IT may be set in a galaxy far, far away but parts of the latest Star Wars movie are pure Oxfordshire.

Wheatley-based Audiomotion Studios was behind some of the motion capture for The Last Jedi, which opened in cinemas last Friday.

The team helped transform actress Lupita Nyong’o into animated alien Maz Kanata.

Goggled-eyed Maz appears as a hologram and can be seen energetically fighting off assailants, while telling resistance heroes Finn and Poe where to find a master code breaker.

Motion sensors were attached to a lycra suit worn by Academy Award winner Nyong’o so that her movement could be captured on dozens of cameras.

The technology tracked her tiniest facial expressions and was used to process the animation and make her CG character much more realistic.

The camera work was carried out on location at Pinewood studios and processed back in Oxfordshire.

Audiomotion managing director Brian Mitchell said: “It was only a one-day shoot for us, so wasn’t really a particularly big job in the grand scheme of things but the prestige of the project was huge.”

“One of the most exciting things was that Anthony Daniels, who is C3PO, and John Boyega and Oscar Isaac who play Finn and Poe were on the shoot with us.

“They sat to one side of the set and fed in their lines, so that when Maz Kanata is under fire, running for cover and talking at the same time, she could respond and the timing would be correct.”

The character of Maz Kanata was introduced in 2015 in The Force Awakens.

A former pirate and smuggler who manages an interstellar tavern on planet Takodan, she is one of eight Star Wars characters featured in a set of stamps issued by Royal Mail in October to commemorate the release of The Last Jedi.

The Last Jedi, which is the eighth instalment in the Star Wars saga, generated more than £337m in global ticket sales on its opening weekend.

Audiomotion has worked on a string of blockbuster movies, games and videos, including A Monster Calls, Maleficent, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II and The Golden Compass.

Audiomotion has nine permanent staff and takes on extra when needed.

Long-standing Star Wars fan Mr Mitchell revealed he asked The Last Jedi producers if each member of his team could be name-checked in the end-credits, rather than just listed as ‘Audiomotion’.

He said: “‘If there’s any film we would want to be named on, it’s this one.

“We all took the afternoon off and went to see it last Friday and our names were all up there in the credits, which was brilliant.”