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I remember the first time I got to Kerner,
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and the first time I saw,
you know, the fact they had
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really great junk food everywhere.
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And I saw how really smart and creative
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and talented everybody was at ILM.
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It was all analog in those days.
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You did everything with your hands.
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I kind of looked at Kerner
as a kind of college campus
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in a way, it was like
we were a bunch of freshmen,
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and we were four years away
from graduating from anything.
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Because we were all so young.
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It was a great place to hang out
with a lot of like-minded people.
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We all love movies
and we loved talking about movies.
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There was a sense
of nerdiness to all of us
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because it was ILM, not the NFL.
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And that kind of mindset,
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that kind of a fun house,
a playhouse for me,
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I never wanted to leave that place.
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Because they understood how to make magic
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and how to have fun at the same time.
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This is great.
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George showed up in Mobile, Alabama.
Right in the middle of Close Encounters.
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He had just finished Star Wars.
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And he had a terrible time on Star Wars,
at least you did in your head,
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I don't know how bad it was in real life.
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George was all depressed, saying,
"This is terrible, look at these stills."
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"Look how my movie's lit,
I'm really upset."
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I look at these stills
and it was gorgeous lighting.
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It was just incredible.
"God, George, you're depressed."
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We had dinner at my house that night.
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He said, "This is terrible
and it wasn't what I wanted."
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And we were sitting on the rocks
that are in Close Encounters.
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"I said, "Why don't we just trade a point?
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"I'll give you a point
of Close Encounters,
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"you give a point of Star Wars."
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"And we'll see, we'll cover our bets,
you know?"
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Who was to know, George, that we were
gonna throw so much money away?
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Right. Well, I figured I had it made
because I felt, at that point,
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my picture was such a turkey.
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Star Wars was opening in May of 1977,
and George didn't want to be in LA,
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so we went to Hawaii
and we spent a week together.
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He said to me, "So what's the next movie
you're going to make?"
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And I said, "I've been trying for,
like, years to get Cubby Broccoli"
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"to hire me to do a James Bond film."
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Do you expect me to talk?
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No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.
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The second I said James Bond, he said,
"I got something better than James Bond."
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And he pitched me the story
called Raiders of the Lost Ark.
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I said, "I've got
a James Bond film for you."
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"It's great. It's about an archaeologist."
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"He finds ancient artifacts
that are religious or supernatural,"
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"and kind of always in over his head."
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He was going to be
a rogue adventurer that stops at nothing
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fighting the Nazis to get his prize.
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- I'm going after that truck.
- How?
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I don't know. I'm making this up as I go.
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Hyah! Hyah!
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But it's basically
a Republic serial like Star Wars.
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We want to have a cliffhanger every reel.
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No!
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And then he said,
"Okay, well, if you do it,
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"you've got to commit
to doing it three times,"
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"because I want to make
a whole series of these films."
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Trust me.
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He said, "I'll do it."
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It was just like that.
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I said, "Okay, well, let's make a deal."
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I said to myself, "Well, look,
if I'm going to go into business,"
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"there's nobody I'd rather go
into business with, nobody I trust more."
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I remember
that Steven said, "Here, read this."
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"Tell me what you think and don't talk
to anybody about what the script's about."
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I had not been
in the business a long time,
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so it's not like I was used
to reading a lot of screenplays,
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and I remember sitting there
leafing through this.
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I hadn't seen anything like this
in a movie before,
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and I kind of closed it up and I sat back
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and all I kept thinking to myself was,
"How are we going to do this?"
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It was so exciting.
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Raiders was kind of like
a bridge between fantasy and real movie.
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So Raiders was, you know, I mean,
it was taking place in the Nazi era,
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but the opening of the ark and all that
was still kind of fantasy world,
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you know, in a sense.
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And so we had to make that work on screen.
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You start to hear a rumble.
Almost like Old Faithful about to erupt.
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And the rumble increases,
the hum increases.
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And then,
the next phase of the effect occurs,
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which is where a rather gaseous,
a bluish-green gaseous veil
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spills from the ark and starts to crawl
down the steps.
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It'll be between Steve
and the special effects
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and me workin' out the final decision
about how it's gonna finally look.
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We're dealing with a kind of
special effect with a new look.
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Something a little more ethereal than
what we've been doing in the past.
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And shooting the ghosts
in Raiders,
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it's a real complicated issue
with that kind of a shot.
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And when you're talking about
"What does a ghost look like?"
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Steve Gawley came up
with a very clever idea.
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Because we were using a cloud tank
to manufacture the clouds.
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You use warm, clear water on the top
and salty water on the bottom that's cold.
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And so those layers would stay separate.
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And then you would inject
a mixed temperate with a little device,
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and then you would just wait
for the cumulus clouds to develop.
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So we have the tank available.
So Steve came up with the idea
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of putting a rod on a ghost,
like a rod puppet,
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and then he ran it in the water
and made it go back and forth.
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And so the water made the silky tendrils,
like, flow really nicely
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with silk and these tendrils,
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and then it was shot high speed.
So it really slowed it down.
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And then they could speed it up
and slow it down as they wanted to.
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On Raiders, I was learning visual effects,
and I didn't even know...
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I knew what a matte painting was,
but I didn't know how you did it.
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So it was really exciting for me
to go up to San Francisco
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and go to this sort of
nondescript industrial park.
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And there was all this fun stuff going on,
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and great creative people.
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I went to ILM and I said,
"I want a face to melt."
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"I want Toht's face to melt."
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But I have no idea how to melt a face.
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I leave it to the geniuses at ILM.
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Steven had had it
story boarded several times.
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And he wasn't happy
with how it was turning out.
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He gave me three separate
sequences of storyboards.
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He said, "You know, I like this idea,
and I like this idea from this one."
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"Make one sequence out of it.
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"And then just do whatever you want,"
which was great fun.
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Wait.
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I'll tell you everything.
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Yes, I know you will.
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Toht, here's his head,
this is what's left.
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Basically, this skull, we sculpted
the muscles and the different layers
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of what would actually be in the face
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out of this dental alginate, the thing,
the stuff that the dentist uses
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to take molds of your teeth.
And using the heat lamp
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and by putting heat on this alginate,
it naturally melts.
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And by shooting at one frame a second,
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it appears to melt,
but you don't see all the drops.
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I mean, it was like
an unbelievable effect shot, you know.
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Now!
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The ILM portion of Raiders
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made a lasting impression on me.
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And I knew instantly I really wanted to
work with ILM for the rest of my career.
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In the category of visual effects,
the winners are Richard Edlund,
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Kit West, Bruce Nicholson, and
Joe Johnston for Raiders of the Lost Ark.
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- Thank you.
- Thank you.
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It was a nondescript place,
but it was full of exceptional people.
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And we all got to know
each other quite well
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because we often live up there
for four or five months.
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You know, these people become your family.
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We would go up there a lot, and we would
be at the 4th of July picnic.
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We spent a lot of time together.
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It really was
a family environment.
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It was a great atmosphere.
I loved going to work.
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I loved being there.
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Working with the crew,
people side by side.
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And they had parties that
were for crews and everything, all of us.
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There was just something here
about the people and the spirit.
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The mixture of art and technology.
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And we were always pushing
to try to come up
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with some other way
to make just amazing shots.
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So that it would look fresher,
more realistic.
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It's a rare thing to have a company like
this that's supported by a film director.
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What I remember
more than anything was just being in awe
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of the people who work there
and the conversations we would have.
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And that incredible feeling
when all you've got is an idea
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of something that you think could happen
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and be exciting and thrilling
in whatever movie we were working on.
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Stop! Stop!
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Stop!
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E.T. was pretty much, you know,
that was my first time
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working really close with Steven.
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The show was, I always thought
it was a very pictorial show.
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Steven wanted these beautiful
moments visually.
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So I made sure that
when we were doing the bicycles,
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if they had effects in them or whatever,
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or the landing site of the ship
coming down
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or anything that was an effect,
that it looked like it was shot
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at the perfect time of day,
with everything amped up a little bit.
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The colors are a little bright, you know,
the back light's a little too strong...
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That it's just got this glow to it.
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We didn't have a lot of money to spend,
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and obviously we're spending
most of our money
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figuring out how we're going to create
the character of E.T.
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But the takeoff
and the landing of the bikes,
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we were trying to figure out how to do
and we were out of money.
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"And so I called Dennis
and I said, "All right,
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"you know, we've got to figure this out,"
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"'cause we can't add this
to the effects budget."
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And he said, "Well, we should just do
really poor man's process kind of thing."
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"You know, we'll just
tie ropes to the bikes,"
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"and we'll just pull them
through the shot."
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Well, we literally pulled
the bikes through the frame.
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Dennis never
would just push something
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as the shot or how to do the shot,
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just because it could be done.
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He always was in service to the story.
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I just looked for a way to be able
to feel something back from the shot.
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Does the shot have energy?
