1 00:00:08,967 --> 00:00:10,552 Movies are special effects. 2 00:00:11,428 --> 00:00:13,263 They've always been special effects. 3 00:00:16,224 --> 00:00:19,519 From Méliès, to Harryhausen... 4 00:00:21,771 --> 00:00:23,440 To 2001... 5 00:00:26,943 --> 00:00:30,030 Visual effects create the magic 6 00:00:31,322 --> 00:00:33,450 that makes people want to go to the movies. 7 00:00:34,951 --> 00:00:37,537 Because they can see things they can't see 8 00:00:37,620 --> 00:00:38,621 any other way. 9 00:00:46,004 --> 00:00:47,297 Take a look. 10 00:00:48,423 --> 00:00:50,383 We all start with an empty frame 11 00:00:51,176 --> 00:00:52,802 and anything is possible. 12 00:00:54,888 --> 00:00:58,725 But how can we create the thing the audience sees that wasn't actually there? 13 00:01:03,688 --> 00:01:07,734 As audiences get smarter, wiser, sort of see through the illusion, 14 00:01:09,819 --> 00:01:11,738 that bar just raises. 15 00:01:11,821 --> 00:01:14,657 So how do we do this now? How do we make this look great? 16 00:01:16,826 --> 00:01:18,661 I leave it to the geniuses at ILM. 17 00:01:26,586 --> 00:01:28,755 Most places are a little bit like The Wizard of Oz, 18 00:01:28,838 --> 00:01:31,132 where you pull back the curtain, you're like, "Oh!" 19 00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:34,511 But Industrial Light & Magic is that rare magic trick 20 00:01:34,594 --> 00:01:37,514 where the technique is as good as the illusion. 21 00:01:43,812 --> 00:01:47,357 It is this hive of creativity and brilliance 22 00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:52,028 and also incredible groundbreaking technical wizardry. 23 00:01:56,032 --> 00:01:59,077 They're pushing technology forward and exploring it. 24 00:02:01,454 --> 00:02:05,125 They keep making it even more exciting, more realistic, more magical. 25 00:02:26,229 --> 00:02:28,398 It's right there in the name of the company. 26 00:02:28,481 --> 00:02:29,858 Industrial. 27 00:02:30,692 --> 00:02:31,776 Light 28 00:02:32,986 --> 00:02:33,987 & Magic. 29 00:03:27,373 --> 00:03:28,374 Conrad. 30 00:03:28,625 --> 00:03:30,293 Pick up 601, please. 31 00:03:30,376 --> 00:03:33,046 Conrad, pick up 601. 32 00:03:33,129 --> 00:03:35,465 - Pull in your seat a little bit? - This way? 33 00:03:36,299 --> 00:03:37,300 Like that? 34 00:03:37,383 --> 00:03:40,553 Yeah, there was a reflection on your glasses. So we might actually... 35 00:03:40,637 --> 00:03:41,888 Right. Um... 36 00:03:41,971 --> 00:03:45,850 Well, the history of ILM goes way back. 37 00:03:46,226 --> 00:03:49,187 And when we started the first film, 38 00:03:49,270 --> 00:03:54,651 I investigated all of the optical houses and special effects people, 39 00:03:55,318 --> 00:04:00,156 and realized there was nobody around and no company around that could really do 40 00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:02,951 the things that I wanted to do on that picture. 41 00:04:03,034 --> 00:04:05,954 So, I realized that I was gonna have to start a company 42 00:04:06,704 --> 00:04:08,748 and put together a whole group of people 43 00:04:08,831 --> 00:04:12,043 that would just be specifically for making Star Wars. 44 00:04:14,003 --> 00:04:16,756 Luke Skywalker was just a farm boy, 45 00:04:16,839 --> 00:04:20,468 until he received a mysterious message from a princess. 46 00:04:20,551 --> 00:04:22,387 Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. 47 00:04:22,470 --> 00:04:24,806 - She's beautiful. - Here's where the fun begins. 48 00:04:25,807 --> 00:04:27,809 Twentieth Century Fox presents 49 00:04:27,892 --> 00:04:31,187 the most extraordinary motion picture of all time... 50 00:04:31,271 --> 00:04:32,272 Got him! 51 00:04:32,855 --> 00:04:33,898 Star Wars. 52 00:04:33,982 --> 00:04:35,358 Here they come. 53 00:04:35,483 --> 00:04:38,403 May the force be with you in Star Wars. 54 00:04:41,823 --> 00:04:43,700 When I was writing Star Wars, 55 00:04:45,118 --> 00:04:46,786 I spent two years 56 00:04:46,869 --> 00:04:49,622 trying to find the story, trying to find the script. 57 00:04:52,542 --> 00:04:57,547 I thought spaceships, dogfights in space, that's a great idea. 58 00:05:03,761 --> 00:05:07,098 I said, I want to do that. Only I want to do it like a space opera. 59 00:05:07,974 --> 00:05:09,976 Like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. 60 00:05:10,351 --> 00:05:12,979 But it will really have movement, it will be kinetic. 61 00:05:13,396 --> 00:05:15,690 I'm an energetic filmmaker. 62 00:05:20,695 --> 00:05:21,738 I like speed. 63 00:05:27,535 --> 00:05:31,331 At the time, the last real science fiction film was 2001. 64 00:05:33,791 --> 00:05:37,211 Which is brilliant, and the way it was made was brilliant. 65 00:05:38,004 --> 00:05:42,342 But the shots were all long takes and very slow. 66 00:05:43,217 --> 00:05:47,013 So I looked around for special effects houses, visual effects houses, 67 00:05:47,138 --> 00:05:50,099 and nobody could do what I wanted to do for Star Wars. 68 00:05:50,683 --> 00:05:54,228 So the big question was, "How are we going to do the effects?" 69 00:05:58,107 --> 00:05:59,859 I met John Dykstra. 70 00:06:01,069 --> 00:06:05,198 He was working with visual effects, mostly on commercials. 71 00:06:06,616 --> 00:06:13,247 And I realized that there was a little cabal of secret special effects people. 72 00:06:14,665 --> 00:06:17,168 Some of them worked in commercials, 73 00:06:17,251 --> 00:06:21,464 some of them were just wishing, some of them were making home movies, 74 00:06:22,840 --> 00:06:24,384 but they all knew each other. 75 00:06:25,968 --> 00:06:28,930 So and so can do that, and I know somebody can do this. 76 00:06:29,013 --> 00:06:32,850 And it really was this kind of gang of outsiders. 77 00:06:35,603 --> 00:06:38,815 And so through John Dykstra we tapped into that world. 78 00:06:40,525 --> 00:06:42,110 Good morning, America. 79 00:06:42,193 --> 00:06:45,863 In the world of film and television, even our fantasies have been modernized. 80 00:06:45,947 --> 00:06:49,450 Instead of wizards and magicians, the people who make our dreams come true 81 00:06:49,534 --> 00:06:51,619 are now called special effects designers. 82 00:06:52,203 --> 00:06:56,207 These new wizards use computers, calculators, and special cameras. 83 00:06:56,707 --> 00:07:00,545 With these tools and a generous supply of good, old-fashioned imagination, 84 00:07:00,920 --> 00:07:04,757 John Dykstra created the fantastic effects scenes for Star Wars. 85 00:07:05,842 --> 00:07:10,012 John. No one says "One day I'm going to be a special effects designer." 86 00:07:10,721 --> 00:07:11,973 What led up to this? 87 00:07:12,056 --> 00:07:13,724 Oh, a lot of fooling around. 88 00:07:27,196 --> 00:07:31,033 I am definitely involved with machines. I like machines a lot. 89 00:07:32,034 --> 00:07:34,579 I always played with cars and things like that. 90 00:07:34,662 --> 00:07:35,705 I like physics. 91 00:07:36,456 --> 00:07:37,665 Always liked photography. 92 00:07:37,748 --> 00:07:40,209 So it was sort of a situation where I just brought 93 00:07:40,293 --> 00:07:42,753 all of my favorite things together, all of my hobbies, 94 00:07:42,837 --> 00:07:44,505 and made one big hobby out of it. 95 00:07:45,173 --> 00:07:49,093 Explain to me how you take a scene from your mind to the screen. 96 00:07:51,721 --> 00:07:53,431 I'm basically a lucky guy. 97 00:07:56,058 --> 00:07:59,395 When I signed up for college, I didn't have a major. 98 00:07:59,479 --> 00:08:02,231 I just was going to school because they had accepted me. 99 00:08:03,608 --> 00:08:07,403 The counselor who I was assigned based on my last name 100 00:08:07,487 --> 00:08:10,656 turned out to be the head of the industrial design department. 101 00:08:11,532 --> 00:08:15,328 So I went to school in industrial design, truly a fluke. 102 00:08:16,454 --> 00:08:20,249 From school I had a friend who was working with Doug Trumbull, 103 00:08:20,750 --> 00:08:25,129 who had done visual effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey. 104 00:08:26,464 --> 00:08:29,133 And Doug was looking for model makers 105 00:08:29,217 --> 00:08:31,052 and people who could do design work. 106 00:08:31,135 --> 00:08:36,682 So I segued from school to going to work at Trumbull Film Effects. 107 00:08:38,017 --> 00:08:39,393 I started on Silent Running. 