‘Star Wars’ Animation Director Keith Kellogg Discusses Working on ‘The Bad Batch’
Star Wars animation director Keith Kellogg has worked on various Star Wars series, including Rebels, The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, and Tales of the Jedi. Kellogg’s team is responsible for the animation that brings the main characters to life, and in a recent interview for StarWars.com, he elaborated on the work they do:
“We really try and make sure that all those characters you see on the screen come to life and emote in ways that hopefully move you in different ways, whether it’s fearful, or sad, or happy.”
He’s particularly fond of working on the episode titled The Solitary Clone, which features battle droids and droidekas in situations reminiscent of his work on The Clone Wars and its classic action scenes:
“It was so much fun. It was awesome. It was like going back again.”
Working on the clones creates challenges for his team, such as giving each member of Clone Force 99 specific mannerisms:
“Dee Bradley Baker does such a great job with the voices… Hunter is very much the leader, so we try to make him always seem very confident. And we really try, through the motion and through their expressions, to really keep them separate enough so you know who’s doing what.”
Kellogg says one of the most challenging episodes to work on was Entombed. Animating the puzzles and the booby traps required a lot of teamwork. When discussing the wider team, Kellogg refers to the creators who help his team bring the Bad Batch to life, such as animation lead Guido Muzzarelli and cinematography, lighting, and VFX director Joel Aron:
“We really try and make concerted efforts on the animation side to really keep pushing, trying to create something that’s epic. Obviously, we have Star Wars as our DNA, and that’s what Star Wars did. It pushed visual effects in new directions every time it came out”.
Kellogg says that one of the best things about his job is seeing how fans react to their work and how much Star Wars means to people:
“Not a lot of people get to work on something like Star Wars that has such a reach. And I think that’s probably the most gratifying thing about it. To see how much our stories really affect people.”
The Bad Batch season 2 is currently airing on Disney Plus. Come back tomorrow for our review and discussion of episode 9.
Meet Julie Gray, a passionate pop culture writer from Aotearoa, New Zealand. A lifelong Star Wars fan, her love for the franchise runs deep, with Luke Skywalker being her all-time favourite character and Anakin Skywalker coming in as a close second. Her outlook on the Star Wars universe is simple yet powerful - "All Star Wars is good Star Wars", a true testament to her undying love for this iconic franchise.
