8111

John Bell Apr 19, 2024

In this episode of 8111, we talk with John Bell, a New Jersey native who developed a passion for drawing and cars in his youth. To earn money as a kid, he and his brother sold his car drawings at dragster races. This passion led John to the Art Center's Transportation Design program. After graduating, he joined GM's Advanced Concept Studio in Detroit.
John's career expanded further when he moved to California to work as a conceptual artist at Atari Games. By the late 1980s, he began a twenty-year intermittent tenure at Industrial Light & Magic, where he collaborated on films like "Star Trek IV," "Innerspace," and "Back to the Future II & III," earning an Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA. In 1991, he became the Art Director for "Jurassic Park."
Post-Jurassic Park, John explored new avenues at Nike as a Senior Designer, diversifying into footwear, clothing, graphics, and branding. He later returned to Northern California to create concept art for films such as "Men in Black," "Mission Impossible," and "A.I. Artificial Intelligence." His work extended into production design for Dreamworks’ "ANTZ."
John then ventured into video game design at Electronic Arts, contributing to titles like "Freekstyle" and "Dead Space," and freelanced on animated films including "Cars" and "The Penguins of Madagascar."
He later returned to ILM, working on Oscar-winning films "Rango", "Pirates IV" and "The Revenant." John has also collaborated with multiple clients including Nike, BMW, and Samsung. His broad portfolio spans film, gaming, automotive design, product design and advertising, showcasing his remarkable artistic talent. John is awesome and it was a real pleasure catching up with him and hearing his inspiring story.
https://www.johnbell.studio/

Stephen Rosenbaum Mar 20, 2024

On the latest 8111 I catch up with Stephen Rosenbaum!!! Stephen grew up in Los Angeles and always loved building things. As the youngest of three he thought he'd likely follow in his father's footsteps and become a doctor. But in 1977 he saw Star Wars and the seed was planted. While attending Berkeley he enrolled in the College of Environmental Design and began working in the nascent field of computer graphics.
Stephen decided to stay in Northern California after college and landed a dream job as the first TA (Technical Assistant) at Industrial Light and Magic in 1989. Under the guidance of Doug Kay and George Joblove he honed his skills, developing software tools and scripts for managing files. The team was small and the opportunities were omnipresent.
In those early days Stephen shared an office with John Knoll and they worked together to present some of the first digital composites. With the successes of The Abyss, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park (among others) Stephen became the Computer Graphics Supervisor on Forrest Gump. In 1995 he won the VFX Oscar alongside Ken Ralston and George Murphy.
When Ken Ralston left ILM for Sony Imageworks, Stephen joined his mentor and began working as a Visual Effects Supervisor on Contact. Stephen list of credits is impressive; Indian in the Cupboard, I Robot, The Waterhorse, Avatar, and he's been nominated for the VFX Oscar three times.
Most recently Stephen served as the Visual Effects Supervisor on the impressive Apple TV+ series Masters of the Air. It was great fun to catch up with Stephen and to hear about his amazing journey. I cannot wait to see what he works on next.

Judith Weaver Aug 27, 2023

On the latest 8111 I catch up with Judith Weaver!!! Judith grew up as a self-described “Airforce brat” moving around with her parents from post to post. She spent several formative years in, Colorado, the Philippines, some time on the East coast, and settled for a time in Ohio. Judith was the oldest kid with two younger brothers. In middle school she discovered a love for drama and acting in the theatre. After high school Judith was determined to live in a bigger city and headed off to American University in Washington DC where she earned a degree in political science.
After college she moved to Philadelphia and shared an apartment with an old pal. She eventually landed a job as the receptionist at a video house called Video Smith. She quickly learned the business and became an indispensable part of the team. She worked as part of the video crew backstage providing footage for CBS at LiveAid in Philadelphia.
After working for a few years at Video Smith she set her sights on getting a job at ILM. It was the height of the video era and the beginning days of HD. She moved to NYC and got a job doing industrial videos. Then an opportunity arose to work as a production manager at 1125 doing HD work for “out of town client” ILM. She worked closely with Scott Squires and Bruce Nicholson for weeks on end while they were working on an early HD project for Dentsu. A short time after that gig ended, Judith left 1125, packed her bags and moved to California to get a job at ILM.
Within a few months she was brought in to work as the animation coordinator on the Back to the Future sequels in 1989. Judith wound up at ILM for the next sixteen years working her way up to a top producer for the company. Her credits include: Back to the Future Part 2, Ghost, Joe vs The Volcano, Terminator 2, Hook, Death Becomes Her, Jurassic Park, The Flintstones, Dragonheart, Star Wars Episodes 1&2, The Perfect Storm, Space Cowboys, & War of the Worlds (to name only a few).
Judith left the business just as her kids were entering middle school to be a full-time parent. She says it was both the hardest and the easiest decision to make. Judith is a force of nature. Her enthusiasm, positivity, energy, and boundless curiosity serve as the engine that propelled her career to the apex of visual effects just as the industry was transitioning to the modern era. Judith is the best and it was an absolute blast to talk with her and hear her story.