108 00:08:40,561 --> 00:08:43,147 I drew designs for the ships, 109 00:08:43,231 --> 00:08:45,441 then built the models for the ships 110 00:08:45,525 --> 00:08:48,110 and then photographed the models for the ships. 111 00:08:48,819 --> 00:08:52,198 It was an intense, immersive education. 112 00:08:53,908 --> 00:08:55,117 Coming to work was fun. 113 00:08:56,911 --> 00:09:02,667 Then I was approached by Gary Kurtz, who was a producer for George Lucas, 114 00:09:03,417 --> 00:09:07,004 and he wanted to talk about the visual effects for a movie. 115 00:09:14,428 --> 00:09:16,556 I was given the script, 116 00:09:16,639 --> 00:09:20,393 and I go, "How bad can this be? It's a dogfight in space, right?" 117 00:09:22,186 --> 00:09:23,980 So I came to their offices, 118 00:09:24,689 --> 00:09:29,610 did a lot of hand flying, did a lot of talking about moving camera 119 00:09:29,902 --> 00:09:34,490 because I'm a pilot and I love speed and I've been strapping cameras 120 00:09:34,574 --> 00:09:37,535 onto airplanes and stuff like that for a long time. 121 00:09:38,327 --> 00:09:40,913 So it was like all these things fell into place. 122 00:09:42,039 --> 00:09:44,166 George had the vision. 123 00:09:45,042 --> 00:09:49,297 George knew what the images had to convey. 124 00:09:52,049 --> 00:09:53,801 And I understood the movie. 125 00:10:02,143 --> 00:10:06,314 But at the time George was involved with all of the pre-production work 126 00:10:06,397 --> 00:10:09,984 he was doing for the photography they were going to do in Britain. 127 00:10:10,067 --> 00:10:12,445 I was going back and forth all the time. 128 00:10:12,528 --> 00:10:17,950 We had one foot in the door with John, and he said he needed 129 00:10:18,034 --> 00:10:20,578 to build the equipment in order to get the shots. 130 00:10:20,661 --> 00:10:24,749 So they basically said, "Okay, you go do this." 131 00:10:27,043 --> 00:10:31,589 I went and found an empty warehouse in Van Nuys, near the Van Nuys Airport. 132 00:10:33,507 --> 00:10:35,217 And I walked into the place, 133 00:10:35,301 --> 00:10:37,887 they installed the phone, didn't even have furniture. 134 00:10:37,970 --> 00:10:41,557 I sat on the carpet on the floor in the office that I was going to use, 135 00:10:41,641 --> 00:10:46,687 and I started calling people that I wanted to bring in to work on the project. 136 00:10:50,191 --> 00:10:52,360 One day I got this call from John, 137 00:10:52,943 --> 00:10:57,948 "Richard, I'd like to talk to you about maybe the photography" 138 00:10:58,032 --> 00:11:01,118 "of this sci-fi movie for Twentieth Century Fox." 139 00:11:02,620 --> 00:11:04,288 I said, "I'll be right there." 140 00:11:05,498 --> 00:11:10,711 I had finished the program in the industrial design department 141 00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:13,047 from Cal State Long Beach, 142 00:11:13,130 --> 00:11:16,133 where Dykstra had graduated a couple years before. 143 00:11:17,677 --> 00:11:21,013 I didn't graduate because I got a job in Malibu, 144 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:24,308 and the commute was killing me. 145 00:11:24,600 --> 00:11:26,727 I went back to school on a Saturday. 146 00:11:27,395 --> 00:11:32,024 And I see this flyer taped to the door of the industrial design department, 147 00:11:32,149 --> 00:11:37,113 and it said, "We are looking for artists, model builders", 148 00:11:37,238 --> 00:11:40,616 "painters, draftsmen for a..." 149 00:11:40,783 --> 00:11:42,952 I think they said it was a space movie. 150 00:11:44,036 --> 00:11:46,747 And there was a phone number and address there, so... 151 00:11:46,831 --> 00:11:48,332 I got out the Thomas Guide, 152 00:11:48,416 --> 00:11:52,128 which at the time was the only way you could find your way around LA. 153 00:11:55,423 --> 00:12:00,636 I took my ruler and I figured out I could save an hour off my commute. 154 00:12:02,012 --> 00:12:06,142 So I jumped in my Volkswagen, zipped out to Belgian Avenue 155 00:12:06,225 --> 00:12:08,144 and met with John and Gary Kurtz. 156 00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:12,940 John had this big desk. It was like the size of a pool table, 157 00:12:13,649 --> 00:12:14,942 and we were sitting across. 158 00:12:15,025 --> 00:12:17,069 Both had beards, you know, 159 00:12:17,528 --> 00:12:20,322 and Gary Kurtz had his Quaker beard, you know. 160 00:12:22,491 --> 00:12:26,912 The original job offer was for six weeks doing storyboards. 161 00:12:28,831 --> 00:12:32,752 John asked me if I could do storyboards, and I said, "Yeah, of course I can." 162 00:12:32,835 --> 00:12:34,962 I had no idea what a storyboard was. 163 00:12:35,921 --> 00:12:39,717 I came across a guy who I went to college with and lived in Seal Beach 164 00:12:39,925 --> 00:12:43,304 and he said, "Oh, Lorne, you'd be perfect for the job." 165 00:12:43,387 --> 00:12:46,766 "We're working on this science fiction movie out in the valley," 166 00:12:46,849 --> 00:12:48,476 "and we need model makers." 167 00:12:49,143 --> 00:12:50,978 We all came from different schools, 168 00:12:51,061 --> 00:12:53,147 and a lot of people were friends of friends. 169 00:12:53,230 --> 00:12:56,859 This guy that I was working with was was older, and he said, 170 00:12:56,942 --> 00:12:59,278 "Well, I got a buddy that I was in the Navy with, 171 00:12:59,361 --> 00:13:01,572 "who's doing some kind of a science fiction show, 172 00:13:01,655 --> 00:13:03,240 "and I know you're interested in that." 173 00:13:03,365 --> 00:13:06,076 "He's looking for people. So here's his number." 174 00:13:06,160 --> 00:13:08,204 "Give him a call. His name is Richard Edlund." 175 00:13:08,287 --> 00:13:11,207 And it turns out he's looking for camera people, 176 00:13:11,290 --> 00:13:15,294 which I'm not, and so I gave them Dennis' number. 177 00:13:18,547 --> 00:13:20,466 Until Star Wars came along, 178 00:13:20,758 --> 00:13:24,178 I've never felt that there was going to be any place for me in the business 179 00:13:24,261 --> 00:13:27,348 or there was any way to make any money doing visual effects. 180 00:13:30,601 --> 00:13:34,021 But it was maybe the only thing I was interested in. 181 00:13:35,439 --> 00:13:36,565 It's in my DNA. 182 00:13:38,359 --> 00:13:41,028 And I had a group of friends my own age, 183 00:13:41,111 --> 00:13:42,988 that were also effects fans. 184 00:13:46,367 --> 00:13:52,373 I've always wondered why I locked into wanting to do this so early. 185 00:13:56,252 --> 00:13:58,879 I was watching movies like King Kong. 186 00:13:59,880 --> 00:14:05,761 The films of my hero, Ray Harryhausen, and something just clicked. 187 00:14:09,056 --> 00:14:13,018 When I was about five years old, King Kong came on television, 188 00:14:13,102 --> 00:14:16,313 and that just kind of changed my life. 189 00:14:19,275 --> 00:14:23,153 And then in 1958, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad came out, Ray Harryhausen. 190 00:14:24,864 --> 00:14:26,240 To the boat! 191 00:14:29,201 --> 00:14:31,412 I saw Ray Harryhausen's The 7th Voyage of Sinbad 192 00:14:31,495 --> 00:14:33,581 like eight times the first week it came out. 193 00:14:33,664 --> 00:14:36,458 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad just melted my brain. 194 00:14:36,542 --> 00:14:38,210 That kind of sealed the deal. 195 00:14:38,294 --> 00:14:39,920 It was like struck by lightning. 196 00:14:40,796 --> 00:14:41,922 I went nuts. 197 00:14:43,465 --> 00:14:47,177 I was just mystified by how it was done. 198 00:14:50,973 --> 00:14:54,393 I didn't even understand, of course, as a kid, how movies were made. 199 00:14:54,476 --> 00:14:57,396 But my mom liked films, and she took me to see 200 00:14:57,563 --> 00:15:01,233 one of Ray Harryhausen's first films, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. 201 00:15:03,986 --> 00:15:06,447 I asked my mom, "Do you know how this is done?" 202 00:15:07,114 --> 00:15:11,327 She said, "Yeah, it's just a lot of separate pictures of a model, 203 00:15:11,702 --> 00:15:14,955 "and they're moved a little bit between each frame of film." 204 00:15:15,998 --> 00:15:18,167 I have no idea how my mother knew that. 205 00:15:18,250 --> 00:15:20,586 I didn't even know movies were frames of film. 206 00:15:21,837 --> 00:15:25,257 But from a very young age I was attracted to visuals. 