Ep 004: Twisters with Isaac Lee Chung and Ashley Jay Sandberg

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Todd Vizari: [00:00:00] Somebody asked Dean Cundey, where are the lights coming from in this scene and Dean just said, same place the music's coming from.

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. This is our fourth episode, four of 20 planned for our first season and we release every other Tuesday. Thank you so much for joining us today. And today we have guest co-hosts with us. Let me introduce first executive producer, Ashley J Sandberg. Ashley studied at Pepperdine university.

Tell me if I get any of this wrong- 12 years at Kennedy Marshall, working her way up from production coordinator to associate producer. In fact, she was associate producer on the six-time Emmy nominated documentary, The Bee Gees: How You Can Mend a Broken Heart, which is fantastic. And then went on to become head of production development at Kennedy Marshall.

Most recently Ashley served as executive producer on [00:01:00] Twisters, and I understand guided the production from the early phases of development before everybody was on board all the way through shoot and post, so welcome to the podcast, Ashley.

Ashley J Sandberg: Thank you.

Rob Bredow: We also have with us director Lee Isaac Chung. he grew up on a small farm in rural Arkansas and studied film at the University of Utah, earning his MFA in 2004. He was nominated for that film for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and many more. Uh, but Minari wasn't his first film. We'll link to his IMDb page where you can see all 11 films he's directed Welcome to the podcast, Isaac.

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah. Thanks so much. So good to be here.

Rob Bredow: And as usual, my co host Todd Vaziri

Todd Vaziri: Hey I'm Todd Vaziri. I'm a Compositing Supervisor and Artist at ILM.

Rob Bredow: And our producer, Jenny,

Jenny Ely: Hi, I'm Jenny Ely, a production manager at ILM.

Rob Bredow: and I'm Rob Bredow. I'm the Chief Creative Officer at ILM and SVP of Creative Innovation at Lucasfilm. And we all work together in the visual effects, animation, and [00:02:00] immersive entertainment industries. So today's show, we're going to jump right in because we have a lot to get to, we're going to start with a couple of questions from the mailbag and Jenny, can you get us started on that?

Jenny Ely: Yeah, we have some from our ILMers, and we also have some that came in from social media. So we're going to start with one of our ILM employees, Julie Pang. Julie asks, as you collaborated on Twisters, coming from different backgrounds in the film industry, how did your experiences complement each other, and how did you establish and build trust with one another throughout the project?

Rob Bredow: Well, Ashley, you want to dive into that as you got this project started and I mean, there's so many steps in those early days, I imagine.

Ashley J Sandberg: there are quite a bit and there were a lot of partners on this project. We worked with Warner Brothers, Universal and Amblin Entertainment to create this film and when you're doing this, everyone's thoughts are important. So you have to navigate those and how do you incorporate them as you continue to develop the script.

And for me, when the opportunity came [00:03:00] that we had to find a new director for this project, I really wanted to think a little bit outside of the box for this. And. put someone in where I knew some of the places were missing in our storytelling. And when, in watching the work of Isaac's in Minari, and the fact that he had to come off of two Lucasfilm episodic episodes, knowing that he's had that experience with VFX and working on something on a bigger scale.

It felt like the right time to, you know, get behind and bring him onto something like Twisters. It needed that heart. It needed the visionary that he is to come into it and breathe some life into our characters. And I think our trust started in the early days of our first meeting and talking about the project.

Would you agree?

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah, I remember I saw you, I think we did a Zoom together and I saw, I thought, you had cool glasses. I remember that being one of my first. impressions Yeah, I think they're the same ones. Oh, those are cool glasses. And then I felt like you genuinely seemed to be interested in me doing this.

Like, I felt [00:04:00] like there was an affinity there that I felt encouraged by. So it didn't feel like I was trying to prove things to you, but it's more like, you know, we see things eye to eye and, let's try to make this film together. It kind of felt like that from the start for me.

Ashley J Sandberg: Yeah. And I think, you know, I worked a long time in the studio system as far as projects that I worked with through Kennedy Marshall, you know, in the last 12 or so years that I had worked there. And so it is a big part of it when you come into some project like this, how to navigate it. Right. The studio and how to work with them and how to, because that's a whole other thing aside from actually making the film.

So it is, you know, I think that and having someone who understands it is helpful in a collaboration so we can make sure all parties and everybody feels seen and heard and happy.

Rob Bredow: Yeah. And this was particularly complicated with, usually you have one studio to make happy. In this case, you had three and three With experience, having made Twister all those years ago, that had to be quite a balancing act.

Lee Isaac Chung: uh, [00:05:00] When I was pitching for the project. I had to start with Frank and Ashley, and then I was relating to someone. It felt like I was Bruce Lee going up the Pagoda, you know, battling bigger and bigger bosses. And at the end it's Steven Spielberg. And each time I'm just getting more and more intimidated, but, it was good to be able to have conversations with everybody and genuinely see that everybody's on the same page about what this could be, So that, that was good. I felt like, from the start, everybody knew Twisters should be a lot of fun.

It could be something that needs to be for a modern audience, for a new audience. Everybody loves the original, but we want to make something new with this one. I felt like we had a good baseline. So the discussions were pretty good from the start. and then, As you work with each individual one, you see each of them have a different perspective and these smaller things, but it never felt insurmountable.

Rob Bredow: Great. Well, let's get to Ross Brown's question and then we'll dive into a little bit of our film backgrounds [00:06:00] and, where we got started, but let's do Ross's question next, Jenny.

Jenny Ely: Okay. So Ross's question is a little more general about film. So Ross from Twitter asks, ignorant question here, but could you guys explain what shot represents? How many frames or seconds?

Todd Vaziri: Yeah, not at all an ignorant question. I mean, we throw these terms around a lot and it becomes second nature to us, so we should, sometimes back up and, uh, describe what we're talking about. a, shot is, in the simplest terms, it’s when a perspective in your movie cuts to a different perspective.

Now, we sometimes call them cuts, we sometimes call them shots. But basically, you're, taking a piece of film or footage and you're, you know, the, the term cut comes from when we used to cut work print. And, connect two different takes together, two different perspectives, two different, bits of footage together to create a new shot.

