ButStar Warssits astride them all, both in its scope and the intricacy of its world and creature-building.

Den of Geek: Whats your goal every time when you start work on a newStar Warsfilm?

Everyones going to be different.

Everybody sees the world differently.

You could ask Rian specifically about a cut in a sequence and he would already know where that was.

That made our lives very much clearer from the start.

We got off to a flying start with Rian.

Its a split thing really.

I think he already knew in his heart, he would know it when he saw it.

There were other times or other places where he just would say, Go for it.

Other times its like, What do you think?

And wed do like 500 designs and thered be anX Factor-style judging by Rian.

Whats a day at the office, quote unquote, like for you?

Theres a team of five or six of us and well just talk stuff and get excited about stuff.

Go have a game of bar football or whatever, just to scrub the head.

Its very kind of free-spirited and really just about trying to sort of free up the imagination.

As the designs become more fact and more grounded and finalized, then the team starts to grow.

The guys and girls come in and we look at the 2-D designs.

We start to create them as 3-D, full-sized sculptures.

Is it a person in a suit?

Is it fully animatronic?

Is it a rod puppet?

Then we go through a manufacturing process.

Now its crisis management.

Ive got this great group of people.

My job is to double-check we dont take a wrong turn somewhere.

I trust them implicitly.

We go through the build process.

Theyre painted and finalized and made beautiful.

Then we go into what we call kind of the rehearsals.

This is where the performers join us.

We put on a theater show for Rian, effectively.

We have our characters come on and they all move in their own individual way.

Rian and a few other people come in and we put the show on.

Hopefully, that then means that: One, it gives him thinking time.

Two, he sees all of this for real, for the first time.

Its not necessarily a shock or an affront upon him when he first sees them.

What would you say the ratio is of practical to digital effects overall onLast Jedi?

Its tough to say because digital plays enormous role in the movie across the board.

Its outstanding, if you really think about it, how many backgrounds and how many enhancements and things.

The goal always is to start practical.

There are limitations, of course, to the practical technology.

Were always relying on CG to remove a few rods here and there.

Were best of friends for that reason alone.

But, no, its great.

Then you look and say, This little porgs going to take off and fly over to there.

Well, we know we cant fly over to there, so we initiate the takeoff.

Then guys at ILM come in and do the digital version of that.

Maybe on a character like a porg, I would say it was probably more 75% practical.

But then you have other creatures that are going to be 95% digital and 5% practical.

Theres a middle ground as well, which is neither fully digital, neither fully practical.

Otherwise, theyre going to become a little too easy to spot.

As you were finishing upThe Last Jedi, you were also working on the Han Solo movie.

Are you also overlapping intoEpisode IX?

Is it one continual loop and do things cross over?

It starts perfectly and becomes very imperfect very quickly.

Generally, what has happened is all of the movies are overlapping.

We were finishing up some parts of this.

We were finishing some extended photography on another.

Star Wars: The Last Jediis in theaters now.