Don Bies Jun 24, 2023

This week on 8111, Don Bies! Don grew up in Chicago and discovered a love for movies at an early age when he first saw Frankenstein. He became fascinated with movie monsters, monster make up, special effects, and filmmaking. He loved pouring over the latest issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland.
After high school, Don considered college but eventually decided against it and worked in the local community theater doing set design, prop design, directing and even some acting.
A family connection led to a friendship with another Chicagoan, Keith Edmier, who was making his own monster makeup and film likeness make-ups. They both corresponded with Dick Smith (the Godfather of modern makeup effects) and drew inspiration and encouragement from him to pursue working in film.
Don soon moved out to California where he landed his first job working on David Cronenberg's remake of "The Fly" with Keith Edmier for Chris Walas. While there he became good friends with Jon Berg, John Gazdik, Michael Owens, and Howie Weed. Through Jon Berg he met several people at ILM. In 1987 Don was hired to operate R2D2 for Lucasfilm publicity events. Don later headed up the Lucasfilm archives for seven years working alongside Nelson Hall and Grant Imahara.
When George began making the prequels, Don went to work on set for all three films and even did a stint in the ILM model shop. Today Don works for KGS making highly realistic trauma training manakins for military and first responders. Don Bies is incredibly creative and a truly autodidactic problem solver. He's had an amazing career and it was an absolute blast to talk with him.

Alia Agha Apr 25, 2023

This week on 8111, Alia Agha!!!
Alia was born in Damascus, Syria. Just before the age of 2, her family fled Syria and moved to Lebanon. After a time there, they boarded a ship and travelled to Brazil where they lived with Alia's mother's family. A few years later they emigrated to the United States and moved to Anaheim, California.
Growing up Alia loved art and spent hours making models, drawing, sculpting, and watching movies. She attended an all girls school and continued making art and going to the cinema. Her and her friends loved silent films and even dressed up like their favorite movie stars.
After high school she went off to San Francisco State University where she studied studied Cinema. The expense of filmmaking was a challenge so she transferred to UC Berkeley and earned her undergraduate degree in writing with an interest in writing for film.
A chance meeting at a party led Alia to an opportunity to become the receptionist at Industrial Light & Magic. After a year at the front desk she moved to work as a production assistant on Back to the Future 3. After a few years she left and went to work at Skellington as a production coordinator on Nightmare Before Christmas. She returned to ILM after that project wrapped and worked on Star Trek: Generations and Wolf.
Alia later went to work as a rotoscoper on Congo, Twister and 101 Dalmatians before transitioning to work as a 3D camera matchmover on Mission: Impossible. She worked on numerous projects and then had the opportunity to go work on set for Galaxy Quest. She's worked as a matchmover for 29 years.
Today Alia lives in Portland and working on a project for Laika. Alia's family life story is incredible. She's a great storyteller and it was fantastic to have the opportunity to catch up with her.

