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[00:00:00] Intro
[00:00:00] MC: I thought it was so anti-climactic on set.
[00:00:02] Fon Davis: But now you know what it's like to shoot a pyro model. And if you ever get a chance to blow something up, you should.
[00:00:09] Rob Bredow:
Welcome to the Lighter Darker Podcast where we talk about the creative process of filmmaking and the art of visual storytelling.
Thank you for joining us for episode 17 of the podcast, and this is a very special episode where we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Industrial Light and Magic. And not only that, we're celebrating it live from the Star Wars Celebration stage with what looks like at least 2000 people in the audience.
So this is really fun. Thank you so much for joining us. And there we go.
And podcasts, as you know, are usually focused on the audio and this one is too. But today especially, we're gonna also have this one available on YouTube. So if you're listening and your podcast player, you can also switch over and watch it on YouTube. We've got some amazing visuals to go with today's show.
So I'm your host, Rob Bredow, SVP of Creative Innovation at Lucasfilm. And today we have an amazing group of guests with long histories at Industrial Light and magic. I'd like to welcome Lynwen Brennan, president and General Manager of Lucasfilm Businesses.
Janet Lewin, general manager and head of ILM, John Knoll, executive Creative Director and Senior Visual Effects supervisor ILM, Rob Coleman, ILM, creative director and Senior Animation supervisor. Masa Narati, ILM lead, CG modeler, and Fon Davis, ILM model Maker.
Thank you all for being with us today. This is really fun. Why don't we start with you, Lynwen you've been with, uh, ILM and Lucasfilm for a few years, um, what was, what was it that initially attracted you to the, the company and the culture?
[00:02:07] Starting at ILM
[00:02:07] Lynwen Brennan: Well, um, I grew up in Wales, a very, very, very far away, uh, um, from, from Hollywood.
[00:02:13] Rob Bredow: We got at least one woo from Wales
[00:02:16] Lynwen Brennan: Company. Um, um, and I obviously I was a fan of movies, especially Star Wars, but, um, it was really Jurassic Park that made me so determined that one day I had to work at ILM and it took me a while. Um, but on episode one I was offered a six month gig. To, um, to, to come and work as an, as a area lead.
Um, an artist manager for the technical directors. And the minute I walked through the door, I just fell in love. I knew I'd found my people, I'd found my tribe. It is an incredibly spirited place. Um, we have a lot of fun. Um, and there's something so special about a place that attracts. Um, these mavericks who are not scared of doing anything new, but they do it in such a way sometimes when you, when you find people that, that are role risk takers, they're not necessarily great team players, right?
Mm-hmm. But this place is a place where you've got people who love taking those risks, but do it in such a collaborative way. And that's the thing that I think really got me. And that you'd walk around the halls and you'd see Dennis Muren and John Knoll still as enthusiastic as probably when you started.
I still see you as enthusiastic as when, when you started. And that just like, just got in my blood. So after a six month gig, I'm still there 27 years later and I'm never gonna leave.
[00:03:49] Rob Bredow: That's great.
[00:03:50] Lynwen Brennan: I love it so much, so much.
[00:03:54] Rob Bredow: I love that. And Jurassic was one of those movies I remember. I wanted to work at ILM from the moment I saw those dinosaurs come to life.
Absolutely. Even before then, when I got to talk to John Knoll on my interview, when I got hired at ILM, just over 11 years ago, I remember him saying, do you, do you ever wanna work on a Star Wars movie? Maybe help supervise it. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's been my life dream. I can totally relate to that.
[00:04:14] Lynwen Brennan: Yeah, completely.
And the fact that you are surrounded by people, uh, I've said it many times, that have pioneered an industry. Visual Effects didn't exist until George Lucas. Needed to create Star Wars and, and pull together this band of rebels, um, that weren't scared of doing the impossible. And that spirit still exists.
And that's incredible. But that is the first time, time after time, after time again. And, and we always have to say, yes we can do it.
And yes, we can do it in a certain timeframe and for a certain budget and, but we do it with glee and that's infectious.
[00:04:58] Rob Bredow: That's the fun part. That's great. Janet, you run ILM today and ILM compared to the ILM of 50 years ago that was in a couple of warehouses and maybe just a handful of people has grown a lot.
Talk a little bit about how the, what, what attracts you to the company today? A little bit about what the, where the company's at.
[00:05:16] Janet Lewin: Absolutely. Well. I was not there 50 years ago. I'm just gonna say that, you know, I've been there for a long time, longer than these two. Um, so I started 30 years ago, and like Lin Win, I started on the ground floor as a temp in the purchasing department meant to be a short term assignment.
I fell in love with the place and uh, I'm never leaving either. Um, but yeah, back then we were one studio in San Rafael, just a couple of hundred people. Um, mostly working in the model shop and on the stage. Um, it was an exciting time right at that, you know, digital revolution. Um, it was a big deal for us to juggle four shows at one time, you know, and a big show was a couple hundred shots.
And over our 30 year, um, or my 30 year trajectory, the company has massively grown. We now have 3,500 employees, five global studios, we do visual effects work across every possible medium. You know, we do of course feature film, episodic feature animation, immersive entertainment like the Abba Voyage Show and Interactive as well.
And in fact, um, it's an exciting time right now 'cause we're looking for more opportunities to cross pollinate techniques and continue to transform the way we work. And we just recently integrated our immersive team into ILM and our immersive team has been doing groundbreaking work in AR, VR and, and mixed reality for 10 years now.
They're officially part of ILM really looking forward to continuing to tell great stories together, including the one that's, a collaboration with Meta, which is branded as ILM called Beyond Victory. Um, so we've got a lot to look forward to, uh, in the future. Um, but it's a really exciting time to honor our legacy as well.
[00:07:09] Rob Bredow: That's great.
Yeah. Everything you're talking about the Yeah, the thanks, the common thread of innovation across all that variety of work is really, um, really something that it, it's very compatible with the culture of ILM.