There is no such thing as the proper length for a shot when we deal with visual effects shots, you know when we deal with [00:07:00] big action movies big science fiction movies sometimes it's really quick cutting we can have shots as short as in the cut could be 15 frames long When I say frames, I mean 24 frames per second, which is the standard, frame rate for cinema. but when we have super long shots, they can be 800 frames long, they can be 1, 000 frames long. typically, on a two hour picture, uh, 1, 500 shots, if it's a drama. It can go up to 2, 000, if it's something with a little bit more action, a lot more quick cutting.

One particular movie I wanted to point out that has fewer shots in it than you would expect is Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, which, you know, he's famous for his very long takes. Can anyone here guess how many shots there are in Gravity? Which, I'll give you a little hint, it is 90 minutes long.

Lee Isaac Chung: Oh, shoot. Wow. That's a great question.

Ashley J Sandberg: Oh, I know.

Lee Isaac Chung: I bet it's kind of mind blowing.

Rob Bredow: I'm going to guess like 80.

Todd Vaziri: It was mind blowing to me. It's 156. [00:08:00] obviously the whole point of that movie, there's, you know, stylistic devices that take super long takes to draw the drama of the scene. So yeah, there is no one set length of time for a particular shot in a movie. So next time you watch a movie. You know, get out a stopwatch and whenever the perspective changes or there's a cut, you can snap, you can hit your stopwatch, and you can get a sense as to how long each shot is. Gives you a sense as to what editors deal with every day.

Jenny Ely: And do shots make up a scene?

Todd Vaziri: From a visual effects standpoint, the shots make up a sequence,

Jenny Ely: A sequence okay.

Todd Vaziri: Usually a sequence, we're getting looser with our terms, like a sequence is usually, a scene that takes place in one spot the shots are similar in style and in, uh, mise en scene and everything.

So then when the characters go outside, that's a new sequence or a new scene. We throw these terms around interchangeably.

Jenny Ely: Yeah, I have a theater background, so everything is a scene to me.

Todd Vaziri: Everything's a scene

Rob Bredow: But I'll bet if you look at the average shot length in [00:09:00] Minari versus Twisters, you're going to have, I don't know, maybe a three and a half second average shot length in Twisters and maybe a six or eight second length in Minari. I have no idea.

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah. I think that's about right. Yeah. With Minari, we had so little time and so little money. I remember with every scene we could only move the camera maybe three times like have three different setups so that was Completely different from Twisters where we have two cameras going at the same time and we're jumping around and spending a day filming a scene

Todd Vaziri: Ashley, and Isaac, I didn't want to put you on the spot. For Twisters, do you know how many total shots there were?

Ashley J Sandberg: Oh, that's a good question. I keep thinking I'm trying to, we remember how many VFX shots we have. That's what I think about.

Todd Vaziri: I'll take that. How many VFX shots were there?

Ashley J Sandberg: I think we ended up, we ended up coming down. That's the thing I want. Yeah it was 1100, I believe. Like we were surprised, like everyone felt, you know, it was going to be 1400 plus, but it ended up, we'd had a lot captured in camera and practical.

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah, I'm still stuck on this [00:10:00] Cuaron number. Um, how do we do that?

Rob Bredow: Exactly. When they were working on Gravity, I had heard the story that the whole movie was one shot, and it's actually not that far off if there were only 120 shots. Um, Jurassic Park, in terms of visual effects shots, I think only had something around 65 visual effects shots.

Lee Isaac Chung: That's right. I've heard that.

Ashley J Sandberg: Yeah. I remember that.

Rob Bredow: But then actually 1100 for a big visual effects movie like Twisters, is actually quite low. It's quite modest by today's standards. a lot of work in camera to get that to happen. Thank you to everybody who sent questions into the mailbag. You can, uh, send other questions in to

lighterdarker@ilm.com and we'll follow up, But we have a lot of questions still pending in the mailbag, but we have to move forward and dive into our first feature.

Which is called “rejection letters” and people always say you learn more from your mistakes than your successes. But of course, when we get to talk to amazing filmmakers, it's always

It's fun to talk about these successes, but the great thing is both Isaac and Ashley have agreed to talk a little bit about those early days where they didn't just have one success after another. [00:11:00] so I don't know who would like to go first, but maybe I should throw to you, Isaac. Could you have a rejection letter story for everybody?

Lee Isaac Chung: I was trying to figure out which one to tell. Cause I got, I have so many, cause I've been making films since 2005. I graduated from film school. Um, and maybe. Minari, which came out 2020, was the film that people will know me by. but early films, I think my first short film that I made, I sent it out to a bunch of festivals.

I got into one and then, it was an eight hour drive away. I couldn't fly there. I was like, okay, I'm going to drive there. And I even booked a little place at a motel. I went down there, I got into the theater to watch the short film. I was the only person in the audience.

Rob Bredow: Oh man.

Lee Isaac Chung: And then I stayed there that night by myself and drove all the way home after that.

So these are such sad stories. These are very sad stories.

Yeah, so that was the first one. Yeah, [00:12:00] I can go on and on with stories like this, but strangely being a filmmaker, you develop, I think it's like being a standup comic too. You just have to go through that, time of being rejected and developing thick skin and just

Kind of laughing about these moments to one funny story. I thought I should share. I made a film called Abigail Harm that played at the Busan International Festival. so that's where it premiered. I'm gonna admit that I don't. I don't know if it's a very good film at all. And I brought my mom and dad there and there was an audience this time and we watched the movie.

The lights came up, and I could tell it just bombed. Like nobody really liked it. And then my dad raises his hand to ask a question. And I'm thinking to the moderator, don't, don't pick him. That's my dad. Don't be. And then they, they pick my dad and my dad says, I happen to be the father of the director. And he's saying this in Korean.

And everybody in the audience, they're all Korean. They're like, [00:13:00] Oh and then my dad says, uh, I just want to apologize for the ending of this movie. Even I don't understand the ending. He apologized to the audience on my behalf. And

Rob Bredow: Ohhh

Lee Isaac Chung: I, when I look back, that's one of the funniest, like, I was so upset at that time, but now I look back and it's just one of the funnier things I've gone through as a filmmaker.

Todd Vaziri: Yeah, those are pretty good.

Jenny Ely: You are winning rejection letters with that so far.

Todd Vaziri: That's intense. Okay. Like a little bit of a rejection from dad.

Lee Isaac Chung: From dad. publicly.

Rob Bredow: Oh man, that is a tough one and persevered all these Oscars later

Todd Vaziri: When you were in the theater by yourself for the short, did you fill out a comment card, a feedback card on yourself?

