Star Wars: The Force Awakens - 10 Behind-The-Scenes Secrets We Learnt From ILM

8. BB-8 Was A Fully Digital Model In One Third Of Shots

Much has been made about the fact that there were several on set models for BB-8. In fact, Pritchard even listed a few in our chat - "one which had two rods that came out of the back which allowed a puppeteer to operate the body and the head", "one that was remote controlled and had two little stabiliser wheels", "another that just kinda wiggled around on the spot." However, despite all that, a fair bit of computer imagery was used for the character:

"A third of our BB-8 shots are fully digital."

Yup, a third. Given how seamless the character's integration is, that shows how far along CGI has come and how skilled ILM are at their trademark integration. The rest of the movie was, of course, made through augmenting of the various models, creations of which ILM had no qualms with being practical - the models made by the creature shop were just that good:

"Looking inside the mechanics of BB-8, he was like this incredible swiss watch."

Oh, and I also asked about the gender debate - various people involved in the movie have called BB-8 a "he" and a "she" in interviews. Sadly, the confusion runs through to ILM too.