207 00:15:26,050 --> 00:15:28,677 This spectacle that I couldn't see in real life. 208 00:15:29,887 --> 00:15:34,934 It was compelling to be able to see some sort of giant creature of some sort 209 00:15:35,017 --> 00:15:37,978 that I couldn't walk out of the theater and see 210 00:15:38,062 --> 00:15:41,023 and I just wanted to, I wanted to see those things for real. 211 00:15:42,483 --> 00:15:45,527 In those days, you couldn't repeat a movie over and over again. 212 00:15:45,611 --> 00:15:48,322 There were no DVDs or streaming or anything for them. 213 00:15:48,989 --> 00:15:51,241 So I just wanted to recreate in my mind, 214 00:15:51,367 --> 00:15:54,036 these memories of what I see in the theater, 215 00:15:54,119 --> 00:15:56,997 and there was no way to unless you did it yourself. 216 00:15:57,081 --> 00:16:02,836 I was actually making home movies when I was in the 6th grade 217 00:16:06,090 --> 00:16:09,051 with this Kodak movie camera. 218 00:16:10,970 --> 00:16:14,306 I think we actually bought it with Blue Chip Stamps. 219 00:16:19,687 --> 00:16:22,272 It was how it started, how to invent stuff 220 00:16:22,356 --> 00:16:25,985 without knowing a damn thing about what you're doing, but feeling it. 221 00:16:26,402 --> 00:16:29,113 And I guess I absorbed it from seeing so many movies. 222 00:16:32,366 --> 00:16:35,744 Watching movies really precipitated the interest in prehistoric life 223 00:16:35,828 --> 00:16:39,331 and dinosaurs and kind of became an amateur paleontologist. 224 00:16:42,793 --> 00:16:47,089 I didn't have any kind of a social life, I just spent all my time alone 225 00:16:47,172 --> 00:16:49,216 drawing and painting and sculpting. 226 00:16:50,551 --> 00:16:53,053 For Christmas, my parents would buy me 227 00:16:53,137 --> 00:16:58,308 these play sets that had a bunch of army men or dinosaurs and whatnot. 228 00:16:58,392 --> 00:17:00,644 And so, you would create these scenarios 229 00:17:00,728 --> 00:17:03,397 with World War II characters and dinosaurs. 230 00:17:03,856 --> 00:17:08,485 You know? And that was that was a big part of exercising the imagination. 231 00:17:09,403 --> 00:17:12,322 I would mow lawns and get an 8mm camera 232 00:17:12,406 --> 00:17:15,701 and set up in my bedroom and push clay around. 233 00:17:18,454 --> 00:17:21,915 When G.I. Joes came out, I would steal them from Sears 234 00:17:21,999 --> 00:17:23,709 because I didn't have enough money. 235 00:17:23,792 --> 00:17:26,170 You know, I could like fashion them. 236 00:17:27,838 --> 00:17:30,841 You know, all the gears started to turn. 237 00:17:33,218 --> 00:17:36,847 And we tried so many hard things that we should never have attempted, 238 00:17:36,930 --> 00:17:38,140 but we pulled off some of it. 239 00:17:39,975 --> 00:17:43,270 And you'd go, you'd put it into the drugstore to be developed. 240 00:17:43,395 --> 00:17:44,980 You'd wait. You get it back. 241 00:17:45,105 --> 00:17:46,523 You put it on the projector. 242 00:17:47,274 --> 00:17:49,860 And if it worked or even came close to working, 243 00:17:49,943 --> 00:17:53,405 that feeling of excitement, it's hard to describe. 244 00:17:55,949 --> 00:17:59,536 The goal was to please myself. 245 00:18:03,499 --> 00:18:06,585 And there were a few of us that got to know each other 246 00:18:06,877 --> 00:18:10,714 through this magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland. 247 00:18:13,383 --> 00:18:15,969 It was a Christmastime down in San Diego, 248 00:18:16,053 --> 00:18:19,056 where they used to have newsstands, and there it was. 249 00:18:20,099 --> 00:18:25,062 I had no idea where the magazine came from that day or what it was. 250 00:18:25,312 --> 00:18:27,189 But there were photos from effects film. 251 00:18:29,441 --> 00:18:30,859 So I could look at the photo 252 00:18:30,943 --> 00:18:33,487 and start to understand how it was being done. 253 00:18:35,322 --> 00:18:37,825 Forrest J. Ackerman was the editor, 254 00:18:37,908 --> 00:18:42,538 and I think Forry really influenced an awful lot of people doing this work. 255 00:18:43,747 --> 00:18:45,582 Forry was very strange, 256 00:18:45,666 --> 00:18:49,586 kind of a quizzical Vincent Price. 257 00:18:49,670 --> 00:18:51,380 And he did stuff like, 258 00:18:51,463 --> 00:18:53,966 if you'd knock on the door to his Ackermansion, 259 00:18:54,049 --> 00:18:58,053 he called it, and the door would creep open and his hand would come out, 260 00:18:58,512 --> 00:19:03,517 and on his hand was Bela Lugosi's Dracula ring from the movie. 261 00:19:03,642 --> 00:19:09,398 Good evening, I am Doctor Ackcula and I bid you welcome. 262 00:19:10,524 --> 00:19:13,610 Follow me if you dare. 263 00:19:14,153 --> 00:19:17,739 That looked like a regular house on the outside, and you walk inside and 264 00:19:17,823 --> 00:19:21,869 all there were, were books and photos and props and paintings. 265 00:19:22,452 --> 00:19:23,996 I was flabbergasted. 266 00:19:24,413 --> 00:19:27,332 There's actual models from the original Kong. 267 00:19:28,333 --> 00:19:31,336 You know, and you learn more about how movies are made. 268 00:19:32,337 --> 00:19:34,923 I still remember when I first went to Forry's place, 269 00:19:35,007 --> 00:19:38,177 there's a group of people there, and we met Jon Berg. 270 00:19:39,136 --> 00:19:45,017 And Jon invited us to go to Cascade Pictures of California, where he worked. 271 00:19:45,726 --> 00:19:48,687 We're at Cascade Studios in Hollywood, California. 272 00:19:49,188 --> 00:19:51,315 And here's Phil Kelli son, the director. 273 00:19:51,607 --> 00:19:54,902 Phil Kelli son was the head of the effects department at Cascade. 274 00:19:54,985 --> 00:19:57,613 He moved up the street I lived on, 275 00:19:57,696 --> 00:20:01,742 and drove by and saw this sign from this like museum 276 00:20:01,992 --> 00:20:03,827 some kids and I put on, 277 00:20:03,911 --> 00:20:07,497 but it was just our collection of movie props and photos, said, 278 00:20:07,581 --> 00:20:10,834 The Museum of Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies, 279 00:20:11,168 --> 00:20:14,046 and he thought, "What the heck is that?" and stopped by. 280 00:20:15,214 --> 00:20:17,925 Eventually, Phil invited me up to Cascade. 281 00:20:18,508 --> 00:20:21,470 He said, "You want to do some animation?" and I said, "Why, sure." 282 00:20:22,638 --> 00:20:25,349 The commercial was this sheet that had just been washed 283 00:20:25,432 --> 00:20:28,393 that had come off of a clothesline and walked by itself. 284 00:20:28,894 --> 00:20:32,898 I was actually doing the stop motion the walking, the sheets and all that stuff. 285 00:20:33,774 --> 00:20:35,859 I was probably like 17 or so. 286 00:20:37,027 --> 00:20:39,571 The effects department at Cascade began 287 00:20:39,655 --> 00:20:42,616 when the industry was exploding in the early '60s. 288 00:20:46,036 --> 00:20:48,538 And so many great people worked there. 289 00:20:50,123 --> 00:20:52,542 That's where I met Ken Ralston, 290 00:20:53,835 --> 00:20:55,128 and Dennis Muren. 291 00:20:56,380 --> 00:20:58,006 It was kind of an amazing group. 292 00:21:00,425 --> 00:21:01,760 Cascade closed up 293 00:21:02,469 --> 00:21:05,973 because suddenly visual effects weren't fashionable anymore. 294 00:21:06,473 --> 00:21:10,018 There were some effects departments still in the big studios, 295 00:21:10,102 --> 00:21:11,395 but they were closing up. 296 00:21:11,812 --> 00:21:14,064 So it was all going to kind of come to an end. 297 00:21:15,857 --> 00:21:18,277 I realized I would have to grow up 298 00:21:19,236 --> 00:21:20,737 and get a real job. 299 00:21:22,489 --> 00:21:25,617 But then eventually I started hearing that George Lucas, 300 00:21:25,701 --> 00:21:27,202 who did American Graffiti... 301 00:21:27,327 --> 00:21:32,165 - Hey. You got a bitchin' car. - Hell yeah, I know. 302 00:21:32,332 --> 00:21:34,001 Was going to do a space movie. 303 00:21:38,797 --> 00:21:44,219 When I read the script for Star Wars, I just thought, "This is impossible." 304 00:21:47,222 --> 00:21:50,392 Honestly, I was worried about the script at first 305 00:21:50,475 --> 00:21:52,227 because, I mean, it was like, 306 00:21:53,603 --> 00:21:56,481 it was like a teenage script in a sense, 307 00:21:56,565 --> 00:22:00,319 "trust in the force" lines and those kind of things, you know? 308 00:22:01,361 --> 00:22:03,864 I mean, who was going to do this, Brando? You know? 309 00:22:03,947 --> 00:22:05,866 And so I was worried about that. 310 00:22:06,366 --> 00:22:09,244 For what George was trying to do with the space battles 311 00:22:09,911 --> 00:22:11,455 this will take forever. 