Contrary to what a certain poorly conceived and sexist redesign of Aloy from Horizon: Zero Dawn might suggest, it turns out that hiring fans can actually be a good idea, at least occasionally. A certain YouTuber who has seemingly mastered the art of the Star Wars Deepfake not only caught the attention of millions of viewers, but that of Lucasfilm itself, and the result is every superfan's dream.
Lucasfilm has officially hired the YouTuber who goes by the name Shamook to be part of their Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) visual effects department, giving children everywhere a new comeback for when their parents tell them to get off the internet and do their homework. Shamook, who has an extensive collection of impressive Deepfake videos (including one that places Harrison Ford in Solo: A Star Wars Story and another that "fixes" Mark Hamill's CGI face in The Mandalorian), appropriately announced the new job in a comment on their channel.
"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," Shamook said in the announcement comment. "Now I've settled into my job, uploads should start increasing again. They'll still be slow, but hopefully not months apart. Enjoy!" Apparently, Shamook got the job quite a while back and only just now made the official (or at least as official as a YouTube comment can be) announcement. This feels familiar, as the situation was a bit similar when Lucasfilm promoted Dave Filoni of Star Wars: The Clone Wars fame in the summer of 2020 before formally announcing it almost a full year later.
It's pretty easy to see why Shamook gets to enjoy such an honor. To many viewers, Deepfakes might seem like a pretty simple concept, but there's way more work involved than it might seem like. The person making it happen has to essentially find a huge number of face samples for the person they plan to insert into any given scene, and even then, there's no guarantee the original footage will play well with what they find. So while good Deepfakes seem to be a dime a dozen these days, it's easy to forget that the lower effort ones can look like this one of Danny Trejo in Wonder Woman.
Shamook really does seem to be living the dream, but it's clearly the result of hard work and genuine talent. Just looking at their channel, it's clear they've got a ton of experience with the technology, and that doesn't just come from nowhere. As the old paraphrased saying goes, the best way to get to Lucasfilm is practice practice practice. Clearly, they're still doing so, as their latest video was a mere two weeks ago, showing off a Deepfake of Robert Pattinson as Batman.
It's kind of heartwarming to see someone achieve such a thing purely through dedication to the craft and the material they're working with. Every kid who filmed themselves having stick lightsaber fights in the backyard should look at Shamook's achievement as proof that such passion can lead to great things.
The Star Wars saga is now available on Disney Plus.
Source: IndieWire