Michaela Calanchini Feb 28, 2023

This week on 8111, Michaela Calanchini Carter! Michaela was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Bay Area. She is the second youngest member of a huge family with seven brothers and sisters. Incredibly shy growing up, she found community playing soccer and a creative outlet in photography, which had been a hobby of her father’s.
She attended UC Santa Cruz where she studied fine art photography. She took a semester leave, travelling with a friend to Africa. It was a journey that wound up having a profound impact on her personal beliefs and world view. After a really cool senior show, Michaela graduated and travelled to Thailand.
Back home in the Bay Area she landed a job working for CP Shades in Sausalito. The company was expanding nationally and she traveled around the United States opening new locations and training employees. But her heart just wasn’t in the retail trade.
In 1996 Michaela jumped at the opportunity to work as a production assistant at ILM on 101 Dalmatians. She would go on to serve as a PA on Flubber and The Phantom Menace as part of the Knoll team. But after working on The Perfect Storm (ironically) she decided to move out of production and into a more creative discipline. With the kind and generous support of Jack Mongovan and Susan Kelly she transitioned to roto/paint. Michaela worked at ILM for fifteen years before leaving on disability after a long struggle with RSI.
Michaela and I discuss family, being a parent, work life balance, the importance of good friends, and the difficult pain of loss. Michaela is a fun, brilliant, and empathic person. It was fantastic to reconnect and hear about her journey through ILM to today.

Bruce Buckley Feb 13, 2023

This week on 8111, Bruce Buckley. Bruce grew up in Toronto. As a kid, he loved going to the drive-in movies with his family. Art was a clear area of interest in childhood as he enjoyed drawing and making things out of plasticine.
Bruce attended Sheridan for college where he studied art fundamentals. His primary focus was photography, shooting both 35mm and 4x5. Commercial photography was exciting and he wound up doing lots of studio work and architectural photography.
After earning his degree, Bruce took a job with the Canadian government woking with microfilm. There he discovered computers and became curious about the possibilities of using them to make art. After nine years there Bruce returned to school to study technical illustration.
In 1987 he went to NAB where he met fellow Canadian Steve Williams who was at the conference presenting with Alias. This meeting eventually led to a job opportunity working for Alias support doing training for clients and traveling the world to places like Columbia, Korea, and Europe.
A phone call from John Berton in 1993 brought Bruce to ILM. At ILM he went to work right away on films including; Casper, Dragonheart, and Congo helping to develop systems and tools to make the artist’s work move seamless. In 1995 Bruce was headhunted away by Disney to come work on Dinosaur. Bruce’s credits include; Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Incredibles, Monster House, Beowulf, Scott Pilgrim, Tree of Life, John Carter, Prometheus, Fate of the Furious, Kong: Skull Island, and Deadpool 2, to name just a few.
Today Bruce teaches at the NY Film Academy. It was great to get to chat with Bruce about his amazing career in the industry and hear his insights.

Juan-Luis Sanchez Jan 04, 2023

On the latest episode of 8111, Juan Luis Sanchez!! Juan-Luis worked at Industrial Light & Magic from 2001 to 2006.
Just a few of his film credits include: Wonder Park, Paddington, Gravity (VES Award for Outstanding FX and Simulation), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Babe: Pig in the City.
Juan-Luis was great fun to chat with. He currently lives in Spain and continues to create amazing visuals for movies and television. Download or stream episode 69 to hear all about his professional journey!

Nelson Hall Nov 06, 2022

This week on 8111, Nelson Hall. Nelson is that rare breed…a Marin native. Oh, and his birthday is on Halloween! Growing up he loved watching old movies on TV. He was captivated by the films of Ray Harryhausen and the Wizard of Oz. He always liked drawing and making things including several Rube Goldberg contraptions in his family’s living room.
He attended Sonoma State for a time and studied art. Still searching for a way to get into a creative job, he landed a job at the Printing Factory on Kerner Blvd. just two blocks from ILM. He transferred to San Francisco State (Go Gaters!) and continued his degree in art taking classes at night while working full-time.
Nelson’s speech 101 teacher, Diana Reese, gave him his first break. He’d given a speech on the art of visual effects and his teacher offered to introduce him to her friend, ILM model maker Marc Thorpe. That introduction led to some freelance work that eventually turned into a full-time opportunity.
Nelson has worked on numerous films including; Alive, Fire in the Sky, The Flintstones, Star Trek: Generations, Congo, Daylight, Flubber, Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace, Galaxy Quest, AI, Matrix 2 & 3, Attack of the Clones, War of the Worlds, Pirates of the Caribbean, Evan Almighty, The Cove, Pacific Rim, Elysium, and many others.
Nelson shares a great story of his journey from Marin kid to traveling the world working on films, special events, projects for Disney, and operating R2D2. It was a blast to catch up with Nelson and hear his incredible story.

