{"id":2596,"date":"2026-06-21T05:05:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T05:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2596"},"modified":"2026-06-21T05:05:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T05:05:59","slug":"how-duncan-jones-made-rogue-trooper-look-like-a-studio-epic-on-an-indie-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2596","title":{"rendered":"How Duncan Jones Made \u2018Rogue Trooper\u2019 Look Like a Studio Epic on an Indie Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s AI \u2014 the film has no AI,\u201d says director-writer Duncan Jones emphatically about his latest feature, \u201cRogue Trooper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Minions & Monsters\u2019 Director Pierre Coffin on His Tribute to Hollywood, the Exhausting Work of Voicing the Yellow Creatures and Crafting Comedy That\u2019s \u2018More Irreverent Than Some of the Competition\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThe subject comes up as producer Stuart Fennegan talks about how they got the stellar voice cast for the film: Aneurin Barnard, Jack Lowden, Hayley Atwell, Daryl McCormack, Reece Shearsmith, Sean Bean, Diane Morgan, Matt Berry and Jemaine Clement.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe were actually really fortunate, for want of a better word, that when we were shooting, it was at the time when the SAG strike was happening, and obviously a big point of contention at that point was concerns for actors about AI,\u201d says Fenegan. \u201cObviously, being a British movie, we were able to shoot under Equity, and contractually no AI performances in our movie at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe adds: \u201cWe were really fortunate that lots of lots of actors that would have been booked up and on other shows weren\u2019t working, so it was like, \u2018Hey, have a look at this animatic. Do you want to come and play in this crazy different way of doing an animated movie with Duncan Jones?\u2019 And pretty much everyone was like, \u2018Hell yes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAn adaptation of the comic book series \u201c2000 AD\u201d created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons, \u201cRogue Trooper\u201d is produced by Rebellion and Liberty Films. It makes its world premiere at Annecy on June 22.<\/p>\n

\n\tJones and Fenegan learned a lot from their experience of making \u201cWarcraft,\u201d and wanted to make a CGI animated film at a British indie price point. They took lessons learned and built on that \u2013 Jones wrote the script and \u201crecorded every line of dialog for every character, and then worked with the team to put an animatic together for that for the whole project. So we were kind of able to kind of iterate and figure out how to make it as we go, and I think that was why we were in the end able to kind of end up with a bespoke, more indie pipeline, and bring what would be, you know, a 60 million plus studio movie down to a much indie budget,\u201d says Fenegan. \u201cWe were fortunate with our contacts and our partners at Rebellion, we all kind of held hands and said we think we will be able to figure this out as we go, and we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJones notes: \u201cThat old triangle of speed, quality, and cost, we kind of knew that we could afford, we could afford to give up on speed, so it took us a long time to make it, but we were able to maintain the quality and keep the cost down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome four years in the making, \u201cRogue Trooper\u201d tells the story of 19, a genetic infantryman who is the sole survivor (in corporal form) of an invasion force ordered to battle the Norts on a remote small planet. He needs to track down the traitor who sold him and his fellow band of brothers out, and is accompanied by three killed-in-action squad mates, whose personalities have been stored in 19\u2019s gun, helmet and backpack.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s photorealistic, but Jones says they used animation \u201cmore than you think.\u201d He had two weeks with the actors rotating in and out of what was basically a black box studio, shooting 16 pages a day. The original animatic was the touchstone for the project.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe weren\u2019t recording mo-cap of their bodies, we were only recording their faces and their voices,\u201d Jones says. \u201cWe would have an area blocked out, so we kind of knew what the what the environment was supposed to be, where a scene would take place, but we were only using that as a reference for witness cameras, and then the actual animation we would do later on, after we\u2019d actually already kind of cut the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJones continues: \u201cThere was actually quite a lot of the film where the animation is done by hand, so it\u2019s a real hybrid and way of working where we didn\u2019t have to worry about setting up all of the motion capture for the for the actors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more How to Watch Oscar Collazo vs. Joey Canoy Boxing Title Bout Live Online<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tIt was also cost-saving. \u201cThe sheer cost of processing all of that data is prohibitive, so being able to just strike that from that from our production pipeline, focus just on the human performance of the face and the voice, and then you\u2019re only working on animating the bit that you need\u201d without having to process \u201call that data was an efficiency that we found,\u201d says Fenegan.