Spring 2017
BY BECCA NADLER
It's not every day that one must coordinate the closing down of a major London Underground station for filming, but that's exactly what 1st AD Toby Hefferman had to do for a scene where rebels infiltrate an Imperial
base in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. "That's why you love the job, because no day is ever the same," he says.
Calling it the "biggest challenge and biggest risk" of the film, Hefferman says that the Rogue One team was given a very limited window of time to shoot in the Canary Wharf tube station. "[We were] allowed in at midnight, and had to be struck by 6 a.m.," he explains, describing the difficulty of coordinating filming with the film's crew, stars and crowds of extras, droids and Stormtroopers, "and it couldn't have gone better."
Hefferman is quick to give credit to each crewmember on the Canary Wharf location shoot. "All of the departments worked so well together," he notes, adding, "everyone on the film set is so important, from the guy changing the toner on the printer to the director calling the shots." And he had only good things to say about the six-hour shoot itself, declaring that "it was the best day for me of the movie. Everyone pulled together, saw [director Gareth Edwards'] vision and made it work."