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Is that the best view of the ship?
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00:14:10,683 --> 00:14:12,268
I mean, does it look majestic?
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Ah-ha!
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- And the category for Best Visual Effects.
- Best Visual Effects.
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00:14:21,068 --> 00:14:22,862
The winners are Carlo Rambaldi,
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00:14:22,945 --> 00:14:25,364
Dennis Muren,
and Kenneth F. Smith for E.T.
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00:14:26,615 --> 00:14:29,535
Thank you very much, Steven Spielberg,
for excellent direction.
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00:14:29,618 --> 00:14:31,078
Thanks, Steven.
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00:14:36,834 --> 00:14:40,129
After that time,
almost everything we did
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00:14:40,212 --> 00:14:41,964
was either with Dennis or Richard.
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00:14:42,381 --> 00:14:47,678
For me, Dennis is more a philosopher,
more of a dreamer.
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00:14:48,178 --> 00:14:52,641
He kind of sits back
and sees things and make suggestions,
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00:14:52,808 --> 00:14:55,269
whereas Richard is the doer.
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00:14:55,352 --> 00:14:57,688
He's on the set. He's there. He's framing.
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He's saying, "Try this, run in."
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So one's soft and one's sort of hard,
I would say.
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00:15:03,193 --> 00:15:05,821
Richard and Dennis are kids.
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00:15:06,947 --> 00:15:10,618
And it's just like hanging around
a gang of kids you love,
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00:15:10,701 --> 00:15:13,162
you want to grow old with,
you want to grow up with.
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00:15:13,245 --> 00:15:16,582
And Dennis, his nature is very E.T.-like.
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00:15:17,750 --> 00:15:21,211
And Richard's nature is very, very
Poltergeist-like.
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00:15:27,009 --> 00:15:28,761
They're here.
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00:15:29,720 --> 00:15:33,390
Richard loves scary movies,
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00:15:33,474 --> 00:15:36,352
and he loves creating scares.
He's so great at it.
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He has a diabolical imagination
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when it comes to putting things
on the screen that will scare you.
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00:15:51,951 --> 00:15:55,079
That was a great project,
and I was on the set every day.
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Richard and I got along very well.
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00:15:57,581 --> 00:16:01,710
You know, each visual effects supervisor
is like a mini director,
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and they have their team around them.
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00:16:04,296 --> 00:16:07,216
We didn't have time
to do any design work up front,
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00:16:07,299 --> 00:16:08,842
so we went into the movie
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00:16:09,259 --> 00:16:12,638
not knowing what we were going to shoot
next for visual effects.
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There were a lot of visual effects that
were combined with the physical effects.
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00:16:28,904 --> 00:16:34,410
We made this esophagus and
it was all suspended with bungee cord,
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00:16:34,994 --> 00:16:37,621
and all flexible pieces
of rubber and all that stuff.
233
00:16:37,705 --> 00:16:41,917
And Paul Huston made this device
with a keyboard like a piano,
234
00:16:42,084 --> 00:16:44,378
and it caused the esophagus to undulate.
235
00:16:44,920 --> 00:16:48,257
So, Spielberg said, "Oh, my God,
How is that happening?"
236
00:16:48,340 --> 00:16:51,760
And so he says, "I want to see it.
I want to see how that's done."
237
00:16:51,844 --> 00:16:54,471
And so he goes around behind,
he sees the keyboard and says,
238
00:16:54,555 --> 00:16:56,682
"Oh, man, I want to play this thing,"
you know, so...
239
00:16:58,809 --> 00:17:01,770
So it was a play date for Spielberg.
240
00:17:01,854 --> 00:17:05,232
Numbers of play dates that he would come
to ILM to have fun, I think.
241
00:17:06,817 --> 00:17:08,652
I was reading the script
242
00:17:08,777 --> 00:17:12,948
and I'm coming along and all of a sudden,
"And the house implodes."
243
00:17:13,949 --> 00:17:17,202
I'm thinking, hmm...
that's not explode.
244
00:17:17,286 --> 00:17:18,495
Exploding is easy.
245
00:17:19,079 --> 00:17:20,581
Imploding is something else.
246
00:17:20,873 --> 00:17:24,710
I called Frank and I said, "Frank,
you know, this is a $250,000 sentence."
247
00:17:26,086 --> 00:17:29,840
That was, I think,
the most difficult shot in the movie.
248
00:17:29,923 --> 00:17:31,425
Spielberg was here one day,
249
00:17:31,508 --> 00:17:34,553
there was about 12 of us
various departments sat around.
250
00:17:34,636 --> 00:17:36,472
He would just go through page after page
251
00:17:36,555 --> 00:17:38,849
and say, "This looks like
a matte painting to me."
252
00:17:38,932 --> 00:17:40,476
Camera?
253
00:17:40,559 --> 00:17:43,479
And then he turned the page
and it was the imploding house.
254
00:17:43,645 --> 00:17:46,398
And he said, "Lorne,
looks like that's a model."
255
00:17:46,482 --> 00:17:48,942
"What do you want to do about imploding?"
256
00:17:49,068 --> 00:17:51,779
And I'd been thinking about imploding,
and someone actually
257
00:17:51,862 --> 00:17:54,490
came up to me and said,
"Well, why don't you just blow it up"
258
00:17:54,573 --> 00:17:55,949
"and put the film backwards?"
259
00:17:58,702 --> 00:18:00,621
And I said, "That isn't imploding."
260
00:18:00,704 --> 00:18:04,458
You can't do that, it needs to implode.
261
00:18:04,875 --> 00:18:11,799
So I said, "Well, we'll do it much
like a magician takes a wand",
262
00:18:11,882 --> 00:18:14,760
"his magic wand, and shakes it
and a bouquet comes out."
263
00:18:15,511 --> 00:18:17,805
We'll make the bouquet
go back into the wand.
264
00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:20,516
He goes, "Okay, next page."
265
00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:24,478
We had lots of different problems
266
00:18:24,603 --> 00:18:26,939
because it took place
in your neighbor's house.
267
00:18:27,564 --> 00:18:30,109
So everything you did had to look real.
268
00:18:30,943 --> 00:18:32,027
And what is real?
269
00:18:36,198 --> 00:18:40,202
We built a miniature of the house
about 42 inches wide,
270
00:18:40,702 --> 00:18:44,957
with a garage, and inside the garage
is all the stuff you find in a garage.
271
00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:47,793
It had little bicycles in the inside,
it had lawnmowers.
272
00:18:47,876 --> 00:18:50,712
Rakes. There was furniture
inside the house.
273
00:18:51,004 --> 00:18:54,591
A visual effects shot
is only as good as what's put into it.
274
00:18:54,925 --> 00:18:58,804
You need to have the details,
so there's a lot of things that happen
275
00:18:58,887 --> 00:19:00,139
by accident.
276
00:19:00,222 --> 00:19:02,724
Dust, impact, splinters.
277
00:19:02,850 --> 00:19:05,227
It's those accidents
that make it feel real.
278
00:19:05,811 --> 00:19:08,188
We did all kinds of tests
of different materials
279
00:19:08,272 --> 00:19:09,314
that you could pull apart.
280
00:19:09,398 --> 00:19:12,109
It was built out of balsa wood
and then paper,
281
00:19:12,568 --> 00:19:14,736
and I soaked them in bleach and water,
282
00:19:14,945 --> 00:19:18,740
and I put lead weights on top
to weight it down 24 hours
283
00:19:18,866 --> 00:19:21,660
so that the balsa wood lost its energy
284
00:19:21,743 --> 00:19:25,455
and broke down the surface tension
so that they would snap like pasta does.
285
00:19:28,083 --> 00:19:32,212
And so this model was built,
a couple months' work,
286
00:19:32,504 --> 00:19:34,715
and we we're going to
basically pull it apart.
287
00:19:34,882 --> 00:19:37,467
And we're using hundreds
of pieces of piano wire
288
00:19:37,885 --> 00:19:39,595
attached to pieces of the model.
289
00:19:44,349 --> 00:19:47,561
And we tip the house
and flip it on its back,
290
00:19:47,644 --> 00:19:49,521
and it's all on this big structure.
291
00:19:52,441 --> 00:19:56,028
Have the camera up on the top,
looking down at the front of this house.
292
00:19:58,864 --> 00:20:03,202
And this whole mass of wires
were attached to a forklift.
293
00:20:03,994 --> 00:20:07,372
The idea was the forklift
was going to take off,
294
00:20:08,081 --> 00:20:10,959
and at a certain point,
it's going to just pull this thing over.
295
00:20:11,919 --> 00:20:13,754
And I had a pair of shotguns, right?
296
00:20:15,797 --> 00:20:17,507
Bond's... Good English guns, right?
297
00:20:18,175 --> 00:20:19,551
The shotguns were to help it.
298
00:20:21,011 --> 00:20:25,140
To help it down into the hole because it
all had to be pulled down into this hole
299
00:20:25,224 --> 00:20:26,808
that was about this big.