Lee Isaac Chung: Oh, I totally should have. I should have ripped the five on the piece of paper, but yeah, I feel like for artists and creatives, like there is a weird, like you have to be a little crazy to keep at it like you [00:14:00] have to believe in this thing That's much bigger than yourself or this idea and you just stick to it.

Like I can't explain it. Otherwise, there are so many things in this world that will say don't do this. You're out of your mind, but yet a lot of people persevere and somehow make it out. And I do feel fortunate that people are watching the movies I'm making and, somehow, I'm able to get work now.

Rob Bredow: Amazing. Thank you, Ashley.

Ashley J Sandberg: Like Isaac, I know I had to think, cause I'm like, there is just more than one. And I think if you're in this business long enough, you're going to just keep experiencing it and it's part of it. And each time it gets a little easier, are you realizing that you're learning from each of these times? And for me, I didn't have a traditional path in the industry.

I like graduated college. I was from Maryland. I didn't have any connections to the industry, but I figured, okay, what do I do? I wait tables and then I try to get on sets and PA and actually being a stand in back in the day is how I learned a lot because I got the lingo down from being, You know, on set with everyone. I don't, [00:15:00] like to share these stories all that often, but that kind of got my foot in the door of like, okay, this is how a set works. Um, but after a few years of doing that

I was, like, very tired of waiting tables and being freelance And going job to job. So I heard that there was an entry level position at Kennedy Marshall that was answering phones and doing mail and fixing the Xerox machine and all that. I go and interview. and I was later in my twenties, I wasn't fresh out of college. and uh, they're like, well, you know, this is a one year commitment, no growth, nowhere to move from it. This is it, You know, And I said, okay, but let me see what I can do to continue to grow. And see if there's a place for me and I was in over my head. I hadn't worked on a computer in so many years like I had to learn mac.

I was like way in over my head but I learned really quickly there. And so as I spent more time, I didn't want to leave after a year So I heard that there was an assistant job opening for Frank and so I was like, oh, I will put my hat in the ring for this [00:16:00] And he was very nice when I met him and I think the best thing that he did for me was not hire me for that job because I think I would have crashed and burned at that point in my career because I didn't know enough yet.

So from not getting that job and feeling like, Oh, this is so embarrassing that I have to keep going into this office. And knowing that I didn't get the position, but then I moved up and I was like a production office manager. I was hired, you know, and then I worked in TV. I pivoted and worked in TV within the company.

So from that rejection, I had to put my ego aside and be like, okay, he was right. I need to keep honing my skills. And I think he was smart enough to know that he would have probably fired me at that point in time, because I wouldn't have delivered, on the way that I needed to deliver.

And that said, You don't always take at face value what a one year job is, because then again I worked for 12 years until I became an independent producer after that. So you learn from your rejections. And then figure, okay, what can I do to, to look at it a little differently and get stronger

Rob Bredow: I love that. That's so amazing. and both of these stories have this persistence. and this is what we find [00:17:00] whenever we talk to anybody about rejection letters is, taking away what we can learn from that. and like, were you as self aware as you are today at that time when that happened?

Ashley J Sandberg: Oh, I don't think I would have hired me at that time, Now I look back. I mean, I thought I was fabulous. I'm like, I can figure it out. No job too big or small, but there are some things where I'm like, I was still. Even at that point, a little bit green in what I understood of the industry And like what the expectations were.

And then you work with, as you know, cause Kathy and with Frank, they've been doing this a very long time and like things a certain way and they're right for that. So I am now much more self aware that anyone I ended up hiring for afterwards, I made sure to look for things that would be a good fit for those offices.

But, yes, now I'm, looking back, I was like, oh yeah, that was a good, good mood. I had a lot to grow and learn before taking something of that level. Uh, and I think people underestimate the jobs of assistants. Especially at certain positions and it's really a great learning opportunity and you just have to be ready and prepared for what you can

Rob Bredow: That's great. Thank you so much [00:18:00] for sharing that. and it's really, really appreciate that. Ashley definitely a perfect example of one door closes another door opening and here you were, less than 12 years later, executive producing Twisters,which, I mean, we talk about going in at the most complicated kind of filmmaking with three studios and the, most complicated on location, not to mention happening during a strike and all of these things, it couldn't have been a more arduous journey, I imagine.

Ashley J Sandberg: Yeah, I think everything that you could have thought of that could happen on a production, I feel like we, we had it. Um, but, like I said, I think because Things weren't necessarily handed to us. You know, Isaac had to work really hard. A lot of our crew members because of our rejections and the things that have happened, we are able to walk into a situation and be like, okay, the only way out is through.

How do we get through this? No is not an answer. So let's try and figure it out. So I do feel that our past helped us through our future of working on [00:19:00] Twisters and really having a top notch crew and cast and people thinking outside of the box to make sure we can make it happen.

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. All of the things that train our resilience through the years, even our childhood, like all of that comes into play later. And it can become an advantage. It can become the thing that can help other people too, who, uh, need that extra bit of belief that, uh,we can get through these setbacks and all those things.So, And any people who are listening to this, if they're feeling any, Fatigue or anything that they're going through,like getting through that will only prepare you for bigger and better things in the future, I feel.

Rob Bredow: That's great.

Ashley J Sandberg: I agree

Rob Bredow: Well, since we're talking about those early days and moving past that, let's talk about the films that inspired us. We call this feature film foundations maybe Todd, maybe I can throw to you first and you can you can share a film that got you into this business and then we'll go around the room.

Todd Vaziri: Yeah, um, I grew up, I always loved movies and TV shows, but I [00:20:00] knew there was something about the magic of filmmaking that made me stand up straight and wanna, you know, like, what is this? What is this? and it really crystallized, uh, I'll never forget sitting in the theater watching Back to the Future. And the rollercoaster ride of emotions, of laughs, of what if, uh, a time machine could exist. Never seen a you know, plenty of time travel stories before then, but, uh, one that was extremely accessible to a young kid. And, uh, everything that Marty and Doc had to go through. That was one that really made me go I want to decode How this is affecting everybody from an artistic standpoint and that I think Is the one that I can point to for like filmmaking and then i'll add a little bonus one of for visual effects specifically a few years later was The Abyss by James Cameron.

