Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
VFX Design for Disney+
The journey of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew soars into the coming-of-age story of four daring kids who embark on a quest like never before. Showrunners Chris Ford and Jon Watts created the storypad, a tablet-like device, and brought us on to design, animate, and develop its screens. It was like being a UX/Experience designer within the Star Wars universe. Wim, tired of what he sees as his mundane home planet, uses his storypad to discover tales of a galaxy brimming with possibilities, inspiring his aspirations of becoming a Jedi. This is where we came in…
what we did
We envisioned this as a futuristic viewfinder with lit layers of glassâžșa dimensional diorama of narrative that changes with a lever. Working with sketches by Production Designer Doug Chiang, we took inspiration from the world of Star Wars tech to design screens that would be believable as Wim’s go-to device. Jon Watts, a fan of using analog techniques, challenged us to make the storypad feel like a practical prop with layers of etched glass. Rather than a digital transition between scenes, the panes rotate out mechanically, for a lo-tech effect. The screen content was then composited into the shots by John Knoll’s VFX team at ILM. Rooted in the aesthetic that defines the timeless Star Wars movies we know and love, the storypad is a gateway to limitless adventure and daring dreams.
credits
- creative directors: karin fong, tosh kodama
- art directors: merrill hall, henry chang
- editor: lexi gunvaldson
- animators: izik roitman, faraz abbasi, jens mebes, alex rupert
- lead illustrator: doug chiang, ILM
- illustrator: jorge artola
- design intern: sydney liao
- producer: jackson kerr
- coordinator: nic luong
- executive creative director: peter frankfurt
- executive producer: renée robson