300
00:20:27,643 --> 00:20:29,603
And this is a one-trick baby.
301
00:20:29,686 --> 00:20:32,272
I mean, to do this again
would have been another
302
00:20:32,356 --> 00:20:35,108
50, 60 grand or something, at least.
303
00:20:54,670 --> 00:20:58,257
Originally, ILM was just put together
for George Lucas' movies.
304
00:20:58,423 --> 00:21:00,634
But then, in order to keep it together
305
00:21:00,717 --> 00:21:03,887
while he was writing,
he opened it up to his friends.
306
00:21:03,971 --> 00:21:06,556
So Steven Spielberg was able
to make movies here
307
00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:08,016
and a few other of his friends.
308
00:21:08,225 --> 00:21:13,814
But I think Star Trek was the first
non-friend that was allowed in the shop.
309
00:21:13,939 --> 00:21:18,944
My first supervisory job was
on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
310
00:21:21,655 --> 00:21:24,199
And that was all very exciting for me.
311
00:21:25,158 --> 00:21:27,911
And it also was very different
in a lot of ways.
312
00:21:28,245 --> 00:21:31,999
On that show, digital started
to creep in with Ed Catmull.
313
00:21:33,125 --> 00:21:36,878
In the early days of
computer graphics at ILM,
314
00:21:37,004 --> 00:21:39,464
the work that we were doing was not
315
00:21:39,548 --> 00:21:43,677
obviously going to be a benefit to them
because initially we did not have
316
00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:47,389
nearly enough compute power
to make images that were good enough.
317
00:21:47,472 --> 00:21:52,602
But as we got closer, we began to produce
something that did have an impact.
318
00:21:53,395 --> 00:21:57,274
Computer, request access
to Project Genesis summary.
319
00:21:57,858 --> 00:21:59,985
What exactly is "Genesis"?
320
00:22:00,444 --> 00:22:01,903
They had an effect
321
00:22:01,987 --> 00:22:07,909
which required that they demonstrate
this ability to transform a planet
322
00:22:07,993 --> 00:22:09,995
or to create life
where there wasn't anything.
323
00:22:10,495 --> 00:22:12,998
But it was meant to be, in the movie,
324
00:22:13,206 --> 00:22:16,251
a simulation, which meant it
didn't have to look completely real.
325
00:22:16,543 --> 00:22:19,880
Just had to be a really
interesting-looking visual effect.
326
00:22:22,090 --> 00:22:25,927
So at this point we could begin to
show off the various things that we had.
327
00:22:27,387 --> 00:22:29,931
We started off with this planet,
328
00:22:31,308 --> 00:22:35,103
and there's this wave of fire
was sweeping by.
329
00:22:36,104 --> 00:22:38,482
These mountains grew up,
these fractal mountains,
330
00:22:40,067 --> 00:22:45,197
and then the green and the foliage grows
and morphs as it created a life.
331
00:22:46,114 --> 00:22:49,659
ILM was all excited about this. People
hadn't seen anything like it before.
332
00:22:50,494 --> 00:22:53,538
There was something interesting
about creating an entire sequence
333
00:22:53,663 --> 00:22:56,208
using computer imagery.
334
00:22:56,958 --> 00:22:58,335
It certainly doesn't look real,
335
00:22:58,418 --> 00:23:00,629
and it didn't need
to look real for the movie,
336
00:23:00,712 --> 00:23:03,924
but it was a very different approach
to how things could be done,
337
00:23:04,007 --> 00:23:06,760
and it makes you start to think
about what benefits can come
338
00:23:06,885 --> 00:23:08,970
from doing something with that technology.
339
00:23:19,022 --> 00:23:22,401
That was the beginning
of our doing work for other people.
340
00:23:22,984 --> 00:23:26,279
We needed to keep people working
and not lose them,
341
00:23:26,363 --> 00:23:28,323
because Jedi was right around the corner.
342
00:23:28,907 --> 00:23:31,910
So we all worked together again
on Return of the Jedi.
343
00:23:33,328 --> 00:23:35,831
Creature Shop production meeting,
take two.
344
00:23:36,790 --> 00:23:37,833
Good.
345
00:23:44,423 --> 00:23:46,925
On Star Wars there were 70 people
346
00:23:47,008 --> 00:23:51,805
from ILM that got credited,
and on Jedi, it was 170.
347
00:23:53,014 --> 00:23:55,892
I had deadlines for everybody,
but never for Phil Tippett,
348
00:23:56,101 --> 00:24:02,524
because this guy was so on top of his work
and so focused that he never needed
349
00:24:02,649 --> 00:24:06,903
to be pushed or prodded,
and he was a huge part of Jedi.
350
00:24:09,823 --> 00:24:15,162
Running the Creature Shop, as well as
doing a lot of stop motion requirements.
351
00:24:16,371 --> 00:24:18,599
There's this character
that plays the piano.
352
00:24:22,752 --> 00:24:27,299
George had chosen Super Freak
as the temp track to rehearse to.
353
00:24:27,924 --> 00:24:32,095
I have no rhythm at all, and can't dance.
354
00:24:32,554 --> 00:24:36,683
But when I got into this thing
and started performing,
355
00:24:37,225 --> 00:24:41,188
and my wife comes in
and goes like, "Who's that in the suit?"
356
00:24:41,313 --> 00:24:46,651
And he said, "Phil's in the suit."
and she goes, "No, he can't do that."
357
00:24:48,528 --> 00:24:50,197
It's amazing how it works.
358
00:24:50,322 --> 00:24:54,326
You know, when you go into costume,
you put on, you know, a king's outfit,
359
00:24:54,451 --> 00:24:55,785
you become a king.
360
00:24:56,036 --> 00:24:59,664
And you put yourself, you know,
inside of a little blue guy
361
00:24:59,748 --> 00:25:02,792
that's playing the piano
and you've actually become that,
362
00:25:02,918 --> 00:25:04,002
you feel it.
363
00:25:20,185 --> 00:25:25,148
On Jedi, three people emerged
as the problem solver on the stages
364
00:25:25,315 --> 00:25:27,567
because we had three effects supervisors.
365
00:25:28,735 --> 00:25:30,111
Richard Edlund,
366
00:25:31,947 --> 00:25:33,406
Dennis Muren,
367
00:25:38,161 --> 00:25:39,746
and Ken Ralston.
368
00:25:40,789 --> 00:25:43,333
And each of them had their own style.
369
00:25:43,792 --> 00:25:45,210
Ken was a machine.
370
00:25:45,293 --> 00:25:48,630
You know, Ken got the space battle
because he could just churn out
371
00:25:48,755 --> 00:25:50,674
element after element after element.
372
00:25:51,007 --> 00:25:52,425
He's the guy that shot the shoe.
373
00:25:52,592 --> 00:25:56,221
My tennis shoe is actually
in Return of the Jedi.
374
00:25:57,764 --> 00:26:00,183
Along with some yogurt containers
375
00:26:00,642 --> 00:26:03,979
and some wads of gum...
376
00:26:04,062 --> 00:26:08,275
That represent fleets of ships
in the background in the distance
377
00:26:08,358 --> 00:26:10,569
that you really can't tell
what's going on.
378
00:26:10,652 --> 00:26:12,112
I don't think Richard Edlund ever
379
00:26:12,195 --> 00:26:15,031
would have considered doing that
or Dennis, for that matter.
380
00:26:15,115 --> 00:26:16,866
But Dennis was very much intuitive.
381
00:26:16,950 --> 00:26:20,203
He's an intuitive artist.
And Richard's, you know,
382
00:26:20,328 --> 00:26:22,414
going to pound out the numbers
and figure it out.
383
00:26:22,539 --> 00:26:24,958
You know, I think that's
his military background.
384
00:26:27,210 --> 00:26:30,839
And Ken is just, "Let's try it.
Yeah. Put a shoe up there."
385
00:26:34,593 --> 00:26:39,097
The collaboration
and the teamwork was king here.
386
00:26:41,516 --> 00:26:43,685
But it wasn't just
the three effects supervisors,
387
00:26:43,768 --> 00:26:47,564
they would each listen to their crew
and get ideas and try things.
388
00:26:48,773 --> 00:26:50,900
Every department had their own character.
389
00:26:52,736 --> 00:26:54,404
There were not a lot of egos.
390
00:27:08,251 --> 00:27:09,336
That was our family.
391
00:27:09,836 --> 00:27:12,088
We just really enjoyed
each other's company.
392
00:27:15,175 --> 00:27:17,385
The first time I laid eyes
on Dennis Muren,
393
00:27:17,677 --> 00:27:21,723
he was screening a movie
that he had made called Equinox.
394
00:27:21,848 --> 00:27:23,183
Equinox.
395
00:27:32,984 --> 00:27:35,987
So that's how I got to know Dennis.