Pat Sweeney Oct 20, 2022

Pat Sweeney, or is it Mike Sweeney? There's really no way to be sure. Pat grew up in Manhattan Beach, California. He is an identical twin. Pat went with his brothers and sisters to the local catholic school and loved watching old movies on tv growing up. He saw all the Harryhausen films, King Kong, and was a fan of the original Star Trek.
For college Pat knew he wanted to study film. He enrolled with his brother Mike at Loyola Marymount University in their film and tv program. While in school he got a chance to try various roles and even made a few short films.
After college Pat was working at a car rental place to make ends meet when his brother Mike got a job as a production assistant at a fledgling visual effects company in Van Nuys that was working on a little movie called Star Wars. Shortly after that Pat was hired by Rose Duignan to work as a night watchman.
After the Star Wars team moved up to Marin for Empire, Pat came to work as a camera assistant at Apogee on Star Trek: The Motion Picture. From there he went to work for Roger Corman on Battle Beyond the Stars where he worked with a young James Cameron. He worked for several years in Los Angeles and when a call came to come work on ET at ILM in San Rafael he took the leap.
Pat worked at ILM for 25 years shooting elements for major effects sequences in Return of the Jedi, Temple of Doom, The Hunt for Red October, the Pirates films, the Transformers, and so many more. During my time at ILM Pat would often be in the motion control stage in D-building solving problems and shooting elements. He has a great sense of humor and it was always great fun to work with him.
It was so much fun to catch up with him and hear about his incredible career.

Maggie Oh Aug 25, 2022

On this episode of 8111, Maggie Oh. Maggie was an only child and grew up in Chicago. She was always interested in animation from an early age, thanks in part to Batman: The Animated Series. She attended MIT and studied computer science and electrical engineering as an undergrad. But she also took illustration, drawing and painting courses at MassArt.

Maggie went to SIGGRAPH for the first time though a co-op project for the MIT Media Lab. After school she worked as an interactive programmer at a web company in Boston. She then decided to enroll at art school to earn an MFA. But she landed a Summer internship at Pixar and decided to drop out of art school to continue to work in industry and study independently online and though professional work.

In October 2003 Maggie landed a job at ILM. She started in render support working in the trailer and had an interesting run in with a family of raccoons working the graveyard shift. She later worked as a technical director on films including; Star Wars: Episode III, Evan Almighty, Chicken Little 3D, Lions for Lambs, Lemony Snicket, Pirates of the Caribbean, and many others. She also worked developing the HDR pipeline.

In 2008 Maggie left to work at the California Academy of Sciences to work on their first planetarium show. She then moved over to doing freelancing for various visual effects companies including Polygon, Cafe FX, Spy Post, and then Image Movers Digital.

Then Maggie went to 343 Industries to work on Halo 4 & 5 followed by time at Microsoft helping develop the HoloLens. From there she spent a year at NVIDIA and then returned to ILM for a few years working with the ILMxLAB. Today Maggie is working at Google alongside Dan Goldman on Project Starline.

Maggie is brilliant. Her career journey is a who’s who of high-end technology. Her love of working in the space where art meets engineering has guided her choices. It was great fun to chat and hear about her story.

Matt Wallin Jul 26, 2022

This week on 8111 the tables are turned and my hero/mentor Kim Bromley interviews me about my career and background. I grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs in the 70’s and 80’s skateboarding and going to the movies. In 1992 I earned my degree in Cinema from San Francisco State University.
That same year, I began my career at George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic where I worked for nearly a decade in the company’s computer graphics division. For over 25 years I have worked around the world at the top visual effects houses; Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital in New Zealand, Tippett Studio in Berkeley, Sony Pictures Imageworks in Los Angeles, Warner Bros. ESC Entertainment in California, Brainstorm Digital in New York, and the Moving Picture Company in Vancouver. My film credits include; The Mummy, Twister, Star Wars: The Special Editions, Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions, Hellboy, Constantine, King Kong, Watchmen, and Jurassic Park: The Lost World.
Outside of Hollywood, I served as the Visual Effects Supervisor for American artist Matthew Barney's five-part Cremaster Cycle and the follow up experimental film, Drawing Restraint 9 staring Icelandic pop star Bjork.
I am the host of the 8111 (Eighty-one Eleven) podcast. Each episode is a conversation with a guest who worked at George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic during its 40+ year history. Guests discuss their journeys and career paths, and how working at ILM changed them. I'm also the co-host of FX Guide's VFX Show podcast listened to by visual effects professionals, fans, and aspiring artists from all over the world.
Today I am the senior full-time faculty and Chair in the department of Communication Arts in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. I teach numerous courses specializing in 3D computer graphics, visual effects, and the creative application of emerging digital technologies. http://mattwallin.com/