312 00:22:11,830 --> 00:22:14,708 There's no way he's going to get this done in a year. 313 00:22:15,208 --> 00:22:17,586 I don't even know how to do a lot of the shots. 314 00:22:18,587 --> 00:22:21,214 I have to say I was a little bit confused. 315 00:22:22,758 --> 00:22:26,011 There was a lot of stuff that didn't make perfect sense to me, 316 00:22:26,470 --> 00:22:28,930 but then again, I wasn't a movie person, you know? 317 00:22:29,097 --> 00:22:31,850 In fact, it was probably the first script I'd ever read. 318 00:22:33,602 --> 00:22:35,312 I remember I was in... 319 00:22:35,395 --> 00:22:37,689 I want to say it was in Jon Berg's car with Dennis 320 00:22:37,773 --> 00:22:42,027 and we had the script and it was like, "Wow, this has a lot of cool stuff in it." 321 00:22:43,236 --> 00:22:46,239 And it was like a lot of movies we wanted to make personally, 322 00:22:46,323 --> 00:22:48,533 full of stuff that no studio wanted to make. 323 00:23:00,587 --> 00:23:06,009 John Dykstra wanted to hire people who could do a lot of different things. 324 00:23:06,093 --> 00:23:08,970 - No, it's long. - No, we want it over normal height. 325 00:23:09,096 --> 00:23:11,556 And most of the people were not movie people. 326 00:23:12,391 --> 00:23:14,810 They were from all different walks of life. 327 00:23:15,936 --> 00:23:19,064 The group on the first Star Wars some of it was very green. 328 00:23:19,147 --> 00:23:22,859 They were basically machinists, guys who worked on motorcycles. 329 00:23:23,527 --> 00:23:27,906 But John was there to guide them into what was necessary, what to build, 330 00:23:28,115 --> 00:23:31,785 to use the skills that they had to do what was necessary for the movie. 331 00:23:36,415 --> 00:23:41,837 They all kind of were experts in different things 332 00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:44,131 that they couldn't get paid for. 333 00:23:45,424 --> 00:23:47,384 And I brought those people together. 334 00:23:51,012 --> 00:23:55,475 But to be honest with you, this was a long shot. 335 00:23:56,601 --> 00:24:00,605 We were departing from convention in several different ways, 336 00:24:01,148 --> 00:24:05,819 and if any one of them failed, it could have been a disaster. 337 00:24:07,737 --> 00:24:10,407 It was the opportunity to really go for it. 338 00:24:11,575 --> 00:24:13,952 You know, it's like when you're a ski jumper, 339 00:24:14,035 --> 00:24:17,998 you're standing on the top of the jump and you know that you can do it, 340 00:24:18,081 --> 00:24:20,459 and everybody had that attitude. 341 00:24:21,751 --> 00:24:23,837 But we had to school each other. 342 00:24:27,007 --> 00:24:29,759 George wasn't there an awful lot in the beginning, 343 00:24:29,885 --> 00:24:33,388 but I think he wanted a bunch of pioneers 344 00:24:33,472 --> 00:24:36,892 who maybe weren't quite sure what they were doing. 345 00:24:39,686 --> 00:24:44,274 He wanted a bunch of guys who didn't know what was impossible. 346 00:24:45,442 --> 00:24:47,777 - We've got to do some practicing. - Yeah. Yeah. 347 00:24:47,861 --> 00:24:49,779 They're gonna fire at the bottom. 348 00:24:49,863 --> 00:24:52,616 So, I mean, from the camera, it'll look like you've cut it. 349 00:24:52,699 --> 00:24:53,783 Yeah. Cut it. Yeah, yeah. 350 00:24:53,867 --> 00:24:57,537 And then they're gonna fire the top once your sword is about halfway through. 351 00:24:57,621 --> 00:24:59,706 Running. Speed. 352 00:25:04,169 --> 00:25:05,170 Action! 353 00:25:11,009 --> 00:25:12,427 - Okay, cut. - Cut it! 354 00:25:19,392 --> 00:25:22,062 I mean, who knows what was going on in England. 355 00:25:22,145 --> 00:25:26,066 But George had left us his material 356 00:25:26,191 --> 00:25:31,947 that he had cut from World War II movies and, you know, gun camera stuff, 357 00:25:32,030 --> 00:25:36,034 for what he thought he wanted to have happened in the battle for the Death Star. 358 00:25:39,704 --> 00:25:43,708 So we used that as a template for what we needed to build. 359 00:25:44,459 --> 00:25:47,003 I approach it from the point of view of what would I get 360 00:25:47,087 --> 00:25:50,382 if I bolted a camera onto this ship and went to space and did it? 361 00:25:51,383 --> 00:25:55,554 I wanted to make this stuff indistinguishable from reality. 362 00:25:57,597 --> 00:25:59,766 And that required motion control. 363 00:26:00,725 --> 00:26:07,399 Motion control is the ability to record the movement of the camera 364 00:26:07,816 --> 00:26:10,777 through space, forward and backward, side to side, 365 00:26:10,902 --> 00:26:13,071 rotation up and down. 366 00:26:13,530 --> 00:26:15,782 It makes a record of that movement, 367 00:26:16,116 --> 00:26:19,160 and then you can repeat that move as many times as necessary. 368 00:26:20,495 --> 00:26:24,583 I had worked with a prototype motion control system years before. 369 00:26:25,375 --> 00:26:31,172 I had been at the University of Berkeley on a project about perception. 370 00:26:32,924 --> 00:26:36,886 The idea was to build a miniature of a portion of Marin County 371 00:26:36,970 --> 00:26:39,139 and photograph it with a camera 372 00:26:39,639 --> 00:26:44,227 and then compare responses from people who viewed that film of the miniature 373 00:26:44,519 --> 00:26:48,773 with people who were put in a car and driven through the same environment. 374 00:26:51,568 --> 00:26:54,738 At Berkeley, I met Al Miller and Jerry Jeffress, 375 00:26:55,655 --> 00:26:58,617 and they had built a very early motion control system 376 00:26:58,950 --> 00:27:03,079 to move the camera around the miniature and to be able to repeat the moves. 377 00:27:04,706 --> 00:27:09,002 I got together with them and we conceived the motion control systems for Star Wars, 378 00:27:10,003 --> 00:27:13,965 because most of the images were built up of multiple elements. 379 00:27:14,341 --> 00:27:16,343 We'd do Matts on one pass. 380 00:27:16,426 --> 00:27:21,097 We'd do engines on another pass and the camera had to be able 381 00:27:21,181 --> 00:27:23,767 to duplicate the move exactly, precisely. 382 00:27:24,142 --> 00:27:26,269 So that when we put those elements together 383 00:27:26,353 --> 00:27:28,521 in the sandwich we call optical printing, 384 00:27:29,022 --> 00:27:31,483 all of the pieces were in sync with one another. 385 00:27:32,317 --> 00:27:36,488 Berkeley had been a perfect proving ground for the idea, 386 00:27:36,571 --> 00:27:39,157 but we needed to build new equipment. 387 00:27:42,243 --> 00:27:47,082 Now, you've got to understand I had to be nuts 388 00:27:47,165 --> 00:27:50,585 to think that the studio was going to agree to me going, 389 00:27:50,669 --> 00:27:52,253 "I'm going to build all of this stuff," 390 00:27:52,337 --> 00:27:55,256 "and then I'm going to make the visual effects for the movie." 391 00:27:55,340 --> 00:27:56,341 But they did. 392 00:27:58,218 --> 00:28:01,179 We designed cameras and constructed them from scratch 393 00:28:01,346 --> 00:28:04,724 and then doing the motion control system with all that entails. 394 00:28:05,141 --> 00:28:06,643 We had to build the computers. 395 00:28:06,726 --> 00:28:09,396 We had to build all of the hardware that was necessary 396 00:28:09,479 --> 00:28:12,732 to make the camera a numerically repeatable device. 397 00:28:12,941 --> 00:28:14,234 Phew! 398 00:28:14,317 --> 00:28:15,527 Darn it, broke my finger. 399 00:28:16,736 --> 00:28:19,155 We had two motion control cameras. 400 00:28:19,823 --> 00:28:21,616 One was Dykstraflex. 401 00:28:24,744 --> 00:28:28,164 It was probably just a nickname. 402 00:28:28,373 --> 00:28:30,500 And then the other one is the Rama. 403 00:28:32,001 --> 00:28:36,339 Which was a Technorama camera that was like a cubic foot 404 00:28:36,423 --> 00:28:39,050 and it weighed about 150 pounds. 405 00:28:39,551 --> 00:28:43,513 We had to build a follow focus system for it. 400-foot magazine. 406 00:28:43,596 --> 00:28:48,017 So it would be as low profile as could be. I mean, it was fantastic. 407 00:28:48,435 --> 00:28:51,855 We were all extreme photography nerds, you know. 408 00:28:51,938 --> 00:28:54,107 We're experimenting in different areas. 409 00:28:54,190 --> 00:28:58,695 We were using a format that was obsolete, VistaVision format. 