Oh, yeah, that is which used pretty much every single technique in the book that was available at the [00:21:00] time, And even some techniques that were not available at the time that were developed at ILM for computer graphics, for photorealistic purposes of the pseudopod in particular. and seeing that movie, not only loving the movie, but also we're always striving for something that we've never seen before, to sit down in the movie theater and see something that we've never seen before.

And that happened with The Abyss. And again, I was like, well, okay, visual effects for me, I want to figure out how this all works.

Rob Bredow: So when you saw The Abyss, did you even know, or did you put it together that visual effects was a job at that point? Or you already knew that

Todd Vaziri: I knew that it was a job and it was extremely abstract, but you know, whenever I could get my hands on any kind of information about how visual effects, movies are made, but particularly visual effects, I would get my hands on it like Starlog and then eventually Cinefex and American Cinematographer magazines. but by that time,

I knew about Industrial Light and Magic, I knew about all the optical houses at the time, you know, that movie [00:22:00] and then the pseudopod, and then seeing all those movie credits at the end, and starting to recognize the names, I'm like, oh yeah, I have to do this I have to do this.

Rob Bredow: That's great. Isaac, what early movies inspired you?

Lee Isaac Chung: yeah, Todd mentioned, sometimes you see something to make sure you're back straight. Like when I was a kid, the first thing I saw was E.T. in a theater and I remember standing up for that. like that, that was my first cinema memory. Spielberg's films in particular were always very inspiring. Um, but I think it wasn't until I got to college A friend recommended that I watch these movies by Wong Kar Wai. He's this, uh, Hong Kong filmmaker. It was the first time that I was watching the movie and I thought the shots he was using were very weird and strange, like I'd never seen anything like that, it made me think more about it.

The choices that are being made by the director. You know, I was studying biology at the time I was not studying film. And I remember that getting my mind working about filmmaking and I took a film class around that time. And that was my senior year. [00:23:00] That's when I switched from biology and wanting to go into medicine to thinking that maybe I want to go into film. so I remember all that happening at the same time with watching Wong Kar Wai and taking this class in film.

Ashley J Sandberg: For me, it was, it was a VHS that I had watched that first, got me into films and it was The Wizard of Oz. And so I just couldn't believe that you could go from black and white, I remember. And then the world was in color. I was like, I just, how did they do this? I was very young and I'd watch it over and over again.

And my sisters would be outside playing, but I just remember watching that tape until it broke and we had to get another one. I think that always piqued my interest. How did these, you know, made me feel something. It's always what we talk about, Isaac, and I talk about this often, the awe and wonder and building a world that's outside of our own. And I feel like through my childhood, I escaped a lot through films and watching. And then again, Goonies and this adventure that people go on and Raiders And all of the Indy series. So for me, it was always, how can I escape and imagine I'm these characters, And [00:24:00] so I first thought I wanted to be in news broadcasts And producing news. I then, I didn't know how to break into what I wanted to do. and then I took a film course in college and I'm like, Oh, I love being part of the storytelling process. How do I put the pieces together to make what I'm thinking in my mind or the stories that I like to come across onto the big screen.

So I would say those are the films that inspired me and I knew that the position I respected directing. I think it's so amazing, but I'm like for me, it's always, and that part of storytelling that drew me into what I'm doing now.

Rob Bredow: Nice. That's great. the film that pops to my mind when I get asked this question is The Empire Strikes Back. And it was one of those really impactful movies for me watching in the theater. I remember walking out of the movie theater saying, we've got to go back and see it again. That was the first time I had seen Star Wars many times, but I'd seen it on VHS.

And then Empire was the first Star Wars that I saw in the theater. And I remember us talking about, I hear the next one is called Revenge of the Jedi. Like if the empire kicked that [00:25:00] much butt in this one, how much butt are the Jedi gonna kick in the next one? Like we were so excited and then we couldn't believe that it was gonna be years before the next movie was done. Like we,for us, that was a lifetime away. And then. I remember seeing that, still, Phil Tippett popped out of the snow with a trap door open and him posing the AT-AT, cause I had no idea how these visuals were done and seeing that there was. a person posing the AT-AT made me realize, Oh, there's people that do this as a job.

Like that's incredible. I like making stuff and I didn't really put it together. And then there was virtually no, hardly any computer graphics at the time. I was really into using computers, didn't put it together that computer graphics could be combined with this until much later, but The Empire Strikes Back is that memory for me, for sure.

Lee Isaac Chung: That's cool. How many, how many times did you end up seeing it

Rob Bredow: It was a big deal to see it twice in the theater back then. I saw it once with my family and then once later with another friend. and then my neighbor had a VHS player and we [00:26:00] had the recordings of Star Wars. We had all three of them one summer. We must've watched it three times a day, every day, all summer.

Rob Bredow: Yeah.

Todd Vaziri: There's a special classification. We need to come up with a name for it where you see a movie and you love it and it's, you know, you're, you're connecting with everything that's going on and you just want to go back. You just want to watch it immediately. Again. You just want to go back out, get another tub of popcorn and go right back in.

And, we need to come up with a term for that because like, it still happens today, even with my jaded cynical self, um, the last couple of times I remember vividly was, uh, Mad Max Fury Road. And, uh, Spider-Man Into The Spiderverse where it's just like an assault on everything, all your senses.

And all I wanted to do is just go right back out and watch it again and, figure out more of what was going on.Well, what did I just watch? What did I just watch?

Rob Bredow: I was so hungry for more Star Wars. we got a book that came with a record, and for you kids out there, a record used to be a way you play audio on a [00:27:00] disc that would spin around, in the old days. but the Ewoks joined the fight and it was a little like a 10 page storybook and you know, you'll know it, it is time to turn the page when you hear, I don't know, it was an Ewok roaring or something.

I don't remember what the turn the page was, but that was as close as we could get to empire

Lee Isaac Chung: That's cool. I hate to admit this, or I don't know why I hate to admit this. I'm proud of this. I remember, uh, so Titanic came out in 97,

Lee Isaac Chung: So I went with my family and then, there's a girl I liked in college and I took her and we're married now, by the way.

Rob Bredow: There you go.

Lee Isaac Chung: So that worked.

And then, uh, I think we watched it like a couple more times. And I think that one was the one maybe I've seen the most times just going back to the theater.

Ashley J Sandberg: That's the same, four times in the theater. I remember, my sister, no one could believe I was going for the fourth time for this long film, but You know,

Jenny Ely: I saw, Batman 1989 seven times in the theater and I still have all of my ticket stubs.