Um, John, uh, I know you're known for many things. Uh, you often get introduced as the inventor and co-inventor with your brother of Photoshop. Um, you on another panel just today, you, uh, were talking about the models you've created over the years. Maybe, maybe this audience knows, but maybe not everyone knows. You are also the one who wrote the original pitch and got the show green lit for Star Wars Rogue One. Um,
[00:07:50] Audience: thank you.
[00:07:52] Lynwen Brennan: He has a few talents.
[00:07:53] Rob Bredow: He can do a few different things. Uh, talk a little bit about bringing that show to life and what some of the fun memories were over the course of that, or over the course of that film.
[00:08:03] John Knoll: Yeah. I, when Kathy came on board at, uh, at Lucasfilm and announced that we were doing a new slate of Star Wars films.
Of course there were seven, eight, and nine, which, um, you could imagine is a continuation of the Skywalker Saga. But, uh, you know, this idea that we're also gonna do standalone films that were their own self-contained adventures, uh, seemed like a really intriguing possibility. And there was, as you might imagine, a lot of discussion around the company about, uh, hey, what, what are those gonna be?
And, uh, almost as a joke, I was pitching this to friends. Well, imagine, imagine Seal Team six in the Star Wars universe, uh, engaged on a desperate high stakes mission to break into the most secure facility in the Empire to steal the death star plans. And, and they, oh, actually I wanna see that. I got these encouraging replies that, uh, um, they encouraged me to go on a, uh, an effort to flesh some of this stuff out, kinda work out characters and uh, and uh, three act structure and all of that. And, um, I was at lunch with some friends when somebody asked, Hey, what's the Star Wars story that, uh, that you're telling people? Alright, I, so I did the half hour pitch of the story that was like, pretty detailed with all the characters in there and what happens.
And at the end of it, um, uh, Kim Libreri was one of the guys at lunch with me and said, my God, you have to pitch this, you have to pitch this to Kathy. And, uh, as soon as he said that, uh, I realized, well now I have to, 'cause, um, if I don't, I'm always gonna wonder what would've happened if I did. And, uh, uh, finally got in with Kathy, made the pitch and, um, yeah, it sort of, you know, snowballed outta control.
[00:09:55] Rob Bredow: Yeah, it was like months later. It was in pre-production. It was, I, I heard Kathy say a version of this story, which was. Because I don't know that you knew each other super well at the time, so she knew she was running a brand new company, getting all these things started, and she's like, I wonder if I'm gonna have to hear thousands and thousands of pitches.
And then she took this meeting with you and then realized, oh, this is a great idea. Like, it's kind of amazing that that's not how movies often get off the ground, I don't think.
[00:10:22] John Knoll: No, but I, I, I will say that it was, at its core it was George's idea. 'cause it, it really is the middle paragraph of the opening scroll of Star Wars. So like, ooh, actually I kinda wanna look at, I wanna know what that story is.
[00:10:36] Rob Bredow: I love the movie. I think we have some Rogue One fans in the audience here today, one of the amazing standalone films. So thanks John for pitching that.
[00:10:46] Lynwen Brennan: And of course those characters live on, in Andor,
[00:10:49] Rob Bredow: Andor season two just
[00:10:49] Lynwen Brennan: probably got some
and our fans here too, right?
[00:10:51] Rob Bredow: Yes. Rob, uh, speaking of fans of the, especially of the prequels where you did so much heavy lifting, um, I'm, I know this audience is gonna want to hear about some fun animation moments. I don't know, there's, there's a character Yoda that you brought to life digitally. Uh, maybe, uh, maybe people would want to hear a little bit about some of those fun moments in those early days.
[00:11:16] Rob Coleman: Yeah, certainly. Um, yeah, it was an incredible honor to be at ILM at that time. I started with the company in 1993, just as we were really heading into the digital revolution, I guess. Uh, and I was standing on the shoulders of people who'd come before me who had worked on the Abyss and Terminator two, and Jurassic Park.
And so to be there at the right time, at the right with the right skills, it was. It's like a sliding door moment. It's like I just, I'm jumping through. But for Yoda, um, Yoda was a puppet in, in Phantom Menace, and we knew, or we'd been told by George that Yoda was gonna fight in the second movie. And so we were gonna be creating a digital Yoda.
But I felt we learned so much doing Jar Jar and Watto, Sebulba, Boss Nass that we had, uh, a team of animators that could, um, that had the skills to take on digital Yoda. So, um, unbeknownst to George, we created some, uh, some test shots of Yoda per performing lines out of, uh, digitally, you know, performing lines out of empire.
We presented that, that's Jeff Campbell right there. Who, who created the model and a very young me. Um, um, and so then we were into doing the digital Yoda, but for me it was the Yoda fight. I was always worried about the Yoda fight and could we pull it off and would the fans go with us on this amazing journey.
Um, and so I'll just talk about this one shot, um, or one of the shots as Yoda's pulling at his lightsaber. George had told me he wanted this moment to be like the gunfight at the okay corral. Oh, so we'll watch this. Sorry. When he pulled out his lightsaber, they went nuts.
You could barely hear anything 'cause the audience was losing their minds. It was fantastic. That would be like the highlight of my life.
[00:13:19] Yoda: Fought well, you have my old padawan.
[00:13:25] Rob Bredow: Nice.
[00:13:30] Rob Coleman: Thank you very much. A lot of people worked on that. A lot of people worked on that and I got a lot of advice and thoughts from people, but by the time we were ready to do that one shot, Tim Harrington was animating it and he was working with Chris Armstrong who's leading that section. George had told us he wanted to be like the, okay, corral the cowboys there with his duster coat.
He throws it back to reveal his pistol, and then he pulls out the pistol for the gunfight. In this case, Tim videotaped himself in his office doing the move and then started to block it in. But it looked kind of awkward with him reaching down to his belt 'cause his arms were pretty short. And so Tim was the one who came up with the idea to do the force pull into his hand.
And I still get goosebumps right now. When I think about it, because that just became this moment. And then he hits the samurai pose that we all knew. I'm a huge Samurai movie fan. And so he hits that pose and, and that's the story behind that shot.