410 00:28:58,778 --> 00:29:03,450 We were able to acquire equipment that had been used to do VistaVision work, 411 00:29:03,533 --> 00:29:06,244 and then had to modify it for our purposes. 412 00:29:06,327 --> 00:29:09,456 Paramount had all this VistaVision equipment 413 00:29:09,539 --> 00:29:12,625 that hadn't been used since The Ten Commandments. 414 00:29:12,751 --> 00:29:15,253 Behold His mighty hand. 415 00:29:20,300 --> 00:29:23,052 We Frankensteined it back to life. 416 00:29:23,970 --> 00:29:28,224 That was a classic, perfect format for Star Wars. 417 00:29:28,892 --> 00:29:34,022 The larger negative allowed us to make duplicates without generational loss. 418 00:29:34,189 --> 00:29:36,483 And it was in this great big magazine on top 419 00:29:36,566 --> 00:29:38,318 and we're going to under sling the camera. 420 00:29:38,401 --> 00:29:40,945 So the camera is going to be hanging from the boom. 421 00:29:41,070 --> 00:29:45,825 Made the camera low profile so I could fly the camera right close to the models. 422 00:29:47,702 --> 00:29:51,372 Somewhere in there, I just thought, "You know, I want to learn this stuff." 423 00:29:51,456 --> 00:29:53,917 "This is new technology I've heard about." 424 00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,920 So I made a point of contacting John about it 425 00:29:57,212 --> 00:29:59,255 and ended up getting a job on the show. 426 00:30:00,423 --> 00:30:05,386 John Dykstra was the head honcho, and I like John a lot, big guy, 427 00:30:05,470 --> 00:30:08,807 and he knew how to take over a room and get things done. 428 00:30:08,890 --> 00:30:13,895 The brilliance of John Dykstra was that he could do everybody's job. 429 00:30:13,978 --> 00:30:17,398 He would come into the model shop sometimes to blow off steam 430 00:30:17,482 --> 00:30:19,442 or something like that, and he's making models, 431 00:30:19,526 --> 00:30:21,444 or he was a filmmaker. 432 00:30:21,528 --> 00:30:24,072 He could process film, all that kind of stuff. 433 00:30:24,614 --> 00:30:26,741 All those people, they were all jack of all trades. 434 00:30:26,825 --> 00:30:28,326 I had no idea what to think. 435 00:30:28,451 --> 00:30:31,538 John was always this big, outgoing guy and fun, 436 00:30:32,205 --> 00:30:34,332 and a motorcycle guy and a car racer. 437 00:30:34,958 --> 00:30:37,043 Which is as far from me as you could get. 438 00:30:38,044 --> 00:30:40,713 And Richard was more of a kind of a laid back kind of guy, 439 00:30:40,797 --> 00:30:43,341 but into the technology and the cameras and precision, 440 00:30:43,424 --> 00:30:45,552 and I didn't understand much of that. 441 00:30:46,094 --> 00:30:49,222 Richard loved to build equipment. 442 00:30:49,806 --> 00:30:51,140 That's what he lived for. 443 00:30:51,474 --> 00:30:53,601 He liked thinking about mechanical problems, 444 00:30:53,685 --> 00:30:56,229 solving mechanical problems for photography. 445 00:30:57,313 --> 00:31:00,108 So, it was an ideal place for him. 446 00:31:01,526 --> 00:31:03,152 All right. I'm ready. 447 00:31:06,114 --> 00:31:08,992 I don't have a classical education. 448 00:31:10,034 --> 00:31:12,370 I read a lot and I experimented a lot. 449 00:31:12,787 --> 00:31:17,041 Took metal shop, printing, electric shop, mechanical drawing. 450 00:31:17,333 --> 00:31:20,503 I didn't take auto shop, but I was working on my car at home. 451 00:31:21,004 --> 00:31:23,798 In high school, I got interested in photography. 452 00:31:24,132 --> 00:31:29,012 I was the photographer for the LA Examiner already, and I was like a young Weegee. 453 00:31:29,888 --> 00:31:34,642 One of my last gigs was to photograph this "Day in the Navy" event 454 00:31:34,726 --> 00:31:36,936 to hype young kids to join the Navy. 455 00:31:37,145 --> 00:31:40,273 We got a tour below deck, they fired the five-inch guns. 456 00:31:40,356 --> 00:31:42,692 The submarine came by and fired a torpedo. 457 00:31:42,775 --> 00:31:47,405 They were firing at it with twin .50s. They asked us how we wanted our eggs, 458 00:31:47,488 --> 00:31:49,240 you know, I mean, it worked for me. 459 00:31:49,324 --> 00:31:51,910 I enlisted in the Navy within a week. 460 00:31:52,744 --> 00:31:56,289 I flew to Tachikawa in Japan, started studying the language. 461 00:31:56,372 --> 00:31:57,624 I had a Chinese buddy. 462 00:31:57,707 --> 00:32:01,461 The calligraphy expert taught me how to write with a brush, 463 00:32:01,544 --> 00:32:03,212 and I was in a photo lab. 464 00:32:03,796 --> 00:32:06,674 We had every kind of photographic equipment known to man, 465 00:32:06,799 --> 00:32:09,969 and so I started shooting movies and I thought, 466 00:32:10,053 --> 00:32:12,430 "God, what a fascinating career this must be." 467 00:32:13,765 --> 00:32:17,477 After I got out of the Navy, I started bloodying my knuckles 468 00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:18,978 on the doors of Hollywood. 469 00:32:19,062 --> 00:32:22,023 And Joe Westheimer somehow got a hold of my résumé, 470 00:32:22,148 --> 00:32:25,318 and I was with Joe for four years and I was the crew. 471 00:32:25,443 --> 00:32:30,365 I was the operator, the assistant, the grip gaffer, lab run, swept up. 472 00:32:30,698 --> 00:32:34,369 I did everything. I did the hand lettering for title shows. 473 00:32:34,494 --> 00:32:41,376 I actually designed the Star Trek alphabet that they still use. That... You know. 474 00:32:45,129 --> 00:32:47,465 I never got a nickel extra for that, but... 475 00:32:48,549 --> 00:32:52,345 My hair started growing and then I became a rock 'n roll photographer. 476 00:32:58,643 --> 00:33:00,895 And I decided, "I'm going to get myself a guitar," 477 00:33:00,979 --> 00:33:03,272 because I played the ukulele since I was a kid 478 00:33:03,356 --> 00:33:06,651 and I took guitar lessons and accordion lessons at one point. 479 00:33:07,193 --> 00:33:10,530 So I bought this guitar, I had a Sam Ash amplifier 480 00:33:10,613 --> 00:33:13,825 that hummed like, it was really loud, and I thought... 481 00:33:14,742 --> 00:33:17,620 I can make a portable guitar amp for my guitar. 482 00:33:18,788 --> 00:33:20,039 It sounded great. 483 00:33:20,581 --> 00:33:24,669 This little Pignose was like a big hit amongst the famous guitarists. 484 00:33:26,379 --> 00:33:27,755 And we got it to everyone. 485 00:33:28,798 --> 00:33:32,552 I mean Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Keith Richards. 486 00:33:33,094 --> 00:33:34,345 Frank Zappa loved them. 487 00:33:34,429 --> 00:33:36,764 Plug it in here. Turn on the giant amplifier. 488 00:33:39,976 --> 00:33:43,730 The first year, I think we built more than 15,000 Pignoses. 489 00:33:44,063 --> 00:33:47,734 Anyway, about that time, I decided to leave LA 490 00:33:47,817 --> 00:33:51,696 and went back to San Francisco, drove cable cars for a year. 491 00:33:54,115 --> 00:33:56,826 You know, I had a bunch of more life experience 492 00:33:56,909 --> 00:33:58,786 than a lot of these other people did. 493 00:34:08,671 --> 00:34:12,133 When I first came on to Star Wars, didn't know any of the people. 494 00:34:12,216 --> 00:34:15,178 I didn't even know the jobs because it was done by a factory 495 00:34:15,261 --> 00:34:17,847 with all these departments, like five departments, 496 00:34:17,930 --> 00:34:20,433 in different areas of this big, empty building. 497 00:34:21,184 --> 00:34:23,936 The world I came from was, you used equipment 498 00:34:24,062 --> 00:34:26,606 that literally was built 40 and 50 years earlier, 499 00:34:26,856 --> 00:34:29,358 and there was no money for anything any different. 500 00:34:29,692 --> 00:34:32,945 Nobody was going to put any money into reinvent the wheel. 501 00:34:33,154 --> 00:34:34,572 We already have a wheel. 502 00:34:34,655 --> 00:34:40,912 But these guys had this confidence and had no connection to the past. 503 00:34:41,579 --> 00:34:44,373 They were prepared to do anything to make this work, 504 00:34:44,457 --> 00:34:48,086 including building equipment, and they would just say, "We're doing it." 505 00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:53,341 We were building an entire system from the beginning to the end. 506 00:34:53,508 --> 00:34:56,928 Cameras were being built at the same time the miniatures were being built. 507 00:34:57,011 --> 00:35:00,431 At the same time, the stage technology was going to be built. 