareth often holds the camera himself because he wants to be there with you. With Gareth we felt like we were all in it together.”
Jiang Wen, who’s on board as freelance assassin Baze Malbus, echoed that sentiment, while also spotlighting the director’s unyielding passion for Disney’s imminent anthology movie: “He shoots like he’s a character among us. He held the camera all day, and that thing’s heavy. And you realise he’s tired. But I can tell he has a very big passion inside. Because he still carried that thing the whole day, from beginning to end.”
Eyeing an opening weekend north of $130 million, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will zoom into US theaters sans opening crawl on December 16. Below you’ll find the spinoff’s most recent TV spot, which rallies the Rebels as they prepare to set foot on Scarif, the tropical planet on which Edwards’ gritty war movie takes place.