[00:14:26] Rob Bredow: That's definitely a magic moment.
[00:14:28] Janet Lewin: Yeah. I just wanna interject for a minute to say, that's so classic. ILM, right? Like, you have a problem to solve, we don't know how we're gonna solve it. A great idea comes from your artist, you're able to integrate it and there it is in the shot. You know?
[00:14:43] Rob Coleman: Exactly. Absolutely.
[00:14:43] Janet Lewin: Because there's a misconception sometimes that it's a linear process, but it's, it's really not.
It's so collaborative. So it's such a great story.
[00:14:51] Rob Coleman: Thank you.
[00:14:52] Rob Bredow: And, um, that excerpt, yes, that excerpt there, uh, is featured in Light & Magic Season two, and that's what that was excerpted from. Uh, if you're interested in that story and what a hundred other compelling stories, especially from that era of ILM's history. They, they're, they're told very well. And, Rob does a great job in the documentary detailing the feelings behind it.
You know, it's really easy to, to highlight the highlight moments, the amazing lightsaber pull and everyone cheering in the theater. But the story leading up to that about not being certain about what's gonna work and how to make it work. That's a story very well told in the new documentary. So that's out now.
All three episodes out soon or out now on Disney plus
[00:15:37] Lynwen Brennan: Streaming now on Disney plus.
[00:15:39] Rob Bredow: There you go.
[00:15:39] Lynwen Brennan: Yeah, and you're right, it's all about the human stories behind there, because sometimes it can seem like visual effects is just magic. Um, but it's actually these incredibly talented people sitting on the couch, um, working together.
And, you know, it's stressful at times because we don't know. How it's, whether it's gonna work, how it's gonna play. Um, it's also a lot of fun. Um, but so I think that the series does a great job at showing that, at showing the camaraderie, uh, and also the amount of pressure that we feel, I think, and the amount of responsibility that we feel.
And Rob especially, um, 'cause we have so much footage at the time.
[00:16:25] Rob Bredow: Yes.
[00:16:26] Lynwen Brennan: Um, I think your story and your journey through it really comes across. So, you know, I think everybody will love that series. Thank you
[00:16:36] Rob Bredow: Masa. I want to, uh, give you a chance to talk a little bit about your journey to ILM. Mm-hmm. Uh, 'cause your starting point where you, where you joined ILM was a different part of your career than I think, uh, what we've heard so far from Rob and from John Knoll.
Um, can you share a little bit about that?
[00:16:53] Masa Narita: Sure. Uh, thank you for having me. Uh, I'm delighted to be here. Uh, to share my, uh, 12 year, uh, experience at ILM today. Uh, yes. I actually changed, changed my career when I was 46. I used to be a businessman, uh, worked for a Japanese brokerage firm for over 20 years. Uh, but I always loved movies and the visual effect, you know, because I grew up with special effect, you know, pioneers like, uh, Ultraman and Godzilla.
So my first childhood dream was actually to wear a Kaiju suit and smash miniature towns. Actually, I still want to do that, uh,
[00:17:44] Fon Davis: that that can be arranged.
[00:17:46] Masa Narita: Oh yeah, great. That would be great. So as I got older, you know, I realized I really wanted to. Uh, create something special like, uh, uh, spaceship, uh, uh, characters I saw in the movies.
Uh, so at the age of 45, I decided to follow my passion. Uh, I quit my job, uh, you know, financial job, and then moved to Hollywood and then started the CG School. So that, that was my biggest gamble in my life, you know, uh, taken with my, you know, loving wife and the two children. So, fortunately, uh, one year later, 2009, I got the very fast tiny CG job, and then, uh, I reached, uh, eventually I reached my dream company ILM yeah,
[00:18:40] Rob Bredow: I think there's some people who may be work in finance, but wanna work in some creative field getting very inspired right now.
[00:18:48] Masa Narita: Yeah, so thank you.
Yeah. So why ILM? So, because it has been my dream company ever since I saw Star Wars uh in a theater in Nagoya City when I was, I was 15 years old, that was 1978. Star Wars came to Japan one year later. So I was standing and shocked with the, you know, special effect, which I had never seen before. So not only Star Wars, but uh, I was amazed by many movies from ILM, like, uh, Indiana Jones, you know E.T., Back to the Future, Jurassic Park.
Amazing, right?
[00:19:36] Rob Bredow: Yes.
[00:19:41] Masa Narita: So once. Once I joined ILM, so I got it. Why did those great movies come from ILM. I see ILM puts a lot of, you know, focus on innovation that makes impossible possible, right? So I feel inspired every day, uh, working in the place with so much creativity and skill. So I love what I'm doing and then I feel I really achieved my dream.
So great. People say, you know, life is short, but I don't think so. Uh, we have plenty of time to start over and then it's never too late to chase something new.
[00:20:27] Rob Bredow: Thank you, Masa.
So Masa is a digital,
[00:20:35] Masa Narita: I wanna say something. Last word.
[00:20:37] Rob Bredow: Yeah, go ahead.
[00:20:37] Masa Narita: Remember. Dreams come true.
[00:20:40] Rob Bredow: Great.
[00:20:41] Masa Narita: May the force be with you.
Thank you.
[00:20:46] Rob Bredow: So Masa is a digital modeler and he and I have actually worked together on, uh, Solo and a couple other shows. Uh, sitting next to Masa is Fon who is a model maker, a physical model maker.
Worked on the prequels, worked on a number of shows at ILM. Full-time has still built models for ILM as we have needs. Uh, some of you who are in other panels this weekend heard about other model needs, uh, Fon I understand on Phantom Menace. Um, you have an interesting story about small explosions and, uh, and how they work in miniature.
[00:21:15] Fon Davis: Yeah. When, um, when I worked on, uh, Phantom Menace, it was the very first time I'd ever worked on a pyro shoot. Um, so I didn't really know what to expect. And it was, yeah, it was this shot here. Um, and it, in case you're not familiar, they shoot at high speed and then they slow down the footage to make it. Very dramatic.
