Star Wars: The Last Jedi

The 8th episode in the Skywalker saga brought a host of unique challenges for visual effects supervisor Ben Morris, visual effects producer Tim Keene, and the global ILM team.

As has become a tradition with the Star Wars films, we embraced a rich mix of cutting-edge digital visual effects, combined with Neal Scanlan’s practical creatures and Chris Corbould’s special effects. In concert with the filmmakers, our approach would be to try and achieve as much using in-camera effects as possible. Even when the team knew for conceptual, aesthetic, or practical reasons a shot would need to be heavily augmented or created entirely as a digital effect, they aimed to shoot plates, stand-in character performances​ ​, and​ ​reference​ ​photography​ ​to​ ​help​ ​ground​ ​our​ ​CG​ ​images​ ​in​ ​reality.

For this reason, ​The Last Jedi was predominately shot in real-world locations and exterior practical sets in daylight whenever possible, giving the settings an authenticity that can be challenging​ ​to​ ​replicate​ ​and​ ​light​ ​believably​ ​on​ ​stage. 

Featuring over 2,000 effects shots our creative team was truly global, with over 1,000 VFX artists based out of all 4 Industrial Light & Magic studios in London, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Singapore and an additional 10 VFX vendors from around the world.