Lucasfilm has confirmed the hiring of the YouTuber named Shamook who is best known for using deepfake technology to improve upon the Luke Skywalker cameo during the finale of The Mandalorian‘s second season.
In a comment on The Mandalorian video (which now has over 2 million views), Shamook revealed that Lucasfilm recruited them after his video was published back in December:
“As some of you may already know, I joined ILM/Lucasfilm a few months ago and haven’t had the time to work on any new YouTube content. Now I’ve settled into my job, uploads should start increasing again. They’ll still be slow, but hopefully not months apart. Enjoy!”
In a statement to IndieWire, Industrial Light and Magic, the visual effects studio behind The Mandalorian, confirmed the hiring of Shamook to further advance the effects used in the Disney+ series.
“[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 said. “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.”
You can check out Shamook’s deepfake’s here…
With Disney and Lucasfilm doubling down on the live-action Star Wars series including a third season of The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett starring Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett and Ming-Na Wen as Fennec Shand, and the long-awaited return of Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan Kenobi in a self-titled series, hiring a YouTuber who is an expert at using deepfake technology opens up so many possibilities to advance their respective stories further.