508 00:35:01,390 --> 00:35:04,519 It all had to come together to make the first piece of film. 509 00:35:05,561 --> 00:35:08,481 You couldn't buy that stuff off the shelf, you know. 510 00:35:08,564 --> 00:35:10,942 Every gear and every welded piece 511 00:35:11,025 --> 00:35:13,361 had to be made for these cameras that were 512 00:35:13,444 --> 00:35:15,738 absolutely earth-shattering in what they could do. 513 00:35:15,822 --> 00:35:18,449 I was there when the original camera was brought in 514 00:35:18,533 --> 00:35:22,078 and they didn't have the boom to move the camera up or down yet. 515 00:35:22,161 --> 00:35:23,746 You know, it seemed like some of it 516 00:35:23,830 --> 00:35:26,582 they were trying to figure out as they were going along, 517 00:35:26,666 --> 00:35:28,960 I don't know if they really decided they needed a boom 518 00:35:29,043 --> 00:35:32,004 until they got the camera first set up and it was on the pedestal. 519 00:35:32,088 --> 00:35:35,258 And they said, "Well, it might be nice to have a boom arm also." 520 00:35:36,300 --> 00:35:40,054 We were up against the wall in a lot of cases in terms of coming up 521 00:35:40,138 --> 00:35:43,474 with something that was going to work that hadn't been done before. 522 00:35:44,016 --> 00:35:46,060 And we think that this is going to work this way. 523 00:35:46,227 --> 00:35:48,896 And then about two-thirds of the way through, you say, 524 00:35:48,980 --> 00:35:53,109 "Jeez, if I'd only thought of this, we could have done it this way." 525 00:35:55,486 --> 00:35:59,240 We were sort of flying by the seat of our pants in a lot of situations. 526 00:35:59,740 --> 00:36:03,077 But it's okay if you make mistakes and it's okay if you fail. 527 00:36:03,786 --> 00:36:07,832 The next time you do it, maybe you won't make the same mistake. 528 00:36:09,458 --> 00:36:10,918 At the beginning, 529 00:36:11,002 --> 00:36:14,297 one of the guys I saw that really grabbed my eye was Joe Johnston. 530 00:36:15,882 --> 00:36:17,133 And Joe was an artist. 531 00:36:18,467 --> 00:36:22,138 I thought. But then I saw him building a model. 532 00:36:22,930 --> 00:36:26,434 And then the next time I'd see him, he was like painting something or other. 533 00:36:26,559 --> 00:36:28,978 Or I'd see him over here and he was doing a storyboard. 534 00:36:30,730 --> 00:36:32,648 And he was really multi-skilled. 535 00:36:34,984 --> 00:36:37,820 At the same time that I started doing the storyboards, 536 00:36:38,112 --> 00:36:42,533 we knew that we had to change the design on Colin Cantwell's ships. 537 00:36:44,076 --> 00:36:50,208 He had designed a Y-wing, and the X-wing and the TIE fighters, 538 00:36:50,291 --> 00:36:54,045 but they needed to fall into these worlds of, 539 00:36:54,128 --> 00:36:58,049 the Empire stuff looks like this, and the Rebel stuff looks like this. 540 00:37:01,260 --> 00:37:06,307 George always saw the Rebel fleet as essentially hotrods. 541 00:37:06,641 --> 00:37:10,311 These guys had acquired this stuff used and it was beat up 542 00:37:10,394 --> 00:37:13,648 and they'd patched together and supercharged the engines. 543 00:37:13,731 --> 00:37:15,608 And they were basically little hotrods. 544 00:37:16,317 --> 00:37:19,195 And the Empire stuff is right off the factory floor. 545 00:37:21,113 --> 00:37:25,284 So we can outrun the Imperial ships 546 00:37:25,368 --> 00:37:27,078 because we've hot-rodded ours. 547 00:37:28,204 --> 00:37:31,457 And so I started sort of changing the designs around a little bit. 548 00:37:32,625 --> 00:37:37,088 And that sort of led from, "I'm doing storyboards over here," 549 00:37:37,922 --> 00:37:40,091 to "And now I'm going to take all this stuff 550 00:37:40,174 --> 00:37:43,469 "to my other drawing table and start changing these designs." 551 00:37:46,222 --> 00:37:50,184 I don't remember if it was because something needed to be done 552 00:37:50,268 --> 00:37:54,105 and there wasn't anybody there to do it, but one day, George said, 553 00:37:54,772 --> 00:37:56,899 "You know, we need a new ship for Han Solo," 554 00:37:57,108 --> 00:37:58,401 "and we need it fast." 555 00:38:00,027 --> 00:38:03,990 Space: 1999 came out and they had a ship 556 00:38:04,532 --> 00:38:10,079 that was roughly the same shape as the original Han Solo ship. 557 00:38:11,539 --> 00:38:13,457 George didn't want to copy anybody. 558 00:38:13,582 --> 00:38:16,502 He didn't want anything on TV that looked like one of his ships. 559 00:38:16,585 --> 00:38:18,504 So we were not going to use that ship. 560 00:38:20,381 --> 00:38:22,842 He says, "We can use that as the blockade runner." 561 00:38:22,925 --> 00:38:25,594 "But Han Solo needs his own ship." 562 00:38:27,346 --> 00:38:31,225 I went home and I had this mental block 563 00:38:31,642 --> 00:38:34,353 because George had sent me off to design a new ship. 564 00:38:34,437 --> 00:38:38,983 They wanted it right away, but the original ship was nearly finished. 565 00:38:39,650 --> 00:38:42,320 Grant McCune had already finished the cockpit, 566 00:38:42,945 --> 00:38:45,489 and he had finished the radar dish. 567 00:38:45,906 --> 00:38:48,951 "So he said, " Do me a favor and use this radar dish, 568 00:38:49,952 --> 00:38:51,078 "and use the cockpit." 569 00:38:51,996 --> 00:38:53,664 I said, "Okay, I can do that." 570 00:38:54,332 --> 00:38:57,418 So I'm sitting there, I'm looking around the room at stuff, 571 00:38:57,543 --> 00:39:01,088 you know, trying to find shapes that, "Maybe that could be cool." 572 00:39:01,172 --> 00:39:06,302 And I look over in the kitchen area and there's this stack of dirty dishes 573 00:39:07,094 --> 00:39:10,014 and I'm thinking, "What if you took this dish" 574 00:39:10,097 --> 00:39:13,100 "and put another one on top of it like this. That's cool." 575 00:39:13,184 --> 00:39:14,560 Well, it's a flying saucer. 576 00:39:16,645 --> 00:39:20,649 But you can give it direction by putting an engine on the back, 577 00:39:21,692 --> 00:39:25,363 you know, somehow, and putting something in the front 578 00:39:25,446 --> 00:39:27,156 that gives it sort of a direction. 579 00:39:28,783 --> 00:39:30,618 But I had this cockpit I had to use, 580 00:39:30,743 --> 00:39:33,704 so I put the cockpit in all different positions, 581 00:39:33,788 --> 00:39:37,792 on top, and underneath, then out front. 582 00:39:38,542 --> 00:39:43,047 I said, "You know, if I'm driving a car, I'm going to be sitting on one side", 583 00:39:43,130 --> 00:39:45,591 "so I'm going to put the cockpit out on one side." 584 00:39:50,012 --> 00:39:52,598 But I don't want it to look like an American car, 585 00:39:52,932 --> 00:39:55,101 so I put the cockpit over on the right side. 586 00:39:55,184 --> 00:39:58,396 It will make it a right-hand-drive thing. 587 00:39:58,479 --> 00:40:01,941 Then I put the radar dish on the opposite side to balance the cockpit. 588 00:40:02,566 --> 00:40:06,112 I did about six sketches, and I brought them to George 589 00:40:06,195 --> 00:40:09,073 and I knew right away before I even put them on the table, 590 00:40:09,156 --> 00:40:12,827 he's going to like the one where it's eccentric and off to the side and 591 00:40:13,285 --> 00:40:17,123 something that you know he hadn't seen before, which he did. 592 00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,045 Its nickname was the "Pork Burger." 593 00:40:24,088 --> 00:40:25,840 Because it looked like a hamburger. 594 00:40:27,383 --> 00:40:29,718 By the time I came back with those drawings, 595 00:40:29,844 --> 00:40:31,971 and George said, "Yeah, start building it," 596 00:40:32,346 --> 00:40:33,431 it was underway. 597 00:40:35,224 --> 00:40:40,312 So instead of designing it on paper, I hung out in the model shop. 598 00:40:40,938 --> 00:40:43,607 We just... We did it practically instead of on paper. 599 00:40:45,526 --> 00:40:47,403 George wanted a used universe. 600 00:40:48,154 --> 00:40:50,948 You know, he didn't want that shiny Flash Gordon look. 601 00:40:52,533 --> 00:40:56,996 You weren't supposed to think of it like an incredibly massive piece of aluminum, 602 00:40:57,121 --> 00:40:59,748 that was somehow floated in and put together. 603 00:41:00,666 --> 00:41:02,710 This had to be put together and riveted. 604 00:41:04,086 --> 00:41:05,713 Everything had to have a reason. 