396
00:27:38,907 --> 00:27:41,067
Phil was probably
five years younger than I am.
397
00:27:41,951 --> 00:27:45,205
We used to get together and look
at the big movies that were being made,
398
00:27:45,288 --> 00:27:50,460
and... most of the time I would
say, "I don't think they did that right."
399
00:27:51,127 --> 00:27:54,005
"You know, those effects
do not look very good."
400
00:27:55,006 --> 00:27:57,926
We'd sit around drinking beer
in my little apartment
401
00:27:58,009 --> 00:28:01,554
in Venice, California,
talking about what we wanted to do.
402
00:28:02,097 --> 00:28:05,058
In fact, when my wife, Jules,
proposed to me,
403
00:28:05,141 --> 00:28:07,852
it was on Dennis' balcony in Glendale.
404
00:28:09,187 --> 00:28:12,816
And then he and Jules and I
were up in the Bay Area
405
00:28:12,899 --> 00:28:17,362
at the Berkeley Art Museum,
and this woman walks by and then Jules
406
00:28:17,445 --> 00:28:19,739
and the woman turn and look at each other.
407
00:28:20,824 --> 00:28:25,078
And it was a woman that Jules had gone
to art school with in England.
408
00:28:25,328 --> 00:28:27,247
Her name was Zara Pinfold,
409
00:28:27,330 --> 00:28:30,166
and she and Jules
had gone to college together.
410
00:28:30,250 --> 00:28:34,129
She ended up marrying Dennis.
That's where they met.
411
00:28:34,212 --> 00:28:38,091
So, our relationship
between Phil and Jules and Zara
412
00:28:38,216 --> 00:28:40,677
and mine is very tight. Very tight.
413
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:43,471
Yeah, we're, you know, pretty... Family.
414
00:28:43,847 --> 00:28:46,975
And we worked together
really well, you know.
415
00:28:49,686 --> 00:28:50,854
For rancor,
416
00:28:51,104 --> 00:28:56,401
I imagined it as a cross
between a bear and a potato,
417
00:28:58,486 --> 00:28:59,738
and I just ran with that.
418
00:29:02,866 --> 00:29:06,870
George accepted the first design
and, you know, just refined it.
419
00:29:08,121 --> 00:29:11,207
You know, the designs themselves
were mostly artwork.
420
00:29:12,292 --> 00:29:13,334
It was brilliant.
421
00:29:13,418 --> 00:29:15,003
It might be good, just as a...
422
00:29:15,086 --> 00:29:17,464
I had designed it
as a stop motion character,
423
00:29:17,714 --> 00:29:22,635
but George said he wanted to do it as...
The way he characterized it
424
00:29:22,719 --> 00:29:24,721
was "the best Godzilla suit ever."
425
00:29:25,764 --> 00:29:30,560
And so we have the whole Creature Shop
for all the creatures in Jabba's palace
426
00:29:30,643 --> 00:29:34,981
that we were doing,
and we built a rancor costume
427
00:29:35,356 --> 00:29:36,566
for someone to fit in.
428
00:29:38,735 --> 00:29:44,032
And it just didn't work.
429
00:29:45,408 --> 00:29:48,495
So it was Dennis' idea to do it
as a high-speed puppet.
430
00:29:50,705 --> 00:29:53,374
We went with just a real
smaller rod puppet.
431
00:29:54,083 --> 00:29:57,253
Building little tiny skeletons
that you can move around.
432
00:30:05,011 --> 00:30:09,140
And we made a whole miniature set
that it was in, all sorts of stuff
433
00:30:09,224 --> 00:30:11,643
to make it look big
and like a professional movie
434
00:30:11,726 --> 00:30:13,478
instead of a bunch of kids having fun.
435
00:30:15,605 --> 00:30:18,900
The arms were controlled separately
from rods coming out of the elbows,
436
00:30:18,983 --> 00:30:21,611
going down with guys down below,
moving those around.
437
00:30:28,576 --> 00:30:30,328
To move the thing,
438
00:30:30,578 --> 00:30:33,289
the performances, there's me,
439
00:30:33,373 --> 00:30:36,042
I've got my hand up his ass
doing his head.
440
00:30:38,628 --> 00:30:41,881
There's a guy, Tom St. Am and,
with the kind of pistol grips
441
00:30:41,965 --> 00:30:45,510
that we had hidden, blacked out,
that would operate the hands.
442
00:30:47,929 --> 00:30:50,557
Another guy under the table
that were doing the feet.
443
00:30:54,060 --> 00:30:58,189
Some scenes we shot at 72 frames
a second, three times faster.
444
00:30:58,273 --> 00:30:59,732
Camera would get up to speed,
445
00:31:03,528 --> 00:31:05,530
- and we just go...
- Like that.
446
00:31:12,662 --> 00:31:14,080
And...
447
00:31:15,582 --> 00:31:17,458
Who knows?
448
00:31:17,876 --> 00:31:22,005
And so, uh, we would do a lot of takes.
449
00:31:24,966 --> 00:31:26,593
All the time, we're saying,
450
00:31:26,718 --> 00:31:29,888
"What can we do to make it
not look like a Muppet, right?"
451
00:31:29,971 --> 00:31:31,514
Well, let's try it backwards.
452
00:31:31,681 --> 00:31:33,892
Let's try it backwards at a slow speed
453
00:31:34,017 --> 00:31:36,853
and see if when we run it forward
instead of backwards,
454
00:31:36,936 --> 00:31:40,106
see what we get then. We tried that.
I think that's in the film.
455
00:31:45,486 --> 00:31:49,198
All right, now, here's the shot
that has to be done with taste.
456
00:31:49,324 --> 00:31:52,660
'Cause what we're gonna do on this cut
is as the jaws come down,
457
00:31:52,744 --> 00:31:55,496
he's squealing like mad on the cut. Here.
458
00:31:58,416 --> 00:32:01,544
- Crunch.
- Yeah, the squealing will stop, so...
459
00:32:02,795 --> 00:32:05,798
As he starts chewing and then
what he does at the very end,
460
00:32:05,882 --> 00:32:09,302
then he turns toward you, sees Luke,
461
00:32:09,469 --> 00:32:11,137
And then starts to move forward.
462
00:32:16,726 --> 00:32:20,355
On Return of the Jedi,
we were all working right there,
463
00:32:20,688 --> 00:32:21,898
you know, in close proximity.
464
00:32:21,981 --> 00:32:23,733
So I could go into the cutting room
465
00:32:23,900 --> 00:32:27,403
if George wanted change a sequence
and he would explain to me,
466
00:32:27,487 --> 00:32:29,322
"I'm going to throw out these shots,"
467
00:32:29,405 --> 00:32:31,532
"but we need a shot to replace them
that does this."
468
00:32:31,699 --> 00:32:35,703
It was George sort of guiding us
and steering us.
469
00:32:37,664 --> 00:32:39,916
Rebels, we'd better
report to the base.
470
00:32:53,137 --> 00:32:55,723
George was asking
to come up with ideas
471
00:32:55,807 --> 00:32:59,268
for the sequence for the bike chase
so he would have something to cut to.
472
00:32:59,352 --> 00:33:02,563
And you're looking at it like,
you know, he said three minutes long.
473
00:33:02,647 --> 00:33:05,024
Here's what happens roughly,
but do whatever you want.
474
00:33:06,734 --> 00:33:09,362
So he decided to shoot
an animatic for that.
475
00:33:09,445 --> 00:33:12,156
But just do it really cheap
and with little dolls.
476
00:33:12,490 --> 00:33:16,369
Okay. Are we ready?
Hey, Joe, can you pull cable on this?
477
00:33:20,915 --> 00:33:22,083
Ninety-five.
478
00:33:23,292 --> 00:33:26,170
It was an awful lot
of trial and error at ILM.
479
00:33:26,254 --> 00:33:29,257
But for me, there's always
a lot of right ways to do it,
480
00:33:29,340 --> 00:33:31,092
and there's a lot of wrong ways to do it.
481
00:33:31,175 --> 00:33:34,345
Maybe, like we did in the other shot
where if I hit that bike,
482
00:33:34,429 --> 00:33:36,305
it moves your hand and the camera.
483
00:33:37,890 --> 00:33:41,394
And it's like,
"What's the best right way to do it?"
484
00:33:42,020 --> 00:33:43,771
And, action.
485
00:33:43,938 --> 00:33:45,815
It's instinctive, it's not logic.
486
00:33:45,898 --> 00:33:49,193
As much as I've tried to figure it out,
it still really isn't logical.
487
00:33:49,318 --> 00:33:50,528
Can you get closer together?
488
00:33:50,611 --> 00:33:52,155
Effects work is really grueling,
489
00:33:52,238 --> 00:33:55,450
and it's hard on everybody doing it
and it has to be so precise.
490
00:33:55,825 --> 00:33:58,995
But there definitely is something
in the process that I really enjoyed.
491
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:00,121
Action.