Lee Isaac Chung: Nice.

Jenny Ely: I was obsessed with that movie. I mean, I still am, but

Rob Bredow: The Danny Elfman soundtracks [00:28:00] so strong.

Lee Isaac Chung: Oh man, Danny Elfman

Jenny Ely: yes, Michael Keaton will always be my Batman

Rob Bredow: There you go.

Ashley J Sandberg: Yes,

Rob Bredow: I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles three times. I remember that was like the 1980s TMNT that we uh, had the freedom to ride our bikes to the movie theater and it was like a $2 matinee. We're like we're going back. It's still in theaters. Those turtles were So cool.

So our final topic, and we're going to dig a little bit into this, um, really the quiet power of nature has been a theme in Lee Isaacs films. And I love, especially in Twisters, but I think it's a theme throughout, certainly including Minari and Twisters, the contrasts in storytelling, the quiet moments, the loud moments and the connection to nature.

So, I'm really interested. Maybe we could start with you, Ashley. You talked a little bit about putting this team together earlier and you had to change directors because of timing and getting the movie to come together. I'm curious with, Isaac's background and having grown up in this world, embedded in the authenticity of this world, was that something that drew you to him as [00:29:00] a filmmaker for this, or did you even know that when you first started talking about this opportunity,

Ashley J Sandberg: I did know that, and absolutely it was, we needed someone who understood the landscape and the people, because that's why we watch the films that we watch, because we care about them, and we care about where they're living, and I always remember seeing the barn sequence in Minari, and that, feeling at the very end of, watching this visceral moment when they're catching on flames and you're like, it just pulled everything.

And I'm like, how do we do that on, and maybe in, on this bigger scale and how do we combine the magic of ILM and what you all create with the practical environments. And I just felt like there was so much that could be had. Should the playground be available for him to use? And I think, we experienced the grandness of nature while filming it and knowing that we are so small and we have no control if it starts lightning We have to shut down There's no way around it like it is so much bigger than us and we wanted the people to feel this who [00:30:00] watched The film I'm from maryland.

I had about one tornado experience there I had to go under in our basement, but it wasn't something I dealt with daily. When I saw the original Twister, it was mind blowing. So for people who aren't from the heartland, you wanted them to have those experiences in the theater like that. And so I definitely felt we needed someone who understood what that authentically felt like

Rob Bredow: One of our, uh data wranglers who was out on set capturing those high dynamic range images to drive the CG, he was just doing a little chat with some of the crew here. and he was saying, you knew when the hairs started standing up on your arm, you needed to get inside really quick because, uh, the, the weather was coming and the lightning was coming and, you know, he's out there with a eight foot long metal pole with a camera on the end of it, you know, he knew that he was the next thing to get struck within a few miles,

So he had to get in quick. But it sounds like you guys dealt with alot of this.

Lee Isaac Chung: Oh yeah, yeah. Every time the storms roll in, you just look around at the set and you think, okay, this is the worst thing to have out during a storm.

Rob Bredow: Right.

Lee Isaac Chung: You're just asking for trouble

Rob Bredow: All the pieces of [00:31:00] set designed to only be up and running for a couple of weeks and, then a storm comes in and there's nothing, I mean, it's to do some serious damage

Lee Isaac Chung: Exactly.

Ashley J Sandberg: Oh, we had that multiple times if you watch any of our behind the scenes, we cover this, but we had a beautiful, our El Reno, which is like the last shot of the film. Our amazing set-dec, farmer's market and the storm came in for three hours and destroyed, like, it looked like a tornado went through, destroyed the set.

And you're like, what are you going to do? And that was one of the times I just felt like such a community with our crew, because everyone went out and we all worked together with set-dec to reset it. And we actually made our day and made it early. I don't know how we did that, but I think that was the mindset of like, we knew we were up against things that are above us like this nature.

Lee Isaac Chung: And we couldn't shoot it for what it was because it would have been perfect if it was post tornado damage, but it just didn't work with our schedule. But Yeah, for 30 minutes, it looks perfect.

Like, uh, we just need to film, you know, it just looks like everything we want in a movie. But then you just know, like, we have giant [00:32:00] silks up in the air. You know, those things are like putting sails up on a boat before a storm comes. You know, a lot of things that we just had to tear down and get people to a safe place as well. Sometimes we'd be out in the middle of a bunch of fields and, you know, we just need to get this giant crew base into someplace that's going to be safe. So oftentimes we, we became characters in that movie where we're running and we're trying to just get to safety. but it was good.It was good.

Ashley J Sandberg: We loved it and we want to make

Rob Bredow: right.

Ashley J Sandberg: So all fine

Rob Bredow: There's nothing like that camaraderie on set though, when you are up against hardship, did you do a lot of having to kind of dance with your shot list and you're blocking with the changing weather and the availability of the day and still trying to make your days, was that something that.

Your independent background and the ability to move fast when you had to, did that really play in this? I can imagine it was a valuable skill.

Lee Isaac Chung: I think so. I remember one day a storm was coming through as we're filming, uh, all the characters running to the overpass. Um, and [00:33:00] we kept getting reports. Okay. It's this far away. You have this much time. Okay. The storm is picking up. It's getting faster And we're just racing. And I had to nix everything that I was planning for the day and just go to the bare minimum.

It was almost like going back to Minari where I only had three setups per shot. You know, I had to think about it that way. so that stuff was happening. but at the same time, like the advantage of it was that, sometimes you'd show up and what nature was giving you is much more beautiful and better than what you could have gamed out and imagined on a piece of paper inside of a hotel room. Um, and when that happens, then suddenly you don't need this shot list. All you need is to point the camera at this beautiful thing and put the actors in there. And it does save a lot of time in that way,And I think that comes from the indie world as well. you kind of react to what's going on on location. And, uh, you know, it's, getting back out into the field rather than just being on a sound stage where you can control everything. It's nice to be [00:34:00] controlled a little bit by, by the uncontrollable. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's kind of what we're, uh, what we're dancing around with and it was fun.

It's invigorating actually.

Jenny Ely: Did any of your actors try to go method actor on you And force you to go out and shoot in a real storm?

Lee Isaac Chung: Well, nobody on the set was really that method, but they, everybody was definitely wanting to go out and chase. and I think Ashley had to deal with that with wrangling and making sure that our actors don't go out storm chasing.