605 00:41:05,796 --> 00:41:09,008 So even if you looked at it close, if there was a box, 606 00:41:09,133 --> 00:41:11,635 it had to have tubes that went to a plan um box 607 00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:14,805 that then went to something else and had electrical wires 608 00:41:14,889 --> 00:41:16,891 that then connected into something else. 609 00:41:17,099 --> 00:41:19,560 It had to have some kind of mechanical connection. 610 00:41:20,769 --> 00:41:24,064 We adopted the phrase "boilerplate technology." 611 00:41:24,231 --> 00:41:28,569 The model builders were working off sketches for a lot of it. 612 00:41:28,819 --> 00:41:31,947 But for some of the minute detail, they were just finding parts 613 00:41:32,031 --> 00:41:36,035 from model kits that looked like, "This is a mechanical thing, this'll look good." 614 00:41:36,118 --> 00:41:37,495 We called this kit bashing. 615 00:41:37,828 --> 00:41:41,373 And we would buy German tanks, airplanes, guns, 616 00:41:41,540 --> 00:41:45,294 World War II equipment, just to provide an incredible amount of good parts. 617 00:41:45,377 --> 00:41:48,631 We were limited somewhat by the model kits that we could get, 618 00:41:48,714 --> 00:41:53,636 because if we had to build 10 X-wings, we had to find 10 of those kits. 619 00:41:54,303 --> 00:41:56,680 So we'd buy these kits by the pound. 620 00:41:58,682 --> 00:42:00,768 I was working on the Sandcrawler, 621 00:42:01,977 --> 00:42:05,606 and the treads on the Sandcrawler... There's about 280 treads. 622 00:42:05,689 --> 00:42:07,274 And I said to Bob Shepherd, 623 00:42:07,358 --> 00:42:10,319 "Oh, my God, if I had a little injection molding machine," 624 00:42:10,402 --> 00:42:11,862 "I could do these in no time." 625 00:42:11,946 --> 00:42:15,115 He said, "Well, how much would a machine like that cost?" 626 00:42:15,491 --> 00:42:17,785 I said, "I can get one for about $1,500, $1,800." 627 00:42:17,868 --> 00:42:22,248 He said, "Oh, my God, $1,500, $1,800? Go get it. Get the truck and go get it." 628 00:42:22,331 --> 00:42:27,044 All of a sudden, the light went on like, "Oh, my God, $1,500 is a pee in the pot" 629 00:42:27,127 --> 00:42:31,465 "compared to this multi-million dollar movie they were making in England" 630 00:42:32,007 --> 00:42:34,218 "that has to be out by 1977." 631 00:42:44,562 --> 00:42:46,105 I was just getting over there. 632 00:43:03,289 --> 00:43:04,290 Right-o. 633 00:43:07,543 --> 00:43:08,961 And action! 634 00:43:11,422 --> 00:43:13,799 Didn't lock. Didn't lock. Doesn't lock, does it? 635 00:43:22,308 --> 00:43:23,892 We'll get there somewhat quick. 636 00:43:25,144 --> 00:43:28,606 George was still in England, but we weren't producing film yet. 637 00:43:29,231 --> 00:43:31,734 Designing and building everything from scratch 638 00:43:31,817 --> 00:43:36,655 was much harder and more time-consuming than could have been anticipated. 639 00:43:37,698 --> 00:43:40,576 Jon Erland and I were originally hired for two months, 640 00:43:40,659 --> 00:43:46,123 but the industrial processes that we knew were incredibly valuable. 641 00:43:46,832 --> 00:43:49,835 I noticed that the way that they were making the spaceships 642 00:43:49,918 --> 00:43:51,420 is that they would find a part 643 00:43:51,503 --> 00:43:54,465 and then they would mix five-minute epoxy, put it on the back side, 644 00:43:54,548 --> 00:43:57,217 and then they'd put masking tape and hold it in place. 645 00:43:57,343 --> 00:43:58,969 And then they'd go to the next part 646 00:43:59,053 --> 00:44:01,764 and, you know, masking tape and five-minute epoxy. 647 00:44:01,847 --> 00:44:04,725 You couldn't buy superglue in hardware stores. 648 00:44:05,100 --> 00:44:06,644 It was called Eastman 910. 649 00:44:06,852 --> 00:44:09,980 But Jon Erland and I could buy things industrially 650 00:44:10,064 --> 00:44:12,066 that regular human beings couldn't get. 651 00:44:12,399 --> 00:44:16,362 So I said, "All of you other guys, the five other model-makers", 652 00:44:16,445 --> 00:44:19,365 "I want you to stop and watch what I am doing here for a minute." 653 00:44:19,448 --> 00:44:21,950 I held one quarter of a pencil 654 00:44:22,451 --> 00:44:25,371 on the edge of the table, I put a little drop of superglue 655 00:44:25,454 --> 00:44:30,668 and I moved my hand and the pencil remained cantilevered out over the table. 656 00:44:30,959 --> 00:44:34,421 And they were all like, "Oh, my God, how did you do that?" 657 00:44:38,217 --> 00:44:42,805 Well, after that, no one ever mentioned that we were only hired for two months. 658 00:44:44,723 --> 00:44:48,394 Everybody had a broad range of skills that overlapped. 659 00:44:48,477 --> 00:44:50,562 So the guys who were building the models 660 00:44:50,646 --> 00:44:53,982 knew what the guy who was going to photograph it was going to need. 661 00:44:54,066 --> 00:44:57,277 So where I was going to mount it, whether it would cast a shadow, 662 00:44:57,361 --> 00:44:59,822 what are the reflective qualities of the surfaces, 663 00:45:00,030 --> 00:45:02,324 and that amalgam, whatever it is, 664 00:45:02,449 --> 00:45:06,662 that synthesis is greater than the sum of its parts. 665 00:45:08,831 --> 00:45:10,374 We were a family. 666 00:45:10,457 --> 00:45:13,502 I'd wake up in the morning, I was ready to go. 667 00:45:13,585 --> 00:45:16,880 I mean, I enjoyed it so much that I'd just stay there until 668 00:45:16,964 --> 00:45:19,133 9:00.10:00, 11:00 at night, you know. 669 00:45:19,216 --> 00:45:23,345 People lived there. I mean, we were there 18 hours a day. 670 00:45:23,429 --> 00:45:25,264 Most of us were all in our 20s. 671 00:45:25,389 --> 00:45:27,641 Very few had children or other commitments. 672 00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:30,477 They let us do what we wanted to do. 673 00:45:30,978 --> 00:45:34,398 You could come in at noon and work till midnight if you wanted to. 674 00:45:34,898 --> 00:45:37,151 And it was like 100 degrees plus. 675 00:45:37,234 --> 00:45:40,028 It was a tin building, right, with no air conditioning. 676 00:45:40,446 --> 00:45:44,491 There was a military Air Force surplus store across the street, 677 00:45:44,825 --> 00:45:47,286 and one of the guys came back with a shipping case 678 00:45:47,369 --> 00:45:49,496 so we would fill it up with cold water 679 00:45:49,580 --> 00:45:51,665 and then everybody would dunk in it 680 00:45:52,082 --> 00:45:53,542 and then go back in to work. 681 00:45:59,882 --> 00:46:05,929 My dad had bought an aircraft escape chute at a surplus place. 682 00:46:06,430 --> 00:46:07,931 We used it as a slip and slide. 683 00:46:08,015 --> 00:46:10,095 You just push the button and it... 684 00:46:16,315 --> 00:46:18,692 What else are you going to do with it, right? 685 00:46:18,776 --> 00:46:20,652 You can't use it to 686 00:46:21,779 --> 00:46:23,197 escape your airplane. 687 00:46:24,990 --> 00:46:26,825 I would go there at night, 688 00:46:26,909 --> 00:46:32,331 so I didn't get to participate in lunch hours in the hot tub, 689 00:46:32,414 --> 00:46:33,457 so... 690 00:46:34,875 --> 00:46:39,880 I was still working at Disney when I was moonlighting on Star Wars. 691 00:46:41,131 --> 00:46:46,428 Going from Disney Studios during the day 692 00:46:47,429 --> 00:46:51,099 over to this rather unkempt, 693 00:46:51,183 --> 00:46:55,103 dusty warehouse, 694 00:46:56,230 --> 00:46:59,191 was literally night and day. 695 00:47:01,819 --> 00:47:07,157 I grew up being surrounded by filmmakers and creative people. 696 00:47:08,700 --> 00:47:11,745 My father was a matte painter at Disney. 697 00:47:12,204 --> 00:47:14,039 Disney was Disney. 698 00:47:14,540 --> 00:47:15,916 It was iconic. 699 00:47:17,709 --> 00:47:19,211 I was enchanted. 700 00:47:20,754 --> 00:47:22,798 My father was one of the chosen ones. 701 00:47:28,345 --> 00:47:33,433 For years, I was known because I was the son of Peter Ellenshaw. 702 00:47:36,645 --> 00:47:40,482 I didn't want to follow in my father's footsteps, 703 00:47:41,942 --> 00:47:43,235 fill his shoes. 704 00:47:47,197 --> 00:47:48,907 Who could possibly do that? 705 00:47:49,992 --> 00:47:54,413 I took one course in freehand drawing and I got a C. 706 00:47:54,955 --> 00:48:00,502 "But my father said, " I know you're not that interested in doing it, 707 00:48:00,919 --> 00:48:06,466 "but the Disney Matte Department is having a really difficult time hiring people." 708 00:48:07,092 --> 00:48:08,969 And he said, "Give it six months." 