492
00:34:08,087 --> 00:34:12,216
We used this little animatic
as our guide for the final shots.
493
00:34:18,014 --> 00:34:21,642
And I could go and look at each angle
and come up with different ways
494
00:34:21,726 --> 00:34:23,686
that we could shoot the whole sequence.
495
00:34:27,607 --> 00:34:29,650
And so it all became manageable.
496
00:34:55,718 --> 00:34:57,345
- Got it? Do we have it?
- Yep.
497
00:34:57,428 --> 00:34:59,055
Wanna do one more? Or do we have it?
498
00:34:59,180 --> 00:35:01,057
You're right, we've got it. Onward!
499
00:35:01,140 --> 00:35:02,558
I don't know what else we could do.
500
00:35:02,642 --> 00:35:05,269
- Okay, terrific.
- Well, perfect. That's it. Next shot.
501
00:35:05,937 --> 00:35:10,608
Jedi, for its time, it had 900 and some
visual effect shots.
502
00:35:11,025 --> 00:35:15,780
It was the most complicated color visual
effects movie even conceived of.
503
00:35:29,335 --> 00:35:34,298
But I think that as ILM evolved
and as The Empire Strikes Back
504
00:35:34,382 --> 00:35:36,217
and Return of the Jedi came along,
505
00:35:36,592 --> 00:35:39,804
it got harder and harder
to maintain that essence
506
00:35:39,929 --> 00:35:43,599
of what ILM was at the very beginning
because we were trying to repeat it.
507
00:35:43,683 --> 00:35:46,185
We were trying to create
something that was better.
508
00:35:47,895 --> 00:35:50,439
And I had had enough.
Man, I was burned out.
509
00:35:53,693 --> 00:35:55,027
Jedi was not fun.
510
00:35:55,736 --> 00:36:00,241
Jedi was nose to the grindstone,
and we did it in record time.
511
00:36:02,326 --> 00:36:04,787
Late in the game,
there was cut of the movie,
512
00:36:05,163 --> 00:36:08,166
George wasn't thrilled
with some of the sequences in it.
513
00:36:08,916 --> 00:36:11,752
And he re-cut and lost a lot of shots.
514
00:36:12,003 --> 00:36:14,714
The problem I have with this
is that it's too static.
515
00:36:15,882 --> 00:36:17,550
We were pretty frayed.
516
00:36:18,176 --> 00:36:21,512
Beating ourselves up anyway,
just to get the movie done in time.
517
00:36:22,430 --> 00:36:26,350
As our shots go into the toilet,
the depressing feeling
518
00:36:26,434 --> 00:36:29,478
goes through you, then you get pissed off.
519
00:36:29,896 --> 00:36:32,607
Like, after all that work
and these late nights...
520
00:36:35,067 --> 00:36:39,447
People require recognition
for what they're giving.
521
00:36:42,116 --> 00:36:48,414
After Jedi, Richard Edlund chose to leave
and start his own company, Boss Film.
522
00:36:48,915 --> 00:36:52,210
It felt that ILM was becoming
a little too corporate.
523
00:36:52,919 --> 00:36:57,673
And the gestalt in the company was
not as much fun as it as it used to be.
524
00:36:59,383 --> 00:37:01,344
After Jedi,
we did a really big layoff.
525
00:37:01,427 --> 00:37:03,429
That was really difficult.
526
00:37:04,972 --> 00:37:09,060
Some people never came back.
Some people left earlier.
527
00:37:09,977 --> 00:37:11,729
So that was a difficult time.
528
00:37:13,272 --> 00:37:15,149
Light it up. Okay, lights up, Phil.
529
00:37:15,900 --> 00:37:17,860
But we still had the infrastructure.
530
00:37:18,277 --> 00:37:19,820
We still had George.
531
00:37:19,904 --> 00:37:24,951
We still had Dennis and Ken and other
up-and-coming effects supervisors.
532
00:37:25,451 --> 00:37:27,745
We all knew we'd be okay.
533
00:37:27,954 --> 00:37:30,081
Good. Right here. Everybody, right here.
534
00:37:30,164 --> 00:37:32,708
There was nobody else
I wanted to give my films to.
535
00:37:32,833 --> 00:37:35,628
No one else I trusted as much as ILM.
536
00:37:35,711 --> 00:37:38,547
We had a lot of work,
and we were making a lot of movies.
537
00:37:38,923 --> 00:37:41,259
Indiana Jones. Goonies.
538
00:37:41,384 --> 00:37:43,469
The Back to the Future films.
539
00:37:49,517 --> 00:37:51,936
ILM was the place.
540
00:37:52,395 --> 00:37:54,313
I mean, there was just
no discussion about it.
541
00:37:54,397 --> 00:37:57,275
You know, that's where you want
to do your visual effects.
542
00:38:04,073 --> 00:38:08,160
It was super charged with energy,
and it was like a mutual kind of,
543
00:38:08,411 --> 00:38:12,456
"Yeah, let's do something that no one's
ever seen before" attitude.
544
00:38:20,298 --> 00:38:23,509
In the early mid-'80s,
when I was there working on Cocoon,
545
00:38:23,634 --> 00:38:26,554
the vibe at ILM was this sort of
546
00:38:26,637 --> 00:38:33,144
intersection of a kind of
loosey goosey intellectualism
547
00:38:33,728 --> 00:38:40,109
and real outlier thinking,
and enough angsty nerdy need
548
00:38:41,277 --> 00:38:44,572
to sort of be a part
of something that created
549
00:38:44,655 --> 00:38:47,616
a certain kind of energy,
you know, of innovation.
550
00:38:56,250 --> 00:38:59,712
We had just finished
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,
551
00:38:59,795 --> 00:39:02,590
and I made an appointment
to talk to George.
552
00:39:02,923 --> 00:39:05,509
I said, "George, I'm done."
553
00:39:07,345 --> 00:39:09,013
"I can't draw another storyboard.
554
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:11,932
"I don't want to see
another visual effect.
555
00:39:12,016 --> 00:39:15,603
"You know, I'm gonna take some of this
money that I haven't been able to spend
556
00:39:15,686 --> 00:39:18,939
"'cause we've been working back to back
and I'm going to just...
557
00:39:19,023 --> 00:39:20,566
"I'm going to travel the world"
558
00:39:20,649 --> 00:39:23,152
"and I'm going to see some stuff
and go places."
559
00:39:23,235 --> 00:39:25,363
And he was silent for a bit.
560
00:39:26,364 --> 00:39:28,783
He was thinking,
I could see he was thinking.
561
00:39:28,866 --> 00:39:32,078
He was focused on something. He said,
"Wouldn't you rather go to film school?"
562
00:39:33,245 --> 00:39:38,876
And I said, "George, I feel like I've been
in film school for the last ten years."
563
00:39:40,378 --> 00:39:44,006
He said, "If you want to go to USC,
I'll pay your tuition",
564
00:39:44,215 --> 00:39:46,175
"I'll keep you on half salary,"
565
00:39:47,134 --> 00:39:50,096
"and I'll see to it that you can
take any classes you want."
566
00:39:50,471 --> 00:39:52,973
I mean, how could you turn down
that kind of offer?
567
00:39:55,518 --> 00:40:00,773
The film I made at USC got me the job
on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
568
00:40:01,315 --> 00:40:03,901
Now, I have a feeling that at some point,
569
00:40:04,485 --> 00:40:07,530
George called Disney
and said, "This kid can do it."
570
00:40:07,947 --> 00:40:11,617
No! Don't eat me!
571
00:40:12,201 --> 00:40:14,537
Aah!
572
00:40:17,748 --> 00:40:19,083
It was just generosity.
573
00:40:19,166 --> 00:40:22,211
I mean, how do you repay
somebody for that?
574
00:40:24,463 --> 00:40:27,049
And I have been able to take that
575
00:40:27,133 --> 00:40:32,346
and parlay it into a pretty great
career, in my opinion.
576
00:40:33,722 --> 00:40:36,475
I feel very fortunate
when I look back at the things I've done.
577
00:40:38,060 --> 00:40:40,604
And the fact that I know visual effects,
578
00:40:42,064 --> 00:40:45,985
that's something that I can hand
to a really talented guy,
579
00:40:46,068 --> 00:40:48,195
and I don't have
to worry about it anymore.
580
00:40:50,281 --> 00:40:53,451
When I first heard about ILM,
these were my heroes.
581
00:40:55,369 --> 00:40:58,914
You know, maybe someday I'll do work
kind of like these guys.
582
00:41:04,670 --> 00:41:05,963
I grew up in Ann Arbor.
583
00:41:08,466 --> 00:41:12,178
My dad was a nuclear engineering professor
at the University of Michigan.
584
00:41:12,428 --> 00:41:14,597
Hello, I'm Glen Knoll,
chairman of the Department
585
00:41:14,680 --> 00:41:17,349
of Nuclear Engineering
at the University of Michigan.