So, um, my job on this set was to turn the lights on and off when they did the explosion, because we had to overpower the lights. We had done a test, we had to run the lights at 36 volts to make them bright enough on the set. Um, but that also meant the light bulbs would only last about 20 minutes. So I would just turn 'em on and off.
And it meant we could get lots of takes without burning out all the light bulbs on the set. There were several hundred on this miniature. Um, I talked to Jeff Herron, who was the head of our pyro department about the shot before we did it. Um, and he had us load the model with, with, uh, debris, because the debris sometimes flies by the camera so quickly that you can't see it.
It actually flies by between frames. So, uh, our trick for this was to load it up with pasta. So you just take a bunch of pasta, break it up, and just, we just pack the model full of pastas, hoping that some of it would be captured in the shot. Um, and he explained how the shot was gonna be. The fire was flying out of the cockpit windows, and then there was gonna be a three stage fireball and all the debris would come out, kind of fly towards the camera.
Hopefully some of it will hit the camera. Um, and I had, so I was expecting to see something really grand that day. Um, pat Sweeney, the dp, uh, says roll camera, and the camera starts rolling. It's very exciting because the camera is a high speed film camera and it's screaming like a banshee so no one can hear anything but the camera on stage.
Pat Sweeney yells over it and he says, action. And there's this pop. And that was it. It pops down. I went over to Pat and I'm like, is, did we get the shot? That seems kind of subtle. I don't know. And then he's like, I don't know, we'll see tomorrow. You know? And then went over to Jeff and he said the same thing.
And then sure enough, the next day we had dailies, they had to process the film. We waited all night. Um. And watch the footage in the morning. And uh, sure enough, there it was on the big screen, fireball, uh, the fire coming outta the windows, the fireballs, all of it. And it was just absolutely amazing. But, I thought it was so anti-climactic on set.
But now you know what it's like to shoot a pyro model. And if you ever get a chance to blow something up, you should. But
[00:23:54] Rob Bredow: Wow.
[00:23:55] Fon Davis: With, with professionals, you're
[00:23:56] John Knoll: Exercise caution.
[00:23:57] Fon Davis: Professionals.
[00:23:57] Rob Bredow: I was gonna say professionals, professional supervision. You're inspiring people in a different way than Masa did. Thank you, Fon.
[00:24:02] Fon Davis: Yeah.
[00:24:05] Blending Techniques
[00:24:05] Rob Bredow: So John, a lot of people know, of course, about the prequels and know about all the digital innovation on the prequels. Um, but I think people aren't as aware of what Fon was just sharing how many models, how many miniatures were used on those films?
[00:24:17] John Knoll: Oh, yeah, it was pretty extensive. Um, I, I think that there was more miniature work that was done on Phantom Menace than it was done on the original trilogy.
Uh, you know, all, all three films combined. Um, it was pretty extensive effort and partly that was about load balancing because there were a lot of shots and we had a healthy and pretty good sized computer graphics department. But, um, you know, there were only so many shots you could push through in the amount of time that we had.
So I was trying to keep all departments busy too, to be able to split this up, uh, work apart and, and get through all of it. So things that were easy enough to do as miniature and sort of traditional, uh, photographed element work. Well, all right, I'm gonna push it in that direction. I'm gonna try and reserve computer graphics for things that really need to be computer graphics and spread it around, but, uh, yeah, I think there's some spectacular miniature work in those films.
[00:25:15] Rob Bredow: Wasn't there one shot that you and Fon worked together on that started in CG and then you ended up doing, uh, I guess models to add more detail or.
[00:25:24] John Knoll: Yeah, I think that was, uh, in the Jedi temple, wasn't it?
[00:25:26] Fon Davis: Yeah, it was the Jedi Temple Bridge Interior. Um, there was a shot that it was actually done in CG and George Lucas had bought off on it completely.
Um, but John, this shot had been bothering John the entire time we were doing Revenge of the Sith. And uh, uh, there were actually several of those shots, um, that just didn't quite meet John's standard. Um, it's why he has his job.
[00:25:50] Janet Lewin: There are George Finals and then there are John Finals.
[00:25:53] Fon Davis: Exactly right. So, uh, at the end of the movie, the producers were able to scrape up enough money for us to redo some of those shots and miniature, and this is one of those shots.
[00:26:02] Janet Lewin: Yeah. And that was me. I was, uh, the producer on Revenge of the Sith, along with Denise and Jill Brooks. Um, but I remember, you know, George being classically provocative at the beginning of Revenge of the Sith and saying, no miniatures for environments. You know, putting down the gauntlet, let you do this, let's go.
And, we tried. But like John says, you know, that you need that ambition and that drive and that determination to push you to think differently. But of course, we're always gonna use the best tool for the job. Right?
[00:26:38] John Knoll: Yeah. I mean, I admire George's thought process about wanting to, uh, push the art of computer graphics forward. He felt like that's the future. And he's thinking kind of long term about the health of the company, the trajectory of, uh, of where filmmaking is going. But when I'm on a film, I'm also thinking very short term about, Hey, what is the best thing for the movie? And what's the thing that I can use to make the best looking image?
And this was a case where, boy. Let's build a miniature, let's photograph it. It's gonna look great, and that'll elevate this. In fact, this sequence, I think, looks somewhat better after we reworked it with miniatures.
[00:27:16] Rob Bredow: Yeah.
[00:27:16] Fon Davis: A really funny side note in this is, uh, George didn't know that we had redone the shot.
And so, uh, we were all watching it in dailies and we didn't know how he was gonna react. And so the shot came up and George just said, I thought I already approved this. And then John Knoll just said, okay, moving on.
[00:27:36] Janet Lewin: We used to call those replacement finals.
[00:27:38] Rob Bredow: Replacement finals. So zooming into the craft on an individual shot or model, um, Masa, when you, soon after you arrived at ILM, I heard, I understand you got an assignment to work on a pretty iconic ship.
