https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22595227/star-wars-lucasfilm-mandalorian-rogue-one-hire-deepfake-shamook

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Filed under:

Lucasfilm hires the YouTube deepfaker who put its Luke, Leia and
Tarkin cameos to shame

New, 24 comments

They didn't de-age well, but maybe Shamook can help

By Sean Hollister@StarFire2258 Jul 26, 2021, 9:22pm EDT

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I recently re-watched Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. It mostly held up
-- except for Lucasfilm's attempt to bring Carrie Fisher's Princess
Leia and Peter Cushing's Grand Moff Tarkin back to the big screen
using CGI. That's something that only bugged me the tiniest bit the
first time I watched it.

But Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic may now have the ability
to make those movies a tad more futureproof, because it's hired a
YouTuber who specializes in deepfaking Star Wars and other big-budget
movies, showing up their CGI de-aging techniques. Shamook is the one
who "fixed" Luke Skywalker's cameo in The Mandalorian to the tune of
1.9 million views, and the improvements to Rogue One's Tarkin are
phenomenal:

Peter Cushing was certainly thin in the role, but he no longer looks
quite so emaciated.

Instead of ordering YouTube to yank the content or sending
cease-and-desists, IndieWire now reports Lucasfilm decided to hire
Shamook instead to do what they apparently love. "[Industrial Light
and Magic is] always on the lookout for talented artists and have in
fact hired the artist that goes by the online persona 'Shamook,'" a
Lucasfilm representative told IndieWire (via CNET). "Over the past
several years ILM has been investing in both machine learning and
A.I. as a means to produce compelling visual effects work and it's
been terrific to see momentum building in this space as the
technology advances."

In the YouTube comments on a recent video, Shamook says their new
title is "Senior Facial Capture Artist."

I'm not sure Shamook's results are always better than the originals;
many still have that uncanny, mask-like quality that's still common
to a lot of deepfakes today, and they don't have the benefit of all
the additional CG lighting work that clearly went into Disney's
modern films and shows. But perhaps by combining ideas, they can
reach new heights.

Shamook also has a penchant for swapping stars, famously inserting
Harrison Ford into Solo: A Star Wars Story.

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