709 00:48:11,430 --> 00:48:14,516 So now I'm working at Disney, 710 00:48:15,100 --> 00:48:19,313 and after about six years, I got a call 711 00:48:19,605 --> 00:48:23,233 kind of out of the blue, from Jim Nelson, 712 00:48:23,692 --> 00:48:27,988 one of the producers on a film called the Star Wars. 713 00:48:29,573 --> 00:48:30,616 He was clever. 714 00:48:31,116 --> 00:48:35,203 He brought over Ralph McQuarrie's sketches. 715 00:48:36,204 --> 00:48:37,915 They were intimidating, 716 00:48:39,166 --> 00:48:42,753 but at the same time inspiring. 717 00:48:47,507 --> 00:48:48,717 That's all it took. 718 00:48:51,136 --> 00:48:55,641 At Disney, I was one of the youngest people. I was a kid. 719 00:48:55,724 --> 00:48:58,143 At ILM, I was an old guy. 720 00:48:59,478 --> 00:49:05,484 I almost expected people to come and ask me what it was like before sound. 721 00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:08,737 They'd never seen a matte painting. 722 00:49:09,821 --> 00:49:14,952 A matte painting is the painted piece of scenery 723 00:49:15,035 --> 00:49:18,288 that goes together with 724 00:49:18,372 --> 00:49:22,167 actors on a location, on a set. 725 00:49:22,292 --> 00:49:24,836 You wouldn't see me get rid of it anyway, would you? 726 00:49:24,962 --> 00:49:30,008 In Star Wars, the shot with Obi-Wan Kenobi 727 00:49:30,175 --> 00:49:34,304 turning off the tractor beam, that was a matte shot. 728 00:49:35,681 --> 00:49:41,019 Alec Guinness was standing six feet off the stage floor, 729 00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:45,857 but I, in my matte painting, replaced the stage floor 730 00:49:46,191 --> 00:49:49,486 with a shaft that goes down to infinity, 731 00:49:50,070 --> 00:49:53,073 which creates a certain amount of tension. 732 00:49:55,242 --> 00:49:56,952 In fact, a lot of tension. 733 00:49:58,161 --> 00:50:01,832 Here's this old guy who's dressed like a monk 734 00:50:01,915 --> 00:50:08,088 going around something that goes way down and he could fall off. 735 00:50:08,171 --> 00:50:12,509 Well, why didn't they put the switch over next to the bridge? 736 00:50:12,592 --> 00:50:14,886 It doesn't... 737 00:50:14,970 --> 00:50:16,138 But you're loving it. 738 00:50:16,221 --> 00:50:18,432 You're just going, "What's he going to do? Oh!" 739 00:50:18,849 --> 00:50:22,310 So to get that product, you've got to put this, 740 00:50:23,395 --> 00:50:28,775 together with this, onto one piece of film. 741 00:50:32,029 --> 00:50:33,655 You seen that new BT-16? 742 00:50:33,739 --> 00:50:36,324 Yeah, some of the other guys were telling me about it. 743 00:50:36,408 --> 00:50:38,285 They say it's quite a thing to see. 744 00:50:40,912 --> 00:50:42,789 I think we took a wrong turn. 745 00:50:42,873 --> 00:50:44,624 They're coming through! 746 00:50:44,708 --> 00:50:46,185 316, report to control. 747 00:50:46,209 --> 00:50:47,461 This is not gonna work. 748 00:50:47,586 --> 00:50:50,964 - Why didn't you say so before? - I did say so before. 749 00:50:53,383 --> 00:50:56,720 Hey, Luke. May the Force be with you. 750 00:51:02,476 --> 00:51:06,521 I was set up on the second floor. 751 00:51:06,897 --> 00:51:10,108 Being on the second floor is not good 752 00:51:10,275 --> 00:51:13,445 because people slam doors and it vibrates. 753 00:51:14,613 --> 00:51:18,450 Eventually, John Dykstra or Richard Edlund came up with the idea, 754 00:51:18,867 --> 00:51:21,495 "Okay, we'll put a red light" 755 00:51:21,661 --> 00:51:25,791 "that you'll turn on when you're shooting so people don't come in the door." 756 00:51:26,875 --> 00:51:29,461 Nobody paid attention to the red light. 757 00:51:32,964 --> 00:51:35,759 After probably six months, 758 00:51:35,842 --> 00:51:39,304 we'd gotten the first of our prototypes done, 759 00:51:39,387 --> 00:51:43,183 but we weren't producing a single piece of finished film. 760 00:51:43,809 --> 00:51:46,812 We built this violin, and now had to learn how to play it. 761 00:51:50,232 --> 00:51:52,567 You know, the equipment wasn't just all coming together, 762 00:51:52,651 --> 00:51:54,653 and George was coming back from England. 763 00:51:55,028 --> 00:51:57,155 And so there was this pressure to get done 764 00:51:57,239 --> 00:51:59,491 what we could done to get some pieces of film. 765 00:52:01,535 --> 00:52:06,248 I think Grant came up with the idea that we could do the escape pod 766 00:52:06,331 --> 00:52:09,584 falling out of the bay on the princess's ship. 767 00:52:10,168 --> 00:52:13,255 And one of the guns on the surface of the Death Star. 768 00:52:13,338 --> 00:52:16,007 Because neither one of them were motion control shots. 769 00:52:16,091 --> 00:52:17,759 They weren't using the equipment. 770 00:52:17,926 --> 00:52:20,262 Jon Erland and I built this bay with solenoids, 771 00:52:20,345 --> 00:52:25,308 so the pod was set in that and then the camera was put up on a forklift, 772 00:52:25,392 --> 00:52:28,603 and then we had black velvet stretched out like a big net. 773 00:52:28,937 --> 00:52:31,857 I put mica dust in all the little solenoids. 774 00:52:32,315 --> 00:52:36,069 So when the solenoids pull back, it's as if bolts are blowing it out, 775 00:52:36,153 --> 00:52:38,446 and then it creates all these little sparkles. 776 00:52:38,738 --> 00:52:41,408 If you look really closely, you don't see any stars. 777 00:52:45,203 --> 00:52:49,833 So we did that shot, and then we did the Death Star gun that you know... 778 00:52:55,088 --> 00:52:58,884 But I know George probably had hopes of a lot more than that. 779 00:53:02,554 --> 00:53:04,681 Okay, here we are, running the camera. 780 00:53:06,892 --> 00:53:08,977 This whole business is one big test. 781 00:53:11,521 --> 00:53:17,194 Special effects in general is one nonstop continuous test, 782 00:53:18,528 --> 00:53:22,199 because you always have to rely on some other trick 783 00:53:22,282 --> 00:53:26,328 that you pull out of your sleeve to solve some ridiculous problems, 784 00:53:26,411 --> 00:53:28,914 and you just test it till you get it. 785 00:53:28,997 --> 00:53:31,291 With traditional visual effects photography, 786 00:53:31,374 --> 00:53:34,085 the subject would be moving and the camera follows it. 787 00:53:35,754 --> 00:53:37,839 In our world, the camera's moving. 788 00:53:43,345 --> 00:53:47,224 This is because we needed to light the model with a static light source, 789 00:53:47,307 --> 00:53:48,725 which was supposed to be the sun. 790 00:53:48,808 --> 00:53:52,312 So we wanted the light source and the model relative to one another 791 00:53:52,395 --> 00:53:53,605 to stay in one place. 792 00:53:53,813 --> 00:53:55,857 The model rotating, the shadows would change. 793 00:53:55,941 --> 00:53:58,360 The model panning, the shadows would change. 794 00:53:58,443 --> 00:54:00,654 But if we had moved the model towards camera, 795 00:54:00,737 --> 00:54:02,614 the light would have had to go on with it, 796 00:54:02,697 --> 00:54:04,425 otherwise, the light would change on the model. 797 00:54:04,449 --> 00:54:05,659 So we moved the camera. 798 00:54:07,702 --> 00:54:10,580 We put the chosen model on a device 799 00:54:10,664 --> 00:54:13,625 which is also controlled by the motion control system 800 00:54:13,708 --> 00:54:17,128 so the model can slide back and forth, go up and down, or rotate. 801 00:54:18,088 --> 00:54:19,673 Then you had to figure out 802 00:54:19,756 --> 00:54:24,052 what kind of camera move results in the proper subject move. 803 00:54:25,637 --> 00:54:27,597 Invariably the producer comes and says, 804 00:54:27,681 --> 00:54:30,100 "I'd like something like I've never seen before." 805 00:54:30,350 --> 00:54:32,727 We're always faced with a problem of trying to figure out 806 00:54:32,811 --> 00:54:35,689 how to get a camera someplace where it hasn't been before, 807 00:54:35,772 --> 00:54:37,732 or give you a different point of view 808 00:54:37,816 --> 00:54:39,734 than you've ever had before in that same place. 809 00:54:39,818 --> 00:54:42,654 The thing that they buy when they come for your talent 810 00:54:42,737 --> 00:54:46,032 is your ingenuity, your ability to give what you say you can give, 811 00:54:46,116 --> 00:54:50,245 - especially when they don't understand it. - They hope you do... basically. 812 00:55:24,571 --> 00:55:27,741 I was not happy. 813 00:56:09,616 --> 00:56:13,411 Eastman 910 adhesive, now available at local stores.