[00:27:52] Masa Narita: Oh, yes. I, I vividly remember that the first day of the, you know, Force Awakened production, uh, uh.
That was Monday, May 5th, 2014. A day after the Star Wars Day, uh, my model supervisor, uh, came to my desk and they handed me a, uh, plastic scale model saying, model this what I'm like, gonna model millennium falcon?! That, that was, you know, the biggest surprise in my life. You know, the millennium far is the most famous on the legendary, you know, the spaceship, uh, in sci-fi history, right?
Yes.
[00:28:40] Lynwen Brennan: What that hunk of junk.
[00:28:44] Masa Narita: So the original, you know, the Millennium Falcon, uh, was actually, they are prop, you know, uh, in the episode four that is, uh, five feet, you know, big, uh, long, the big model. So our mission is to convert that beautiful model into the digital version. With some, you know, uh, enhancements. So also the Millennium Falcon, uh, original one was created, uh, the method called the kit bashing the way the other plastic model parts, you know, combined.
And then while I, looking at the original model, I was, you know, amazed. So how beautiful the design turned out, uh, even though those are just, uh, you know, made up, uh, by the, you know, random parts. Right. Also, I was surprised that it didn't look like a piece of junk, you know? Right. Actually, it, it, it makes sense.
It made sense and then like it, uh, you know, it, it has a believable structure. So it was a challenge, uh, to follow the, you know, in the footstep of the original, you know, creators. Uh, so I did my, I did, uh, do my best to, you know, uh, take that, uh, their vision to the new millennium far. Yeah. Digital one. Yeah.
[00:30:12] Rob Bredow: That's great.
[00:30:13] Masa Narita: Thank you.
[00:30:20] Rob Bredow: Rob. When we think about movies today, um, adding a CG character in um, can sometimes be done almost more casually now. I mean, if they're a hero character of a show, there's no question it's gonna work. It's just a question of how much effort you're gonna put in. But when you were working on Jar Jar Binks, for example, and some of those early characters, even back to The Mask and some of those early shows where we were starting to lean on CG for the first time, what, what were some of the challenges in that era?
Kind of proving what was and wasn't possible and, and what are some of those interesting stories or learnings that you kind of take from those early days of, of visual effects being able to use these techniques?
[00:30:55] Rob Coleman: I think one of the biggest challenges for us in the early days for whether let's say Dragon Heart or
[00:31:00] Rob Bredow: right,
[00:31:01] Rob Coleman: or Men in Black, but Dragon Heart, certainly if I think back about where we were then as a company and where we were as in terms of our skills in acting, we hadn't really been asked to do that. And I remember we were working with animation director James Strauss, and he was a very, very, very, very gifted performance animator. He had worked on Jurassic Park and, and now was being asked to lead a team of animators that were going to use Sean Connery's voice and be on the screen a lot.
And so we learned a huge amount. Um, now me personally, I've always, I go to my research, so I'm studying Connery and Connery's face and he does certain things like you talk Shadow one shot of his mouth. Um, and so we, uh, put that into the performance, um, as I continued on and certainly into Phantom Menace.
It was about holding our own with the naturally living, breathing, emoting actors who don't have to do anything other than just be there and be alive. And when you put Jar Jar next to Natalie Portman, um, you have to be thinking as an animator about what's, what is the character saying, but what is the character feeling or thinking?
And we talk about that as subtext. So text is what they're saying, and the subtext is the internal. What do they want? What are they feeling? Uh, where do they want to go? So because you see this all the time when you're talking to people, the engagement or sometimes the lack of engagement as their mind is wandering or they're worried about something else, or they're not believing in what you're saying.
We animators have to put that in there frame by frame. And that takes a lot of time and skill. And so if I now fast forward, you know, 20, 25 years forward. Um, that's, we're still working on that. We're still trying to craft that. We're still trying to put our own humanity into the characters so that you, the audience, engage and connect with those characters.
So, Transformers One is up there, the Sydney team was the lead team on that film. And the same, the same issues as we're trying to put, um, a bit of ourselves into the characters. So that, and, and, and key in on what I call the micro movements in the face and the eyes in particular because those are the things that you, the audience see, connect and then, um, feel for and have empathy for sometimes.
[00:33:28] Rob Bredow: That's great. Okay, Janet, we've mentioned a couple different locations, uh, Sydney, uh, certainly San Francisco. Do you wanna just talk about our global studios now?
[00:33:36] Janet Lewin: Sure.
[00:33:36] Rob Bredow: And just the, yeah. Where ev where, where artists are at ILM and and others and other teams.
[00:33:40] Janet Lewin: Yeah, absolutely. So our headquarters is in San Francisco now and has been for quite some time.
Um, we have a very large studio in Vancouver. We have almost 900 people now in Vancouver. Um, we have an established studio in London, um, around 750 people there. Um, Sydney was the next to come online. Now. How many people are there now, Rob?
[00:34:03] Rob Coleman: We're just at 700,
[00:34:04] Janet Lewin: just at 700.
And then our last studio to come online is in Mumbai, which has been a really exciting, um, adventure for us. They're, they're two years in, we've got almost 350 people. And I think one of the things that, um, distinguishes our strategy at ILM from other visual effects companies is we really look at all of our studios as having full pipeline, full capabilities. There's not one studio where you do the water work and one studio where you do, you know, the 2D work or whatever.
So the same is true with our Mumbai studio. They're doing full sequences. They worked with you, John on, um, Skeleton Crew.
[00:34:46] John Knoll: Yeah.
[00:34:46] Janet Lewin: Um, so it's, it's, it's really. Again, that, that, uh, type of talent we're looking for are people who are passionate storytellers. And we are intentional about where we select our, um, locations. 'cause we really look for talent first. Um, and so it's an exciting time. Yeah.
[00:35:07] Rob Bredow: Yeah.
[00:35:08] John Knoll: Are you gonna mention the Antarctica studio?
[00:35:10] Janet Lewin: No, I'm not gonna mention that today.
[00:35:12] Rob Bredow: That's a secret.
[00:35:14] Janet Lewin: I'd love to come to Tokyo.