586
00:41:17,433 --> 00:41:22,229
I grew up in a family of scientists,
engineers and medical professionals.
587
00:41:23,606 --> 00:41:27,693
I was a science fiction nerd, but I also
like doing things with my hands.
588
00:41:27,776 --> 00:41:30,738
I did woodworking,
clay animation, model making.
589
00:41:31,113 --> 00:41:36,035
I taught myself basic digital and analog
electronics and things like that.
590
00:41:40,247 --> 00:41:43,542
I grew up during the golden era
of space exploration
591
00:41:43,667 --> 00:41:46,003
during the Gemini and Apollo programs.
592
00:41:46,128 --> 00:41:49,798
And I still remember
being wide-eyed and breathless
593
00:41:49,882 --> 00:41:52,510
watching Neil Armstrong land on the moon.
594
00:41:52,927 --> 00:41:54,011
That was a big deal.
595
00:41:54,762 --> 00:41:57,848
Here we are, human beings,
sending people to the moon.
596
00:41:58,390 --> 00:42:00,142
What a fabulous age we live in.
597
00:42:03,145 --> 00:42:06,732
What really cemented my commitment
to wanting to go into film
598
00:42:06,815 --> 00:42:13,447
was a fortuitous business trip
that my dad had in May of 1978.
599
00:42:13,531 --> 00:42:15,407
So about a year after Star Wars came out.
600
00:42:15,491 --> 00:42:18,118
He had a Society
of Nuclear Medicine conference
601
00:42:18,202 --> 00:42:21,038
that was being held
at Anaheim Convention Center,
602
00:42:21,455 --> 00:42:26,001
and he brought my two brothers and I
along with him.
603
00:42:27,253 --> 00:42:29,630
So there I was, next to Disneyland
604
00:42:29,797 --> 00:42:34,218
in this hotel room in Anaheim,
and I picked up a phone book,
605
00:42:34,301 --> 00:42:36,637
and just as a curiosity, I looked to see
606
00:42:36,720 --> 00:42:39,557
if there was a listing for ILM,
and there was.
607
00:42:40,558 --> 00:42:44,520
I had been doing a lot of model making as
a hobby at this point, and I called up
608
00:42:44,603 --> 00:42:48,774
and I got Grant McCune on the phone
and I said, "My name is John Knoll."
609
00:42:49,233 --> 00:42:52,194
"I'm interested in working
in the film industry." He said,
610
00:42:52,319 --> 00:42:54,613
"Why don't you come on down
and we'll show you around?"
611
00:42:54,697 --> 00:42:57,408
I didn't tell him I was,
what, 15 years old.
612
00:42:57,908 --> 00:43:01,829
But the next morning,
my dad drove me from Anaheim
613
00:43:01,996 --> 00:43:05,374
up to Van Nuys,
dropped me off at the ILM facility.
614
00:43:05,457 --> 00:43:07,626
It was probably 9:00 in the morning.
615
00:43:07,835 --> 00:43:10,671
So I spent a day, a whole day at ILM.
616
00:43:10,754 --> 00:43:15,009
Lorne Peterson was my host.
So he toured me around.
617
00:43:15,384 --> 00:43:17,720
Grant comes to me and he says,
618
00:43:17,803 --> 00:43:20,264
"There's a boy in the front
that needs a tour."
619
00:43:20,389 --> 00:43:24,518
I go up and I got him, and it was this
13-year-old kid, 14-year-old kid.
620
00:43:25,311 --> 00:43:27,688
And so, you know, I ran him
through the model shop.
621
00:43:27,771 --> 00:43:30,899
I ran him through the machine shop.
I ran him through the camera shop.
622
00:43:31,984 --> 00:43:34,069
All the different parts and departments.
623
00:43:37,448 --> 00:43:39,325
This really blew my mind.
624
00:43:39,450 --> 00:43:41,660
You know, it is a very
different experience
625
00:43:41,744 --> 00:43:45,414
to read about these things in a magazine
than it is to see them in person.
626
00:43:47,333 --> 00:43:49,293
And when you see them in person,
627
00:43:49,501 --> 00:43:54,214
"it's a lot easier to imagine.
You know, "I can do this.
628
00:43:55,090 --> 00:43:56,592
"I can be one of these people."
629
00:43:57,468 --> 00:43:59,268
In fact, I think I found my people.
630
00:44:01,972 --> 00:44:05,142
So I had this mind-blowing experience
in '78,
631
00:44:05,225 --> 00:44:08,187
and I still had two years of high school
left at that point.
632
00:44:08,270 --> 00:44:11,857
But that immediately got me thinking,
all right, I'm gonna go to film school.
633
00:44:13,525 --> 00:44:17,655
I got into USC, almost immediately
I did visual effects
634
00:44:17,738 --> 00:44:19,782
and special effects on student films.
635
00:44:22,242 --> 00:44:23,911
I was aware that George had gone there,
636
00:44:23,994 --> 00:44:26,914
and that was partly what made me
interested in going there.
637
00:44:28,415 --> 00:44:32,211
My final project at USC, I built a little
four-channel motion control system
638
00:44:32,294 --> 00:44:36,173
out of a used Apple II computer
and an old milling machine controller
639
00:44:36,256 --> 00:44:39,259
that you could talk to a serial port
and a bunch of stepper motors
640
00:44:39,343 --> 00:44:42,763
and other mechanical gak
that I bought at C&H sales in Pasadena.
641
00:44:43,430 --> 00:44:45,641
And I put all this stuff together
and I bolted it onto
642
00:44:45,724 --> 00:44:50,229
one of the animation stands
and I shot a slit scan film.
643
00:44:52,231 --> 00:44:54,983
It was all kind of under computer control.
644
00:44:55,401 --> 00:45:01,657
About a year after I graduated, I got
a call from one of my instructors at SC
645
00:45:01,740 --> 00:45:02,825
who said ILM had called,
646
00:45:02,908 --> 00:45:06,245
"We're looking for motion control
camera assistants," wanted to know
647
00:45:06,328 --> 00:45:09,039
has anybody graduated recently
who'd be a good candidate.
648
00:45:09,123 --> 00:45:11,458
And he said, "So I recommended you."
649
00:45:13,210 --> 00:45:18,006
I was sent to LA frequently
to look for the next generation of talent.
650
00:45:18,090 --> 00:45:20,759
And one of my trips down was to USC,
651
00:45:20,843 --> 00:45:22,970
where I was to interview
all these students,
652
00:45:23,053 --> 00:45:27,182
to find any potential interns for us
at Industrial Light & Magic.
653
00:45:27,266 --> 00:45:32,813
And so I show up and one kid
after another, "I want to be a director."
654
00:45:32,896 --> 00:45:34,773
Ugh, "You're out of here."
655
00:45:35,190 --> 00:45:40,112
So, John Knoll walks in
and starts talking about
656
00:45:40,195 --> 00:45:45,284
the motion control camera and rig
that he has built in his apartment,
657
00:45:45,492 --> 00:45:47,703
and he invites me
to his apartment to see it.
658
00:45:47,953 --> 00:45:51,123
And he's just this adorable child,
but very serious.
659
00:45:51,206 --> 00:45:54,084
And I said, "Well, I'm not
going to your apartment",
660
00:45:54,168 --> 00:45:56,795
"but I do think that we should hire you."
661
00:45:58,672 --> 00:46:01,049
So I moved up
to Northern California,
662
00:46:01,383 --> 00:46:04,178
and I remember the first time
I set foot in the building,
663
00:46:04,428 --> 00:46:06,638
I was just vibrating with excitement.
664
00:46:10,476 --> 00:46:11,477
This was ILM.
665
00:46:11,685 --> 00:46:15,397
This was where the magic was happening,
quite literally.
666
00:46:16,523 --> 00:46:20,027
My whole life, I've had hobbies,
little things that I work on, on the side,
667
00:46:20,110 --> 00:46:22,321
just to keep me creatively sane.
668
00:46:23,238 --> 00:46:26,200
And I'd been reading about
computer graphics with great interest.
669
00:46:26,283 --> 00:46:29,787
ILM did computer graphics, so it was
something I could go see in person.
670
00:46:30,579 --> 00:46:33,499
I went over and got a tour
of the computer graphics department,
671
00:46:33,624 --> 00:46:36,668
which had just started up,
and I was given a demo
672
00:46:36,752 --> 00:46:38,378
of the Pixar Image Computer.
673
00:46:38,504 --> 00:46:43,008
This is a picture system right here.
And this is a Pixar.
674
00:46:43,842 --> 00:46:48,889
And they had scanned a piece of film
into the Pixar Image Computer,
675
00:46:50,933 --> 00:46:52,851
and they sharpened it.
676
00:46:54,853 --> 00:46:58,190
And I was a little shocked by that.
677
00:46:58,524 --> 00:47:02,110
It wasn't that they had
sharpened a digital image,
678
00:47:02,194 --> 00:47:05,531
that's not super impressive.
