Dneg - A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… we entered the Star Wars universe for an adventure like no other!

‘Skeleton Crew’ is the latest series to expand on the iconic Star Wars franchise. The show tells the coming-of-age story of four children who have to find their way home after making a mysterious discovery on their home planet that leads to them getting lost in a dangerous galaxy.

Our VFX team was tasked with delivering complex work for three episodes, including the creation of several large-scale CG environments, creature animation, and a dramatic spacecraft landing.

One of the key sequences for our team took place inside a futuristic industrial-scale mint where the currency of the future is being made. We built a fully CG environment that included a huge elevator capable of transporting a spacecraft, an elevator shaft large enough for it to travel through, fully functioning industrial-scale robots, animated CG security droids, and the CG currency credits that the characters interact with.

We also created several urban environments for the destroyed cities that the hero characters travel through. We built multiple variants of destroyed or dilapidated buildings and streets and composited them into bluescreen plates, using FX generated dust volumes to complete the look for each sequence. Our teams also animated a spacecraft landing in a fully CG woodland environment, integrating the character performances from bluescreen plates and adding jet engine and dust cloud simulations.

Our Animation team was also kept busy with a fully CG head replacement for the elephantine character, Neel. For shots where it was not practical to use a puppet head on set, we replaced it with a CG head that required a full facial animation rig.

‘Skeleton Crew’ was a uniquely challenging and exciting project for our teams, and we’re thrilled to have been a part of bringing the latest installment of the Star Wars story to life.

CREATORS - Christopher Ford & Jon Watts

PRODUCERS - Susan McNamara & Erin Mitchell

PRODUCTION COMPANY - Lucasfilm

DISTRIBUTOR - Disney+

DNEG VFX SUPERVISOR - Chris McLaughlin

DNEG VFX PRODUCER - Oliver Eikhoff