A new Star Wars production, promising to change your expectations of “fan films” forever, has been released.
The labour of love for Velvet Films’ Director, Phil Hawkins over the last 3 years includes more than 100 VFX shots from Flipbook Studios.
Star Wars: Origins was filmed in the Sahara Desert and takes a unique look at where the saga began. The action-adventure draws inspiration from Star Wars and Indiana Jones, telling a story based on earth during World War II.
It stars Marie Everett (What Happened to Monday, Netflix), Jamie Costa (Han Solo: A Smuggler’s Trade) and Hadrian Howard (The Mummy, Mi Rogue Nation).
The Executive Producers first approached Flipbook Studio in May, before they began shooting in June. The team was then given just 8 weeks to complete the VFX.
“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,” said Hawkins of Manchester’s Velvet Films.
“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!”
VFX Supervisor Ben Haworth, who is also the Art Director and co-founder of Flipbook Studio had previously worked with Hawkins on commercials, including a 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 two months. That’s over 100 shots at 4k.”
Haworth explained that the most ambitious shot was the star destroyer at its different stages, including the internal shots, the temple and the full ship rising out of a dune after being buried for a thousand years.
