So I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens quite a while ago and all this hype about the "R2D2 replacement," BB-8, made me curious as to how the droid was created. I figured BB-8 was animated or CGI and it turns out it's neither. BB-8 was created the usual--a sketch on a page--and then animatronic designers actually made BB-8. Not a legit machine though, a puppet where only the strings and puppeteers were edited out. I was very shocked to say the least; I really want to watch it again right now to look at the droid with a new light. Anyways, then I got to wondering what else on the screen was "real" or "fake." And as it turns out, only 28 shots (a total of 357 scenes) are CGI.
WHAT?!
This got me really intrigued. Why would they do it that way in a digital world? Turns out due to the overwhelming amount of CGI visual effects used in Star Wars prequel and fan complaining, Lucasfilm and J.J. Abrams decided on authentic, real, practical effects for this movie. As a fan and a nerd, how did I now know of this?! Besides the space scenes, flying ships, and a couple characters (entire list here), the majority of the movie is using practical effects (the actors aren't surrounded by green screens). Here I had decided on researching BB-8 because of my interest in character animation digitally, and it turns out the droid isn't animated at all. However, the same thought process still went into puppeting the droid--BB-8 still had defining characteristic actions to create personality and his movements mapped out exactly--it's just interesting to think that in a technology-driven world, this wasn't a product of digital art.
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