Amy Young Jul 08, 2022

This week on 8111, Amy Young!! Amy grew up in Manhattan where her dad was a stage manager on Broadway. She spent a lot of time behind the scenes watching her father work and when he was busy, she was able to go see plays and musicals for free. At sixteen her dad landed a job as the manager of the Curran theatre in San Francisco. Amy’s mom was an emergency room nurse.
They moved out to Marin and Amy finished high school at Redwood High in Larkspur. After high school she enrolled at College of Marin in the drama department. There she studied lighting, stagecraft, and theatre stage management. After college Amy was in a bad accident that derailed her goals of heading out of town and she wound up studying further at ACT and working locally through IATSE Local 16.
She worked jobs all over town and eventually landed a long term gig on the electric crew at the San Francisco Opera. One day she got a call to head up to grip at ILM when they were working on Always. Brad Jerrell kept Amy gainfully employed for several years at ILM where she worked on many shows including; The Rocketeer (doing pyro), T2, multiple Star Treks, and costumes with Annie Polland on the Star Wars Special Editions.
Amy returned to College of Marin where she enrolled in a fire science program and wound up lecturing around the area on fire safety. She worked with the Marin Shakespeare Company, ran the local space museum and solving problems at every turn. Today Amy is mostly retired and does volunteer work at schools, the local science museum, and in her community. It was incredible to talk to Amy and hear her story.

John Berton Jun 06, 2022

This week on 8111, John Berton!! John was born in the midwest. His dad was a mathematics professor and his mother was a musician. John loved movies as a kid and, through his dad, had early access to computers. He learned Fortran in high school and was fascinated by the logic of programming.

John attended Denison University and studied communications and even had his own radio program. For grad school he attended Ohio State and studied computer graphics with American artist and computer art pioneer Charles Csuri. His interest in film, music, physics, and programming led him down the path that would eventually lead to working in visual effects.

After grad school John went to work with Charles Csuri at his new company, Cranston/Csuri in Ohio. They made some of the first early flying logos for HBO, CBS, Cinemax, and many others. John later went to work at Mental Images in Berlin. From there he made the connection to ILM where he came to work in 1989 on Terminator 2. John’s ILM credits include; T2, Men in Black, Star Trek VI, Hook, Death Becomes Her, Jurassic Park, The Mask, Casper, Star Wars: A New Hope Special Edition, Deep Rising, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and Men in Black 2.

Since ILM, he has continued to work on films and television creating visual effects in projects including; I, Robot, Charlotte’s Web, Bedtime Stories, Krrish3, Godzilla, 13 Reasons Why, and Deep Water. John taught for a while at Drexel in Philadelphia and left when he had a chance to come work at Lytro developing light-field rendering. Today John is back working in visual effects on a project for Netflix.

John was my Visual Effects Supervisor on Deep Rising and The Mummy. Working on John’s teams are some of my favorite memories from my time at ILM. He is absolutely brilliant, and approaches his work with equal parts technological prowess and thoughtful artistry. It was awesome to reconnect with him and hear his amazing story.

Scott Leberecht May 30, 2022

This week on 8111, Scott Leberecht! Scott grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio the middle of three bothers. His dad was an optician and his mom was an elementary school teacher. Drawing was always something that he was interested in, and good at.
He studied industrial design at University of Cincinnati with a goal of may be making toys for Kenner where he'd worked part-time as part of a co-op program. In school he met fellow ILM alum George Hull. And he discovered that ILM model maker Charlie Bailey had also attended his school years earlier. School set the path toward ILM.
At 24 Scott became an intern in ILM art department. The internship turned into a job where he would work for the next six years. Scott's credits include films like Flubber, 101 Dalmatians, Spawn, an un-produced Hulk movie, and Sleepy Hollow. With friends at ILM Scott made a few short films including the infamous "Spirit of Spawn" which you can see on YouTube.
Scott left ILM and moved to LA where he went to grad school at AFI. He kept working on film projects as an art director to make money. After AFI he made his first feature film, Midnight Son. He was working at Rhythm & Hues when the studio went bankrupt at the same time it won the Oscar for Life of Pi. Scott made the film "Life After Pi" that explored the effects of the commodification of visual effects and how it destroyed many people's livelihoods.
Scott wanted to make another film and wound up crafting the film "Spaz" which follows the career ups and downs of ILM's Steve Williams. The film premiered at SXSW 2022 and is in the process of being sold.
Today Scott works at Valve in Seattle. It was a total blast chatting with Scott and hearing about his journey and his new film. There's no doubt another film in the near future.