Ashley J Sandberg: I'm like, we will set you up as soon as we're done with this film. Like if you guys independently want to go, we have amazing teams at NOAA take you out there. But you know, right now we are going to go back to safety and, uh, there may be one time that Isaac went chasing with Ben Snow,

Lee Isaac Chung: I

Jenny Ely: Oh gosh.

Lee Isaac Chung: a method, director.

Ashley J Sandberg: He was method directing and I just said, I don't know what you're, I am packing up stuff here. I don't know what you do on your own time, but you know, I couldn't, I was slightly jealous that I couldn't just hop in [00:35:00] and go, but, uh,

Todd Vaziri: Yeah. Is that before or after Ben Snow's cameo in the movie?

Ashley J Sandberg: it was before

Lee Isaac Chung: That was before, yeah. I don't know if Ben shared any of the footage or anything from that chase with you guys. That was, it was really fun.

Rob Bredow: we had so many hours of reference footage. That's one of the things that's such an amazing contrast between the original Twister and, Twisters today was the amount of footage of real tornadoes and the amount of variety that were used to inspire the, what is it? Five different main tornadoes that came through the movie. It was rich for our teams to draw from.

Lee Isaac Chung: yeah, absolutely.

Jenny Ely: Maybe we should explain who our Ben Snow is.

Lee Isaac Chung: Ben Snow is our fearless VFX supervisor on the movie. and how long, he's been with ILM for how many years? He's,

Rob Bredow: He's probably coming up to almost 30 years at ILM, And an amazing supervisor for sure.

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah,

Jenny Ely: And didhe, work on the first Twister movie?

Lee Isaac Chung: He did. Yep.

Rob Bredow: I think he was involved in some shaders and some of the [00:36:00] other technology. And I think he worked on some shots, maybe as a TD on that film. So to have the, that bookend is pretty pretty fun. And then he does have a cameo in the movie. If you see the guy who gets out of the van and says, she's a beauty.It's the, It's a great, it's a, it's fun. Our supervisors sometimes get cameos in movies, but rarely as, as impactful as that one.

Lee Isaac Chung: I told him, yeah, exactly. I told him I'm going to try to give him a John Wayne, you know, sort of moment where the camera comes up to him as he steps out, you know, with his hat and everything. and the wonderful thing about that day was that he just seemed like he was in his element. Like he was not nervous at all.

He wasn't, like other actors, they'll get insecure. You know, that that comes with the territory, but Ben just had it. He's like, okay, I'm going to do it. And, uh, I think he has a second career coming to him.

Rob Bredow: Nice. Well, Isaac, could you talk a little bit about the contrast and the [00:37:00] way you use the contrast to make the big scenes big and make the quiet scenes so quiet and feel compact? This movie does that really well, and I'm wondering if that's something you're planning out from the very beginning, or if that's, is that's an important part of your visual and part of your storytelling.

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah. I never thought about it that way, but it's an interesting way to look at it. Like, I remember even when I was doing the sound mix up at Skywalker, one of the things that I asked Al Nelson, Bjorn Schroeder and the team to do was, uh, Anytime we have sounds of the people, let's let those be a little bit quieter so that we can build up this idea that the people are small compared to what's going on in the skies.

So I think that is something that I was paying attention to, not on an intellectual level, but just something that I was feeling like we want to invest much more power into nature. And then with Humanity. Let's make them feel like they're a lot more vulnerable to that. so that, [00:38:00] was what was driving that stillness and all of our human scenes, the drama, things like that.

And then, with nature, absolutely. Let's,let those be huge crescendos and big shots and, uh, let's let the VFX be huge and, and go big movie on those. So, um, yeah, that was driving, that contrast, I feel

Rob Bredow: That's great. I worked with a production designer who in his past was an art director on Batman Begins and the way he described it he said, the mistake I made on Batman Begins is we made everything big. Everything built out to the edges of every soundstage.Everything was 110 percent bigger than it had ever been in a movie before. And they spent all this money on these sets and shot all these amazing scenes. And, at the end, it all felt just average size. Because there were no small scenes. It was quiet And it was really interesting.Like even after the, like the rodeo builds up and it's big celebration, and then you get the huge twister coming through and then they're packed into this tiny space on the side of a pool. And you get this quiet time where everyone's recovering. That kind of contrast worked really [00:39:00] well.

Lee Isaac Chung: oh, that's great. That's super. Yeah, I remember, um, speaking of the rodeo scene, our weather advisor, Kevin Kelleher, when I asked him, what was the strangest thing you've ever experienced while you're chasing tornadoes? He told me that, one day he was chasing a tornado and the tornado had not touched down.But, Suddenly the air became very still and these leaves started to fall from nowhere, um, and I felt like that speaks to that contrast really well, like you just see something a little bit surreal and strange happening in that stillness that speaks to this grand, thing that only, could create that kind of a weird moment, you know.

Todd Vaziri: In a movie like Twisters where, you know, nature and the science of tornadoes is a, you know, key theme of the movie, in fact, it's, it's literally the text, Like we want to try to figure out. We don't know everything about how tornadoes are formed. When any movie is about anything, there's the real world physics.

There's the rules of [00:40:00] nature, the rules of facts of how things move that sometimes clash with how movies are made and clash with the storytelling process and dramatization of it. where do you find theblance where, you know, we, we deal with this with. Science fiction movies all the time, in space, gravity, the sound effects in space, and we all, you know, find our spot for a particular effect or particular movie where we have to leave the real world science behind and move into storytelling, uh, movie making. how do you achieve that balance and, did you have that struggle on Twisters, you know, how to, balance those two

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah. Yeah. I felt that struggle quite a lot. And I still wonder, you know, it's an area of tension for me always to wonder, Did we get it right? Could we have done it better? that's always something that I think about But I tried to think about it in terms of the audience viewpoint.

What is it that the audience really needs? What is it that they'll want? felt like if we don't [00:41:00] let the tornadoes and the science of the tornadoes and VFX, what ILM was doing with, all of the physics of the simulations that they're running. If those things are not sound, then I knew that the audience would feel really let down by the film. We have to let this film feel like it could take place in the real world. but then at the same time, there are moments that it has to be a movie. You know, the funny thing is when I was working on The Mandalorian, with Jon Favreau and Dean Cundey was my cinematographer on that. We were looking at a clip from Goonies cause we had a, a cave scene and, we saw these lights in the cave and, we were trying to figure out how do we light this cave scene and inside Mandalore and, Somebody asked Dean Cundey, where are the lights coming from in this scene in the movie? And Dean just said, same place the music's coming from. and we, you know, I feel like that's just perfect. The perfect way to think about filmmaking is that we have to take those gambles and do the expressive thing to make sure we're telling a story that's dynamic and fun. and [00:42:00] that all comes down to. personal taste and creative choices and stuff like that. and hopefully the audience will, will also go along for the ride and love the fact that it is a movie and forgive us for some things as well.