[00:35:18] Rob Bredow: There's some interesting,
[00:35:19] Lynwen Brennan: I'm gonna hold you to that now.
[00:35:21] Rob Bredow: That's right. Um, John, when you were working on one of the first digital characters in the abyss, you had to break all new ground.
You and the team had to break all new ground on that show. I, I'm curious if you wanna talk about some of the interesting challenges. I mean, I saw, I, we, we, Jim Cameron was talking about seeing the Chrome sphere on set the very first time, which is I think something you invented, uh, in that era I didn't, there were a lot of things.
[00:35:46] John Knoll: It was a little later. Yeah.
[00:35:47] Rob Bredow: Oh, it was okay.
[00:35:48] John Knoll: It was on, uh, Star Trek: First Contact.
[00:35:50] Rob Bredow: Okay. There you go.
[00:35:50] John Knoll: Um, I was actually inspired by something that, uh, uh, I saw Dennis Muren do on Casper. Uh, they had a matte white sphere that they brought around on set because Casper, of course is white and they wanted to be able to just really look at, uh, direction of light colored temperature, key fill ratio.
And seeing that, I thought, wow, that's a really great idea. I want to do, uh, a version of that for upcoming projects. But, uh, uh, I wanted to extend to also be able to potentially be able to extract reflection environments. So I thought, alright, I wanna have a chrome side and then I'll have a matte white side.
And then I, uh, to capture over range data, because this was in the era before, extended range, uh, file formats. Um, I thought about also having a shiny black sphere just to catch the peaks. Of the, uh, so you'd really know where the lights were from that. And I talked that idea over with, uh, with Joe Letteri, and he suggested that, uh, alright, well I wouldn't necessarily do the, the, the matte white version.
I do middle gray 'cause you're gonna get all the same data from it, but you're less likely to clip on the peaks. And then I was thinking about, uh, wanting to make this portable and, uh, so that the thought of making it just a single sphere with two sides so that it could come apart and the two halves could nest together and it could fit into a small carrying case, made it sort of practical to, to be able to transport around to sets.
So I decided to get rid of the, uh, the shiny black one and just go for gray and chrome. And I think, uh, the first shot it got used on was a shot of a star fleet crew member's being overtaken by the Borg and his fallen down in the corridor and, you know, gets the, uh. This face starts transforming.
[00:37:48] Rob Bredow: There you go. That's, uh, now those kinds of things, seeing, seeing the spheres on set is just very, very commonplace. But it's really interesting to see the steps that led up to that. So if you do back up to the abyss where you had this reflective refractive creature, but none of those techniques had yet been developed, what were the alternative ways that you got all that detail into the, into that, uh, water tentacle?
[00:38:12] John Knoll: Well, what we, uh, talked about with the team was that the refraction through the pod, we would try to make that with the background plate uhhuh. So it's kind of a distortion of the background plate that we'd be doing. And then for reflection, the pod kinda reflects the entire environment around.
So I would go to set with a still camera and I would photograph everything and, and stitch those together into a reflection environment. Uh, you have to be. Uh, pretty opportunistic in doing that because a set is never lit in all directions simultaneously. So what I did at the time was when we were lit for this direction, I would shoot in that direction.
Of course, you know, behind us are light stands and crew members and all that sort of thing, and so I waited until we did the reverse and we turned the camera around and now it's lit in that direction. I'm gonna photograph that and I took all these pictures back in a, in a, I think, pre-release version of Photoshop.
I stitched them all together into environments.
[00:39:16] Rob Bredow: Nice. That's great. So we don't often think about the digital transition for models, but, but we've been talking about and seeing examples like 3D printing and other techniques that are very digital that integrate with the physical creations. But you also had to think about how the cameras were gonna photograph your models during that transition when we were using digital cameras for the very first time.
I'm curious about your experience with that.
[00:39:38] Fon Davis: Uh, it was terrifying and I was, I was the lead on the first miniature to be shot, uh, with the digital HD cameras that Sony had provided. Uh, it was a pod bays apartment. Uh, and, and in the model shop there was a lot of buzz. We were like, we never shot with these cameras.
We've seen the footage and it looks remarkably sharp. And we used to hide a lot of stuff in film grain. You know, there was, there was an old way at Colossal Pictures where I started, they'd say, you'd look at your miniature and you wave your hand in like this and if, and if it looks good like that, then you could stop working on it.
And if it was tv, sorry, I have to put this down. You do both hands. Um, anyway, so that was, that was the film. Grain would always hide some of the details. We didn't have to make the models as beautiful as they appeared on screen. Um, but on Attack of the Clones, we still had the same schedules, the same budget, very challenging.
Um, and we still made models exactly the same way we'd always made them. And so when we, uh, shot it on, there's a lot of anticipation. And then we, when we did shoot it on digital, we watched it in dailies and it was beautiful. And again, the model looked sharper and better and cleaner than it did in reality.
And we, we, we got really confused by this. So we talked to the guys at Sony and it turned out that, um, when you do digital photography, it takes the data between pixels and averages it, so it kicks it over to one pixel or the other. And so you're losing visual information, but it's doing it in a way that makes it sharper, more crisp and cleaner.
So in the end, we didn't have to change the way we did our miniatures for the, the, uh, for, um, Attack of the Clones.
[00:41:14] Rob Bredow: As the cameras have continued to get better. Do you constantly have that anxiety as you're like, okay, I'm bringing some fancy 8K camera to shoot your model?
[00:41:21] Fon Davis: Always, always, always. Yeah.
But we were, I mean, we, we also, like, as the technology is coming out to shoot movies, the technology for making models and for creating physical objects is also, uh, kind of keeping pace. So we use a lot of laser cutting, a lot of CNC, machining, 3D printing, all this technology that helps us create higher quality models at a very fast pace.
[00:41:44] Rob Bredow: Right.
[00:41:44] Fon Davis: So that helps.
