Winners' Press Conference interview with Chris Corbould, Roger Guyett, Paul Kavanagh, Neal Scanlan in Special Visual Effects category
Q. Very quickly, if you could step forward, introduce yourselves and explain what your role was on this incredible film?
CHRIS CORBOULD: My name is Chris Corbould, I was the special effects supervisor on Force Awakens.
ROGER GUYETT: My name is Roger Guyett, I was the visual effects supervisor on Force Awakens.
PAUL KAVANAGH: My name is Paul Kavanagh and I was the animation supervisor on The Force Awakens.
NEAL SCANLAN: Neal Scanlan, creature effects, make-up effect, Force Awakens.
Q. First of all, congratulations. How does it feel to win a BAFTA for this movie?
ROGER GUYETT: Extremely good. It's completely awesome, to have the work recognised, you know, especially in England. Funnily enough, I moved to America 25 years ago and obviously it's special when you come back and you know the work here means a lot and shooting the movie at Pinewood and the team actually we're all English up here. But yeah it's amazing, you know, there's so much -- we worked so hard on it so it's great to be rewarded and the work to be recognised.
Q. Was the original Star Wars as much a part of your life as it was of mine, was this a huge appeal I guess?
ROGER GUYETT: Yeah, I think for all of us, I mean for all of us in one way or another, it's a huge part of the business, just as a legacy film and just something to live up to, you know, part of our own childhoods and lives.
Q. Obviously JJ Abrams placed a great emphasis on practical effects which must have been music to your ears.?
NEAL SCANLAN: I think especially for (inaudible) because I think as time has gone by, this has been a bit of a reawakening for that technology and those techniques so it's been a tremendous film to be part of because it's brought that to the family.
PAUL KAVANAGH: And it's great for us in CG to tie into that. We can look at what to do in the practical world and we know where to go with the CG. It just emphasises and helps us to get our CG to a higher level, to be more realistic and fit into the movie, it's great.
ROGER GUYETT: Everything we were aiming towards I think was this sort of blend between the digital, the most up to date current technologies and the work that -- the practical work that we could achieve on set and I think, you know, there's just a -- clearly there's a realism to anything you can achieve in front of the camera but there's also I think quite often a charm of something that we wanted to capture too. You know, also just capture that spirit of those early movies which obviously had way more in terms of the practical effects.
Q. Chris, what was your biggest challenge on this?
CHRIS CORBOULD: Working with Roger really. No, it was a great marriage between -- for all the departments and it was so good that we all interlocked and interacted with each other. I think we're all working together now to get the best result for the film rather than showcase what each of us can do.
Q. That said, was there something in this movie that kept you awake at night? Thinking this can't be achieved?
ROGER GUYETT: You know, that's what makes the job interesting I think. I mean, it's a huge movie, of course there's an enormous body of work, between us, that we're all working on and every one of those things often is a challenge unto itself. So there were a lot of challenges, whether it was Maz, our little orange lady or huge explosions in the desert with guys running around. Those two young actors, you know, right there, huge explosions going off and obviously all the practical characters at the bar and all of the work, Paul, the digital sound, the X Wings and Millennium Falcons, huge challenges.
CHRIS CORBOULD: I think the biggest challenge was making sure Star Wars was still relevant in this day and age. Making sure it was lived up to. JJ very much wanted it to be in the spirit of Episode IV, a New Hope, which obviously had its own audience and now JJ has done a great job in introducing it to a whole new audience and look forward to Episode VIII.
ROGER GUYETT: It's a massive expectation, you know, on all of us and you can really sort of second-guess yourself to death over the choices and the path that you take through this process and (audio cut out).