Rob Bredow: Yeah, that's really fun. I mean, it seemed like you were very, specific about the camera work in this film, particularly keeping it very close to the characters almost all the time, it was very experiential, very first person, but then one shot in particular stands out where the camera goes on a journey and we actually see the whole. Formation of the twister as the cloud is forming above it and you get to see the whole thing from that very objective point of view. I'm interested in the kind of the thought process and why you saved that until that point. And some of the thinking behind those more first person and third person perspectives.

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah. I love that sequence. Cause I felt like it's a perspective that both, Daisy's character and Glenn's character are sharing in that moment where they're both seeing the tornado from outside of their own, viewpoint and they're looking at it more in a [00:43:00] scientific way. and it's a shared subjective view of that science as well.

So, that's where that sequence came from. They both had this shared voiceover and then we have Ben Walfish's score with that beautiful music that he swells up in that moment. so that was the decision in that moment to, really show that we're trying to appreciate what really happens in nature and to, do it with the medium of filmmaking to to make it fun and expressive

Rob Bredow: And so visual it really is a standout shot in, in that sequence. It really is, has so much expression.

Lee Isaac Chung: I was very excited by what Florian and the team at ILM was cooking up with that sequence in particular because they made it look really beautiful. and our weather scientists who have seen that sequence, they were definitely geeking out when they saw it because, you know, those are VFX shots, but they're done so beautifully. and, really uh, show the majesty of what we're talking about.

Ashley J Sandberg: Florian had a cameoin it, too,

Rob Bredow: Tell us about Florian's

Lee Isaac Chung: He jumps out of trolley,

Rob Bredow: Oh, nice. [00:44:00]

Ashley J Sandberg: yeah, before the trolley losescontrol, he's one of the passengers that jumps

Todd Vaziri: Next, next movie can get a line

Ashley J Sandberg: He has to work his way up to that.

Rob Bredow: The team loved learning so much about tornadoes to work on this film and to hear Florian, like lecture the teams about how these Tornadoes need to form and where we need the detail. And it was quite a process and a huge evolution. Of course, a lot of time has passed since the original film, but a huge evolution in the kind of techniques we can use to bring this to the screen is actually a lot closer to what would happen in real life today than the approximations we had to do in the past.

So it was really fun to get to take a crack at it.

Lee Isaac Chung: I'm hoping that Florian will pitch to other filmmakers that they should put a tornado in their movie. cause he's become so good at building tornadoes.

Rob Bredow: Definitely, Yeah.Someone's going to have some idea to mix something up, you know, that you got, you guys already did the fire. So they're going to have to come up with something other than the fire to add to the tornado during. Yes.

Lee Isaac Chung: Snow. We

Rob Bredow: [00:45:00] There you go.

Ashley J Sandberg: Yeah, we keep getting videos of snow. Yes.

Jenny Ely: Not sharks. sharks have been done.

Rob Bredow: That's right. And I didn't, I was looking for a cow. I didn't see a cow in this one.

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah. We had no no cows, but we had some shots of real cows. And then, I remember, ILM. Somebody put in a shot of a cow on a piece of debris, that. hits the movie theater at one point

Rob Bredow: Nice. A little homage

Lee Isaac Chung: that's our little, yeah,

Rob Bredow: Well, Jenny, should we wrap up this section with a final question, from an ILMer here.

Jenny Ely: Yeah. Let me look at my list. This question is from Cecil Wright, who is a production coordinator in our Vancouver studio. And Cecil wants to know, how did the development of the musical album for the movie intersect with your filmmaking process. For instance, it was very cool to hear Boone singing along to Dead EndRoad as he loads fireworks in the Twin Tornadoes scene.Was that an ADR choice or something that came about during post strike reshoots?

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah, that was ADR. So he was [00:46:00] perfectly, his back was to us and he was already dancing. I think when we shot that, the team, like

Brandon and Glenn, they chose a dance beat, you know, that they were dancing to. but for me, I always knew that it's going to be a little bit more country Western.

So I didn't know what the song would be yet, but we just had him sing to a couple of different options actually that came in that we were playing with in that sequence. So we have clips of Brandon singing to other songs as well.

Jenny Ely: I have a quick question. Ashley,you mentioned when we first started talking about when you were thinking about directors wanting someone who knew the people and the area. And I think that's so important my question is how did, how did the people in those communities, like real life people, have you had any feedback about how they're portrayed or what they're seeing?

Because I am from the South and when you see a movie where someone incorrectly portrays the community that you're from, it can be really frustrating and upsetting. And to me, watching Twisters, it seemed. Like the community was just portrayed so beautifully that [00:47:00] I'm just curious if you had any feedback from people in those, the Midwest or in those areas about what they thought

Ashley J Sandberg: You know, I'm happy to, like, report that I feel, and what we've been getting back, where people felt a lot of pride about the film, that it took place in Oklahoma, that we shot Oklahoma for Oklahoma. and I think they had the highest like box office for, I think the IMAX and more Oklahoma, I think had the highest number of, like all the theaters that were screening IMAX and sold out in 4DX when it re released again, before anywhere else.

So I made, I take that as like people were excited and really proud of the way that their state was shown, even with these big, you know, disasters happening. I think what we really showcased is where communities came together and came together. Um, and that was a really big theme for us. I'm happy and I hope that people listening, and if you're from there felt that way, cause it was really important to us to portray in a way that they would be happy

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah. I appreciate that, Jenny. I feel like as a fellow Southerner, um, when we're portrayed, normallyit's not a [00:48:00] good portrayal. So the bar is a little low as well. Yeah. Yeah. Where are you from by the way?

Jenny Ely: I'm fromTennessee.

Lee Isaac Chung: Oh, cool.I got my Arkansas sweatshirt on right here. I realized.