[00:41:46] Rob Bredow: Yeah. I'm curious, I'm sure other people are also curious to hear, uh, John and Rob about the collaboration between supervisor and animation supervisor. Um, as you're breaking down the work, as you're attacking a particular challenge, especially when you've got characters that are filling up half the screen or, or playing important roles in the film, how does that dynamic work, or how did it work on the prequels where you guys were working together?
It was very polite, it looks like.
[00:42:14] John Knoll: Well, I, yeah, I mean, Rob represents, uh, represents acting and I'm kind of representing lighting and, uh, and trying to integrate it and make it look like it's really there. So, uh, I, Rob was really great at working with the animators and kind of getting performance honed to, uh, uh, a good place.
And then it was me working with a bunch of lighting artists and, uh, simulation artists and composite artists to try and get this all lit and to fit well into the. Into the plate. So once we really got ramped up, um, you know, Rob was in his world and I was in my world and, uh, uh, you know, we were happy that when the shots all came together and, uh, George was happy.
[00:43:07] Rob Coleman: I, I think, um, thank you for that. Um, I, I, I think we were also both cast for the show because of our temperaments and that meshed really well with George Lucas. I think John and I are both two people that are absolutely focused on getting George's vision up on the screen. And these shows, especially the prequels, are massive endeavors which have hundreds and hundreds of crew members.
And we are sort of on the bow of the ship up there. Um, doing our best to, um, get the work done in the time we have, we have the time, the talent and the technology that we're trying to juggle with. And, uh, but we have to divide and conquer. And so we both had each other's backs and we both were at the front there presenting our stuff to George and then reacting as appropriately and whether we got a final or we had to keep going.
[00:43:56] Rob Bredow: Yeah.
[00:43:56] Rob Coleman: Um, always with the goal to get the movie on the screen.
[00:43:59] Janet Lewin: I will say in my recollection, the prequels was really the first time where animation was on a level playing field with visual effects supervision. Prior to then the visual effects supervisor was really presenting all of the work because animation was a component piece of what we were doing.
But with prequels, animation was such a huge undertaking. And, Rob, you were overseeing animation across multiple units. 'cause we had John Knoll as one effect supervisor, but we also had other effects supervisors. Right. We had Pablo Helman and Joe Litteri and, um, Dennis Muren,
[00:44:37] Rob Coleman: Ben Snow
[00:44:37] Janet Lewin: and Roger Guyette.
And um, so I think, you know. Rob, you really pioneered the idea of an animation supervisor being, you know, a critical key creative, um, on par with, with the effect supervisors.
[00:44:54] Rob Coleman: Well, I think, I credit Jim Morris for spearheading it to the point when, if you look at the credits from early ILM movies, it's his visual effects by Industrial Light and magic.
Marin County, California, and I think, I don't for sure the first film, but it might've been Phantom Menace, they changed it to visual effects and animation. Mm-hmm. By, by industrial Light and magic Marin County, California. And Jim had sat down and said, we're at this moment where animation and performance is critically important to George Lucas.
And, and this is Jim's paraphrasing Jim. Paraphrasing Jim, is that this is also our future. We see this as our future. We see that clients, filmmakers want to tell stories with characters and so. Having a team, a team of animators that can do those performances. It needs to be at that level. We need to think of it as a very important component of what we do at ILM.
[00:45:48] Future of VFX
[00:45:48] Rob Bredow: That's great. And that's a perfect transition to talking a little bit about the future. I mean, of course it's natural and fun to look back at 50 years of history, and there's so many things to dive into. But John, as you think about the future for artists, as tools continue to evolve and get more and more powerful, um, what makes you optimistic?
What, what do you think about in terms of the, the next generation of, of the things that are happening next in the visual effects industry?
[00:46:11] John Knoll: Well, during my time at ILM, I've seen a steady progression from, um, you know, when we started, there were all sorts of restrictions on how you had to shoot shots to be able to successfully put a shot together, and then an observation.
I saw that. Probably 80% of the effort that went into putting a shot together was going into overcoming technological issues and sort of mechanical assembly issues. And that left about 20% of the time, um, to go into aesthetic issues of, you know, making it a good looking shot. And I'd say the reverse now that, uh, there's still technology that, that, uh, people have to work through.
But artists, I think, spend about 80% of their time working on the aesthetics of getting a shot done. And I'm kind of hoping to keep that progression going, uh, to make artists more productive, be able to get more done in a day. And that's the trajectory I've been seeing.
[00:47:08] Rob Bredow: That's great.
[00:47:09] Lynwen Brennan: I also feel like, um, it makes it more accessible so that we can tap into more artistic, um, brains out there because, um, at the end of the day, these tools are as good as the creative point of view of the people who are using them.
[00:47:26] Rob Bredow: Yeah.
[00:47:26] Lynwen Brennan: Um, and so I think ILM has always been artist driven, and, and I think that that will, I know that that will definitely continue in, into the future and, um, excited about it.
[00:47:39] Rob Bredow: Yeah. That's great. Yeah.
[00:47:41] The Martini
[00:47:41] Rob Bredow: Okay. So on the ILM podcast on Lighter Darker, we like to end with the martinis as the martini is the last shot of the day on set.
It's also the end of our podcast. Before we jump into that, there's a couple of items that are probably worth flagging to this group, especially people who might be fans of ILM. Um, do you wanna talk about, uh, a book?
[00:48:00] Lynwen Brennan: I do. In fact, I'll have two martinis. How about that?
[00:48:03] Rob Bredow: Okay. Perfect. Yes, you have a book that'll be perfect.
[00:48:05] Janet Lewin: A double martinis.
[00:48:06] Rob Bredow: That's a good, good way to wrap out a long show at Celebration.
[00:48:11] Lynwen Brennan: Um, I would say that my first martini we already talked about, which is Light & Magic season two. Yes. I think that that is something I would really recommend everyone, uh, everyone watch because as I said, it gets to the heart and the soul of what it takes to get to, to make these movies and get these images on the screen.