It was more what that implied.
679
00:47:06,532 --> 00:47:08,992
Now you could take a piece of film
680
00:47:09,618 --> 00:47:12,079
and you could turn it
into pixels on a computer.
681
00:47:13,247 --> 00:47:16,333
And you could take those images,
and you can manipulate them.
682
00:47:19,211 --> 00:47:21,839
And you could put that back out
onto a piece of film.
683
00:47:22,506 --> 00:47:24,842
And this meant that there was literally
684
00:47:24,925 --> 00:47:26,969
no limit to what you could do
in the middle.
685
00:47:27,052 --> 00:47:29,847
And when I saw that,
I felt like I had seen the future.
686
00:47:31,807 --> 00:47:35,227
I actually couldn't believe
that nobody else was just jumping up
687
00:47:35,310 --> 00:47:38,814
and down about this, like, "No, no,
this is going to change the world."
688
00:47:40,190 --> 00:47:43,235
I knew digital technology
was going to be ultimately
689
00:47:43,318 --> 00:47:45,070
the most important thing in movies.
690
00:47:45,529 --> 00:47:48,031
The old way of doing things
was going to be gone.
691
00:47:48,198 --> 00:47:50,242
Well, let's take a look at reel 12 here.
692
00:47:51,785 --> 00:47:53,871
Well, this first shot, so probably you'll
693
00:47:53,996 --> 00:47:56,832
have to find the Ben Kenobi tractor beam
tone backwards.
694
00:47:56,915 --> 00:47:58,041
Probably go in there.
695
00:47:59,167 --> 00:48:01,461
When George first told me
about the fact
696
00:48:01,545 --> 00:48:04,172
that he wanted to change the way
movies were made,
697
00:48:04,256 --> 00:48:05,883
I didn't quite understand that.
698
00:48:06,341 --> 00:48:09,177
Because I thought,
"Wow, we're making a movie
699
00:48:09,344 --> 00:48:13,056
"and we just made a Star Wars movie
and it's a big success."
700
00:48:13,140 --> 00:48:14,850
"I mean, what else do you want?"
701
00:48:15,017 --> 00:48:16,351
I was naive, I think.
702
00:48:17,394 --> 00:48:20,564
I first met George in 1975.
703
00:48:20,647 --> 00:48:25,611
When the opportunity came to work
on the first Star Wars movie,
704
00:48:26,361 --> 00:48:28,322
George and Gary Kurtz
705
00:48:28,614 --> 00:48:32,117
were looking for some student
interested in sound to hire
706
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:34,411
to record sounds for the film.
707
00:48:37,497 --> 00:48:40,167
They had one specific assignment
at that moment.
708
00:48:40,334 --> 00:48:43,795
They wanted to develop the voice
for a character named Chewbacca.
709
00:48:50,385 --> 00:48:53,847
And I went through the script
to see what part Chewbacca played,
710
00:48:53,931 --> 00:48:55,849
and I realized as I'm reading the script,
711
00:48:55,933 --> 00:48:58,393
that there were all sorts
of sounds in this movie.
712
00:48:58,936 --> 00:49:03,440
Robots and Jawas
the Death Star, laser weapons.
713
00:49:04,399 --> 00:49:06,568
And so I went back to them and said,
714
00:49:06,652 --> 00:49:10,030
"Well, you've got a lot of things
in this movie that need sound."
715
00:49:11,156 --> 00:49:13,116
"Do you want me to work on
all of this, too?"
716
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:17,204
And they said, "Yeah, yeah, you might as
well, go ahead, just work on everything."
717
00:49:21,458 --> 00:49:25,879
Over the years, George gave me chances
to do different things.
718
00:49:26,755 --> 00:49:27,881
I could work in sound.
719
00:49:32,803 --> 00:49:36,056
I did some writing.
I worked as a second unit director.
720
00:49:36,598 --> 00:49:38,642
I was a film editor.
721
00:49:38,725 --> 00:49:43,647
And as I got more experience,
I began to see, you know, George is right.
722
00:49:44,147 --> 00:49:45,774
We need a better way to do this.
723
00:49:47,609 --> 00:49:50,988
You know, that whole transition
into digital was huge.
724
00:49:52,781 --> 00:49:55,867
We started it really right
after Return of the Jedi,
725
00:49:55,951 --> 00:50:01,957
and we spent over ten years and lots
of money to develop digital technology.
726
00:50:03,709 --> 00:50:06,461
Nobody knew
what digital could do or couldn't do.
727
00:50:07,337 --> 00:50:09,589
I think George is a dreamer,
728
00:50:10,007 --> 00:50:13,343
and I think he dreams big
and he doesn't take no for an answer.
729
00:50:14,553 --> 00:50:20,767
I remember he created the first computer
editing system, the EditDroid.
730
00:50:22,060 --> 00:50:23,603
George invested right away
731
00:50:23,937 --> 00:50:27,733
in this new editing device.
And as it developed
732
00:50:27,816 --> 00:50:30,277
in house, I was kind of a test pilot.
733
00:50:32,362 --> 00:50:35,157
I was very tired of going through bins
734
00:50:35,240 --> 00:50:37,617
looking for three frames
that had been cut off.
735
00:50:37,701 --> 00:50:40,037
Asking the assistant
to get me a piece of film.
736
00:50:40,203 --> 00:50:44,166
It made it so you'd take forever to cut
a film, and I was too impatient for that.
737
00:50:44,416 --> 00:50:47,836
So we started building
these digital editing systems.
738
00:50:48,587 --> 00:50:51,423
I was there running tests
and it fascinated me.
739
00:50:52,591 --> 00:50:55,093
Also, I needed a place
to cut my home movies.
740
00:50:57,137 --> 00:51:01,266
I remember these rooms of machines
all lined up and he was going to do this
741
00:51:01,349 --> 00:51:07,564
demonstration for linear editing
or nonlinear editing, whichever that is.
742
00:51:08,106 --> 00:51:12,486
There was no equipment, so we had
to build a system around the equipment
743
00:51:12,694 --> 00:51:13,862
but it was all digital.
744
00:51:14,321 --> 00:51:18,533
Now we can access video randomly
because we had a disk instead of a tape.
745
00:51:18,617 --> 00:51:20,827
And he pressed the button
746
00:51:22,871 --> 00:51:25,916
and nothing worked
and they had a meltdown.
747
00:51:26,249 --> 00:51:29,294
But he kept pushing and he kept doing it,
and he kept doing it.
748
00:51:29,377 --> 00:51:30,962
He knew it was right.
749
00:51:31,546 --> 00:51:32,964
And now we have Avid.
750
00:51:33,090 --> 00:51:35,592
There's no faster way to edit
on the market today.
751
00:51:36,176 --> 00:51:41,223
I remember visiting up north one time,
and Ben was showing me the EditDroid.
752
00:51:42,390 --> 00:51:44,059
To me, it was like a seance.
753
00:51:44,643 --> 00:51:48,855
It was like suddenly
he had this, had this table
754
00:51:48,939 --> 00:51:51,441
with a screen and no film or anything,
755
00:51:51,525 --> 00:51:53,902
and all of a sudden
the image would appear.
756
00:51:55,028 --> 00:51:57,656
You know, it was sort of magical.
757
00:51:59,074 --> 00:52:03,912
George knew this was gonna happen
and that technology would take us to that.
758
00:52:04,204 --> 00:52:06,081
And it's what happened with CGI, too.
759
00:52:06,498 --> 00:52:08,959
We'd reached the point
where we could do something
760
00:52:09,459 --> 00:52:11,586
with computer graphics in the films.
761
00:52:11,670 --> 00:52:13,797
Where we could do image compositing,
762
00:52:14,589 --> 00:52:17,634
painting, touch-up, all on the computer.
763
00:52:19,177 --> 00:52:23,598
Lucas film programmed its image-making
know-how into computer chips.
764
00:52:24,766 --> 00:52:29,813
The result, a special purpose machine
called "Pixar." Ed Catmull.
765
00:52:29,896 --> 00:52:35,402
The Pixar is itself a computer,
which is tuned for pictures,
766
00:52:35,861 --> 00:52:39,281
so that it'll work at extreme
high rates on images.
767
00:52:40,365 --> 00:52:43,243
Pixars with their technology
are for sale
768
00:52:43,368 --> 00:52:46,705
through a new separate company
at $100,000.
769
00:52:47,581 --> 00:52:51,835
We had built
this special purpose computer
770
00:52:51,918 --> 00:52:55,714
called the Pixar Image Computer
that would handle film imagery,
771
00:52:56,298 --> 00:52:58,675
for ILM and for the film making.
772
00:52:59,759 --> 00:53:02,345
But the Pixar Image Computer,
it had a paint program
773
00:53:02,429 --> 00:53:05,515
that was really cool,
wasn't really practical at the time,
774
00:53:05,807 --> 00:53:08,059
but John Knoll and his brother saw it,
775
00:53:08,226 --> 00:53:11,438
and they decide to write a paint program
running on a Macintosh.