Jenny Ely: Nice. Yeah, there's always discussion about. what actually counts as the South. There's like the deep South. and, then when people in Virginia claim to be from the South, you're kind of like well, what part of Virginia?

Rob Bredow: Okay. Now it's time for our martini. It's named after the last shot of the day on the set and can be anything we think is cool. So, Jenny, do you want to get us started

Jenny Ely: Yes, so my martini this week is my new favorite Instagram account I'm a little selective with what I follow on Instagram because I only want things that are positive and Bring me joy and it's usually art movies nerdy things So I found this new Instagram account and it's called Norse Paints I don't know if any of you are familiar with it.

He has a lot of followers, but it's just this guy who paints miniatures. He popped up in my feed because he's hilarious. he'll take like the beginning of a Tik-Tok clip and then he'll. Fill it in with his own bit of [00:49:00] humor, but all while he's painting and his little studio.

But it says using miniatures as an escapism tool from life's anxiety and toils. And then at the bottom it says I look for a community, which I just love because I love it when people find their thing and find their people. And I think he has, I mean, he has thousands of followers on Instagram now, and he just seems so delightful and funny.

And he's, he's the type of guy that you want in your Hero Quest game or like your, your D\&D campaign. So I recommend following him. He'll just bring you joy every single day. And every single one of his posts is strong. It's not like, Oh, there's a couple that are funny. And he went viral. It's every single one.

So I'll link it in the show notes, but I highly recommend giving him a follow.

Rob Bredow: Thanks, Jenny. So I brought The Greatest Night in Pop or I enjoyed watching that. I don't know if you've seen it. It's the story of a January night in 1985, where the world's greatest stars gathered to record We Are the World.

It's a documentary of the making of the, we are the world. And it is really delightful. It's on Netflix. [00:50:00] Um, a very fun watch and The chances of that all happening, where you got that many stars together to record that on the one night are very, very low. and then there was a lot of drama in trying to pull it out. Cause they started it after the award show that night. So they started around midnight and they really wanted to wrap before sunrise. And it was not that easy to get it done in one night. so it's a pretty, pretty fun, documentary. If you're interested in a fun watch on Netflix.

Jenny Ely: I think we should all sing it together. Cause we're all singing in our heads now.

Rob Bredow: That's right.

Lee Isaac Chung: Yeah, that's right.

Rob Bredow: Ashley, did. you bring a martini for us today?

Ashley J Sandberg: I did. My daughter has been loving spending time at the beach. We live in mid-city in the middle of Los Angeles, but it's on the weekend. Thankfully it's a quick drive down to the ocean and back in the day, my younger life before I did teach surf lessons in the summer at a summer camp as I've gotten older, it is very hard to get yourself up on a board.

So what we found, uh, was, uh, they're called beater boards and they're at catch surf and they're a little [00:51:00] oversized boogie boards that are like. Kind of look like a surfboard, but very easy for people of a certain age to catch some waves and go out there with their kids. And so that's been, uh, fun getting back out in the ocean and doing a little bit with her and her thinking I'm somewhat cool in her mind.

So that's my little fun gadget is the beater board, boogie board by Catch Surf.

Rob Bredow: Oh, very fun. We'll link to that in the show notes. Ashley. Isaac.

Lee Isaac Chung: I don't know if I can mention another podcast. Am I allowed to do that? Or is it okay? Okay. but I've been watching, uh, listening to a lot of Neil deGrasse Tyson's podcast, Star Talk, and it's just been a constant thing that I have on and that my family has been listening to as well. so I, I would say that one they're endlessly. both hilarious and knowledgeable and I feel like I'm starting to understand quantum physics a little.

Rob Bredow: Amazing.

Lee Isaac Chung: bit more.

Rob Bredow: That's the smartest martini of the day

Ashley J Sandberg: I was going to say

Lee Isaac Chung: no, no the point is you don't have [00:52:00] to be smart to listen to it. Like it'll, it'll help you understand this.

Jenny Ely: you're gathering knowledge for your space tornado movies now.

Rob Bredow: you go.

Lee Isaac Chung: That's Yeah. There you go. Quantum tornadoes.

Rob Bredow: And Todd, we're going to throw you for your martini.

Todd Vaziri: My martini.is little bit of a tech gadget and a little bit of a home improvement item. I recently had the opportunity to replace some deadbolts in My house, and as a little bit of a tech gadget nerd, I thought, let's research, Some smart deadbolts and get as smart as we can, uh, while still being somewhat old fashioned.

And the one I settled on was the Schlage Encode Plus, which I think has all of the best features of any modern smart lock, which is, uh, an app that's super easy to use. the setup was super easy. Even I could do it. Um, the notifications that you can get, if you want to get a notification every single time that [00:53:00] deadbolt is open and closed, you can get that, but you can also tone that down. The biggest gadget part for me was that it is supported by Apple Home Key. So, if you have an iPhone or an Apple Watch, all you have to do is put your phone or watch up to it. You don't have to press any buttons or anything, and it will unlock, which I think is really great. And then the old fashioned part of it is that it actually has a physical key.

And lock that you can use if you wanted to it's been really great and there are a lot on the market right now and this one has been super reliable for me so far and it's been a lot of fun to kind of play with it too.

Rob Bredow: Nice. But does it do quantum physics?

Todd Vaziri: Depending on how long of a passcode you put in, it probably does

Lee Isaac Chung: wormholes right there.

Jenny Ely: Will it survive a tornado?

Rob Bredow: Well, thanks for listening to the Lighter Darker podcast. If you have a question for the show or you'd like to suggest a future topic, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at lighterdarker@ilm.Com or you can [00:54:00] contact us on social media. The details are going to be in the show notes below. Thanks for all the reviews and the positive feedback so far.

Our first few episodes have gone extremely well. We're thankful. So many people are finding the show. We'd love to hear from you in the review section of the various podcast places. So leave us a review or tell your friends we'd love for more people to find it. Show notes and transcripts can be found on ilm.com/LighterDarker. We thank Industrial Light and Magic for hosting the LighterDarker podcast. This show is produced by Jenny Ely and myself, Rob Bredow. Today's episode has been edited by David Dovell with assistance from Chris Hawkinson.

Thank you both. We also want to thank Ian Kintzle. who helped book today's guests and ILM's entire PR team led by Greg Grusby, who always worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help make this whole show happen. Thank you for listening to the Lighter Darker podcast. And until next time, may your pixels be both lighter and darker.