It is really, truly amazing and one of, one of the series now in my Lucasfilm role that I'm, I'm most proud of, I have to say. It's, it's beautifully done. And, uh, my second martini, yes. Um, it would be about a book. Rob, there we go. Perfect segue. That we've already done three of these books, but we couldn't let the 50 year mark go without another, um, uh, uh, compendium, um, for, uh, uh, celebrating the last 50 years of industrial Light magic, or I should say the first 50 years that's right of industrial light and magic.
Um, our friends at Abrams, um, are going to be publishing this book and it will be available this fall. And, um, it is, it is really quite spectacular. Um, again, to just think about this story place, I think, Rob, you said it, that the, the, the shoulders of giants that we have the opportunity to be a part of this legacy is incredible and um, the book does a beautiful job at showing. Showing that
[00:49:43] Rob Bredow: hundreds of photos in there. In fact, I think Lynwen just premiered for you, if you're watching on the screen, uh, the first look inside that book publishing announced this book on Friday, and this is your first chance of seeing some of the images from inside.
I think there's 700 or more images packed, a huge number of images packed into this book, uh, many of which have never been seen before. So it's gonna be really, really fun. Okay, Janet, you have a martini?
[00:50:05] Janet Lewin: I get two martinis too.
[00:50:06] Rob Bredow: You got two martinis. There you go.
[00:50:07] Lynwen Brennan: Woo.
[00:50:07] Janet Lewin: I want three. No. Um, so I, I think the first martini is, um, another product that's coming your way.
If you're interested, we are launching a t-shirt, uh, to commemorate the ILM 50th. There go. Oh, Rob is modeling it for us. Thank you Rob. Rob would bring it to mind, would you mind standing up? I was teasing. Would you turn around? Well done. Excellent. So, uh, this is available to anyone who might be interested by looking, uh, clicking on that QR code and going to Amazon.
Perfect. Um, and then my other martini, uh, I'll have to wait a couple of days. It's to binge watch Andor season two. Yes. Um, coming on April 22nd, and, um, I just absolutely can't wait and I, I can't, can't imagine how it might end.
[00:51:02] Rob Bredow: It's gonna be
[00:51:04] Janet Lewin: just teasing about that. John,
[00:51:08] Rob Bredow: John, do you ever, did you bring a martini today?
[00:51:10] John Knoll: Yeah, I, this, uh, these last few days here at Celebration, I, I've been really inspired and energized by seeing the, uh, the, the work of a lot of the fans that are here. There's amazing cosplay on display all the time.
[00:51:27] Rob Bredow: It's incredible.
[00:51:28] John Knoll: And yeah, there is one here, uh, a lot of really very creative people here that, uh, uh, kinda reminds us of why we do what we do.
It's really very inspiring. In particular, uh, there's, uh, some model makers who have built, uh, some reproductions of ILM behind the scenes, you know, the model shop and the, you know, the table with all the miniatures lined up on, um, there's a. Uh, one third re-scale recreation of the inside of the ILM model shop.
That's just expertly done, and it's really beautiful and amazing, really inspiring to me. Great work.
[00:52:12] Lynwen Brennan: It's a real treat for all of us to be here. Yes, I mean, it really is.
[00:52:14] Rob Bredow: Thank you fans for letting us do this amazing job. Yes,
Rob.
[00:52:25] Rob Coleman: My martini is, I love reading and learning about behind the scenes stories on movies, and there's a podcast that I listen to regularly. It's by the Director's Guild of America, and the podcast is called The Director's Cut. And in every, um, episode, it's about 35 minutes long, and it's after they've screened a movie and a director interviews the director of the movie they've just seen, and they talk about their process, their creative vision, how it. The challenges of getting their moving on the screen. And, and I always come away with, um, some little bit of information. I had no idea. And so for people who love learning about movies, give it a, give it a listen.
[00:53:03] Rob Bredow: Thank you, Rob. That's a great recommendation.
[00:53:04] Lynwen Brennan: If you like learning about movies, can I interest you in a book?
[00:53:08] Rob Coleman: I would love to read that.
[00:53:09] Lynwen Brennan: It's available this fall.
[00:53:11] Rob Coleman: I might just get one.
[00:53:13] Rob Bredow: Masa.
[00:53:14] Masa Narita: Oh yes. Uh, my martinis, uh, brief meditation. I practice karate. And then each lesson, you know, begins with a brief 20 second, uh, you know, meditation. So by focusing my, you know, breathing and then creating my mind and I can reset, you know, myself, and then fully concentrate, you know, whatever comes next.
So I did this, uh, meditation just came before, you know, before, uh, this stage. It didn't work. Sorry.
[00:53:52] Rob Bredow: It did, it did work. You did beautifully. We're so glad to have you on the stage with us. Thank you, Masa. You're very inspiring.
Fon I can't wait to hear yours.
[00:54:07] Fon Davis: Oh, my martini is gratitude. Oh, nice. I'm just really grateful. I'm grateful to be here with you guys. Um, like John said, it's very energizing. I'm grateful to still be doing this for a living and still getting to work with a lot of these wonderful people. I'm in Los Angeles now in my own studio, uh, Fonco Studios. I'm gonna go ahead and plug that.
[00:54:25] Rob Bredow: There you go. Yeah.
[00:54:27] Fon Davis: But we, we, yeah, we're still doing a lot of work with Industrial Light and Magic Lucasfilm George. Some, some things I can't talk about. Um, but it's, I'm just really, I love going to work every day and I'm really grateful that I get to do this wonderful job and that we're still building practical. We're still doing miniatures and blowing 'em up.
[00:54:46] Rob Bredow: Amazing. Uh, thank you Fon. Thank you Panel. My martini is Tokyo Disney Sea. I am a big fan of the parks and Disney Sea is such a beautiful park. If you get a chance, yes, if you get a chance to see it, it's um, I don't know. It might be the most beautiful Disney Park I've ever seen. It's just fantastic and the recent things that have added to it are spectacular.
So if you get a chance to see Tokyo Disney Sea, I highly recommend it. So I wanna thank the panel. You Please help, help me thank the panel. It's been amazing to have you here.
OUTRO