776
00:53:12,147 --> 00:53:13,440
My older brother, Thomas,
777
00:53:13,523 --> 00:53:16,318
was a graduate student
at the University of Michigan.
778
00:53:16,401 --> 00:53:18,361
His doctoral thesis that he was working on
779
00:53:18,445 --> 00:53:21,239
was a vision algorithm,
sort of how computers can
780
00:53:21,364 --> 00:53:23,575
recognize objects in a digital picture.
781
00:53:23,909 --> 00:53:26,036
And my first thought was,
"That looks a lot like"
782
00:53:26,119 --> 00:53:29,289
"what I just saw in the ILM
computer graphics department."
783
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:33,835
But the Pixar Image Computer
was this $120,000 piece of hardware
784
00:53:33,919 --> 00:53:36,630
that no hobbyist
was ever going to get to play with.
785
00:53:36,838 --> 00:53:40,091
But Thomas had written all the stuff
that ran on a Macintosh.
786
00:53:41,509 --> 00:53:43,553
I remember haranguing him about,
787
00:53:43,637 --> 00:53:46,640
"Hey, how hard would it be
to take the core of this,
788
00:53:46,848 --> 00:53:48,934
"the main image processing tools
789
00:53:49,017 --> 00:53:51,978
"and bundle those into an application,
a standalone application"
790
00:53:52,103 --> 00:53:55,482
"that does that,
that loads and displays images?"
791
00:53:55,565 --> 00:53:58,485
He went, "I don't know.
It's maybe a day or so."
792
00:53:58,944 --> 00:54:01,321
And so, one weekend
he wrote a little application.
793
00:54:01,446 --> 00:54:03,740
It was called Display, that just did that.
794
00:54:03,823 --> 00:54:07,285
It would display a raw image,
and I thought, "Oh, this is really cool."
795
00:54:07,369 --> 00:54:08,870
"What if we could do this?"
796
00:54:08,954 --> 00:54:12,165
And I started egging him on
to add this and that feature to it.
797
00:54:14,793 --> 00:54:19,631
I felt like, you know, there's something
here that I think could be commercial.
798
00:54:24,219 --> 00:54:26,805
And his first reaction was,
"Oh, you're nuts.
799
00:54:26,930 --> 00:54:29,015
"Do you have any idea how much work"
800
00:54:29,099 --> 00:54:31,184
"writing a commercial application
really is?"
801
00:54:31,268 --> 00:54:33,979
And, you know, happily, I did not.
802
00:54:35,730 --> 00:54:38,316
And one thing led to another until
803
00:54:39,693 --> 00:54:41,027
it turned into Photoshop.
804
00:54:46,032 --> 00:54:49,286
I didn't know John from anybody else
when he started here, of course,
805
00:54:49,369 --> 00:54:52,831
but he was always really curious
and we struck up a little relationship,
806
00:54:52,914 --> 00:54:55,208
and over the years he got
more and more interested.
807
00:54:55,292 --> 00:54:58,003
And was kind of pushing
the computer stuff that he was doing.
808
00:54:58,128 --> 00:55:01,715
Well, he gave me a little early version
of Photoshop before it had a name.
809
00:55:02,132 --> 00:55:05,427
So he was a bridge
and a really important one
810
00:55:05,510 --> 00:55:09,180
between sort of the old school,
which he knew, and the idea
811
00:55:09,264 --> 00:55:12,600
of what you could do with new tools
that had not been invented yet.
812
00:55:13,476 --> 00:55:15,103
Change is always very difficult.
813
00:55:15,770 --> 00:55:18,064
And in the beginning,
there was a little bit
814
00:55:18,148 --> 00:55:20,692
of hostility between ILM
and the computer division.
815
00:55:21,860 --> 00:55:24,112
Nobody would go over to the other campus.
816
00:55:25,155 --> 00:55:30,327
And finally I got Dennis a computer
and he started learning about computers.
817
00:55:30,452 --> 00:55:32,287
And then he went over and started talking
818
00:55:32,370 --> 00:55:34,372
to the computer people
and working with them.
819
00:55:35,123 --> 00:55:38,918
And so he was my inroad into ILM
from the computer division.
820
00:55:42,005 --> 00:55:45,133
I felt we really had hit
limitations with traditional effects.
821
00:55:45,842 --> 00:55:49,262
They were all kind of looking the same
in the mid-1980s.
822
00:55:49,346 --> 00:55:51,848
We couldn't fiddle around
with a toolbox much more.
823
00:55:51,931 --> 00:55:53,808
So I was always looking
for something else.
824
00:56:01,191 --> 00:56:06,071
Computer graphics had been floating around
as an idea since the '70s and all,
825
00:56:06,154 --> 00:56:08,365
and we kind of see it kind of looks fake.
826
00:56:10,658 --> 00:56:14,662
So as we set up the graphics department,
I would stick my nose in there
827
00:56:14,746 --> 00:56:17,749
every so often and and see if this was
actually gonna be something
828
00:56:17,832 --> 00:56:21,252
that was gonna deliver, 'cause George
put a lot of money into this.
829
00:56:21,336 --> 00:56:23,838
So this was the promise,
that we're going to be able
830
00:56:23,922 --> 00:56:25,965
to do something with computer graphics.
831
00:56:26,132 --> 00:56:29,552
But it was a lot of time,
software and building this and that,
832
00:56:29,636 --> 00:56:32,055
and, you know,
occasional dog and pony shows,
833
00:56:32,138 --> 00:56:35,016
and then two years later,
you couldn't see the difference.
834
00:56:35,475 --> 00:56:37,894
Dennis is this completely
wide open person.
835
00:56:37,977 --> 00:56:40,438
He listened. He liked new ideas.
836
00:56:41,356 --> 00:56:44,317
But at that time, the computer division,
837
00:56:45,068 --> 00:56:47,987
we were actually trying to make
these animated short films.
838
00:56:49,948 --> 00:56:55,203
So, what we were doing was not relevant
to what they were doing in their minds.
839
00:56:55,787 --> 00:56:59,374
In fact, I met with George
and I told George that ultimately
840
00:56:59,457 --> 00:57:01,501
what we wanted to do was animated films.
841
00:57:01,793 --> 00:57:08,049
Ed Catmull was hell-bent to make cartoons,
and so he hired John Lasseter to come in,
842
00:57:08,133 --> 00:57:11,302
put him in a closet and they were
making these little cartoons
843
00:57:11,469 --> 00:57:13,054
to prove that they could do it.
844
00:57:14,139 --> 00:57:19,436
In the six years that I was at Lucas film,
every one of the projects
845
00:57:19,519 --> 00:57:23,690
that were started, we got started on
the technological path they need to be on.
846
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:29,487
But it was clear that the goals
weren't entirely lined up.
847
00:57:31,406 --> 00:57:35,076
And so the decision was made to sell us.
848
00:57:36,953 --> 00:57:41,833
Once I felt I had all the tools I needed,
then I sold Pixar.
849
00:57:42,876 --> 00:57:46,421
I knew they wanted to be
a cartoon company.
850
00:57:49,382 --> 00:57:53,011
So I said, "Well, let's see if we can
find somebody who's crazy enough."
851
00:57:58,057 --> 00:58:00,143
I ended up selling it to Steve Jobs.
852
00:58:01,603 --> 00:58:03,897
Because I knew he would
actually follow through
853
00:58:03,980 --> 00:58:07,317
and convert it over into a movie company.
854
00:58:12,530 --> 00:58:14,824
They wanted to keep that name,
so I let them have it.
855
00:58:23,875 --> 00:58:26,836
George sold that whole division
to Steve Jobs.
856
00:58:27,712 --> 00:58:31,007
I was sorry to see them go,
but immediately ILM just rebuilt.
857
00:58:31,925 --> 00:58:36,596
George brought in workhorses
to actually do what we needed to do,
858
00:58:36,763 --> 00:58:38,723
which was support visual effects.
859
00:58:39,516 --> 00:58:41,351
And, boy, did they.
860
00:58:42,143 --> 00:58:45,813
So now ILM could make their own
computer graphics department.
861
00:58:47,315 --> 00:58:52,195
And once we had control of the map,
is when I think we really
862
00:58:52,904 --> 00:58:55,615
could then focus on making movie effects.
863
00:58:58,201 --> 00:58:59,911
I talked to Dennis Muren.
864
00:58:59,994 --> 00:59:03,456
And he said,
"We might be able to show you something."
865
00:59:04,832 --> 00:59:07,627
I thought, one, total leap of faith.
866
00:59:07,710 --> 00:59:10,505
Two, it was ludicrously ambitious.
867
00:59:11,297 --> 00:59:14,634
But it will be so cool.
868
00:59:16,010 --> 00:59:17,178
Bud...