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for translating the comics to the screen, superfan Jones was very enthusiastic, comparing \u201c2000 AD\u201d to Marvel and DC in its world-building and storytelling.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne of the interesting things about \u20182000 AD\u2019 is they were very brave, with the artists that they used and the styles that they were willing to engage in, and allowing their artists to really experiment with the different characters that they had in the environments and really push things in interesting and artistic ways.,\u201d Joens says.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe says that Gibbons\u2019 \u201cWar Machine\u201d was very much a touchstone for the visual look of \u201cRogue Trooper.\u201d \u201cI think it might even have been watercolor the way that they actually did the artwork in the book, and it was beautiful,\u201d he says, adding \u201cbut we were kind of magpie-ing and picking from all of the different ideas that came up over the years that the comic book was made.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJones says that \u201cWarcraft\u201d \u2014 although less than a hit adaptation of IP with a passionate fan base \u2014 did have one thing going for it: the people that made it loved the IP. He says it\u2019s the same with \u201cRogue Trooper.\u201d \u201cArtists like Steve Trumble, who was the production designer on the film, loved \u2018Rogue Trooper.\u2019 And we were bringing in artists who had actually worked on [the comic books] to come and do their concept artwork and design work. So I think the fidelity of it came from the fact that everyone who was doing the artistic [work] on it had a real, had a real love of the material.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for mounting an indie animated feature that looks expensive, there were considerations to make. \u201cWe set out with the idea of making a theatrical quality animated movie in Unreal Engine, and what we realized, probably like two years into the process, is that it\u2019s an amazing tool, but it isn\u2019t actually at the level at the moment \u2014 in version 5.3 which is what we were kind of locked in on for our film,\u201d says Fenegan.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey found it didn\u2019t have the tools to deliver the look they wanted. So two years into the production, they \u201cmigrated out of Unreal\u201d and used traditional animation software like Maya, \u201cthen a final re-render back in Unreal Engine. So, I think the biggest obstacle was literally just us realizing, \u2018Hang on a minute, the original plan to make this movie isn\u2019t going to get us where we need to be,\u2019\u201d says Fenegan.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey don\u2019t have a sales company yet \u2014 they are working with CAA \u2014 and are looking for distribution.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCouldn\u2019t be more excited to premiere at Annecy, which obviously is the most amazing animation festival,\u201d says Fenegan.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt seems like it\u2019s a natural for a sequel or even a series.<\/p>\n

\n\tJones is focused on the here and now. \u201cWe\u2019ve put so much effort into this and spent so much time on it,we really just want to make sure that we get this film in front of an audience. As an indie film, that\u2019s the scary thing because you don\u2019t have a studio that\u2019s there to make sure that the film gets out there. We\u2019re at the point now where we just need to find a way to make sure that this film gets as many eyeballs as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Jennifer Aniston Posts Heartfelt Tribute to \u2018Friends\u2019 Director James Burrows: \u2018He Was a Father Figure to Me\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Duncan Jones on Making \u2018Rogue Trooper\u2019 With a Hybrid Animation Pipeline and Indie Budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2204,2205,2206],"class_list":["post-2596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-annecy","tag-duncan-jones","tag-rogue-trooper"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Duncan Jones Made \u2018Rogue Trooper\u2019 Look Like a Studio Epic on an Indie Budget - Relocation Observer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=2596\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Duncan Jones Made \u2018Rogue Trooper\u2019 Look Like a Studio Epic on an Indie Budget - 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