Star Wars: Origins

The Flipbook Studio team had just 8 weeks to complete the shots, including the creation of a CG star destroyer which rises out of a dune after being buried for thousands of years, with over 100 4K VFX shots.

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Filmed in the Sahara Desert, Morocco, Star Wars: Origins is a thrilling action-adventure film, telling an epic story based on earth during WWII.

With a breadth of new Star Wars films released in recent years, Origins offers fans of the series an alternative glimpse into the established universe that’s closer to home, all without any reduction in production value. With 3 years worth of work put into the film, the cinematography, production and VFX match up to the high standards set by the blockbuster series.

To make the star destroyer rise from the dune they initially considered a miniature shoot, however, Flipbook Studio proved that a CGI version was the best option considering both time constraints and image quality. Footage of the falling sand was layered up with huge scale sims generated by Flipbook Studio.

All these elements were composited in Nuke, working with the artists in-house to push the results to the highest quality.

For the internal shots, lightning was key to integrate VFX and live-action. The fact that Flipbook Studio and the director agreed how to tackle the design of the inside of the pit during pre-production turned out to be instrumental for this scene.

The nature of the film, the subject, and the quality of the footage, made this a real passion project for the Flipbook Studio team.

Check out the full VFX breakdown video below.

"These folks at Flipbook have honestly blown me away with their work on the film. I’m not one of those filmmakers that do VFX themselves so handing over some of the most important and ambitious sequences to someone else makes me a little sick thinking about it. It’s the lack of control that I find difficult. But, these talented artists have created ILM level effects for this film. They’ve done it purely for the love, passion for Star Wars and challenge of creating full-scale, ambitious sequences… and all in 4K! I can’t thank Ben, Andrew and their team enough for their stunning work".

Phil Hawkins, Director

The making of

Executive producer Gary Cowan first approached Flipbook Studio in May before they started the shoot in Morocco in June. The footage arrived at the studio in October, giving them just 7-8 weeks to do the shots.

VFX supervisor Ben Haworth, who is also the art director and co-founder of Flipbook Studio, had previously worked with Phil Hawkins on advertising projects such as Motorpoint, which has since won the best TV campaign at the Prestigious Northern Marketing Awards, turning car salespeople into Superheroes and creating an incredibly photorealistic CG dragon for Vanquis.

"Phil is very much a practical director, and he likes the way we work. The Vanquis dragon convinced him that CGI is an option and that Flipbook Studio are up to any task he throws at us…including the development of Star Destroyers rising from sand dunes! There are shots in the film like nothing else we’ve achieved before, and we’ve managed to tackle them in less than 2 months. That’s over 100 shots at 4k".

Ben Haworth, VFX Supervisor - Flipbook Studios