Dawn Martin Mirkin May 09, 2022

This week on 8111, the "not shy" Dawn Martin Mirkin! Dawn grew up in Florida and left for California the second she could after high school. In San Francisco she quickly found a place to live and started working as a hostess at Perry's restaurant on Union Street. She quickly became invaluable instinctively sorting through complicated scenarios with well known guests.
A TV production class at the College of Marin connected all the dots and Dawn knew she wanted to work in the field. She got an internship at GGP where she worked on a program called "A Road to the Oscars". This led to an opportunity to work on multiple Olympics at numerous locations around the world.
Dawn came to work at ILM in 1994. She worked as both a tech and eventually a supervisor running satellite dailies with clients, editorial work, digital video support, and unending complex problem solving.
Dawn has worked in numerous capacities at other facilities including, iBEAM Streaming, Link TV, MediaScape, Idea Asylum/ABC, Sony Picture, Disney's Image Movers Digital, and the Cameron Pace Group as Media Supe on Cirque Du Soleil 3D.
Today, Dawn and her husband Craig live in Marin. It was a blast catching up with Dawn and hearing her story. Her self confidence and "can do" attitude make it clear that there's little she couldn't take on and figure out.

Ellen Pasternack Apr 04, 2022

This week on 8111, Ellen Pasternack! Ellen grew up in Long Island. As a kid she was an avid reader. She was the youngest person in her town to get a library card. As a young adult she earned a degree in anthropology from SUNY Buffalo in three years time and thought seriously about going to law school. But in 1975, a good friend was traveling to California and Ellen decided join the adventure. In sunny Los Angeles, Ellen quickly landed a job working as a temp secretary at Burbank Studios (now Warner Bros.). She’s worked in the movie business ever since.
Ellen went to work in the publicity department reading all the scripts of the films coming out at Columbia. She worked as the assistant to the head of marketing. When Ellen's boss, Elizabeth Landon, made the move from Columbia to Fox, Ellen came along and was promoted to Jr. Publicist. While at Fox she met Sid Ganis who was the publicist for Lucasfilm (which would come in handy a few years down the road).

Ellen later moved over to Tri-Star Pictures as a Publicity Manager. But within a year she left Tri-Star to work as a Unit Publicist working directly on productions. She worked on several big projects including; Rainman, Born on the Fourth of July (where she even appears as an extra!), The Doors, Class Action, Joy Luck Club, Mrs. Doubtfire, and several others. She also moved up to the Bay Area during this time.

In 1994, new tax incentives started to drive production out of the state. Wanting to stay in the Bay Area, Ellen landed the job at Lucas Digital as the in house head publicist. She worked closely at LDL with Miles Perkins and Nagisa Yamamoto. Ellen would work out of ILM for the next 12 years leaving just before the move to the Presidio. Working freelance she did work for the Visual Effects Society, Pixar’s Renderman, The Orphanage, Tippett Studios, Rainmaker, and Method Studios.
Today, Ellen continues to live in Berkeley. For the past several years she’s worked on the awards campaigns for multiple studios and streamers. It was fascinating to hear about Hollywood publicity and the often complex, important work she does for the industry. Ellen is brilliant, thoughtful, kind, and great fun to chat with.

Euan Macdonald Mar 28, 2022

This week on 8111, Euan Macdonald! Euan grew up near Edinburgh, Scotland the middle brother of three. His father was an architect and also loved cartooning. His mother taught yoga and wrangled the three boys. They had a ZX Spectrum computer in the house growing up and Euan played games and did some rudimentary programming. He worked to help his dad on projects mapping structured space and experimented with making videos from image sequences generated on the computer.
In school he was excited to pursue animation and computer graphics. After school Euan went to work in London at a company called Digital Pictures. He also got am opportunity to attend SIGGRAPH 1990 in Dallas as a student volunteer. He continued building his skills and his reel which landed him a full-time job at Industrial Light and Magic as a Technical Director.
At ILM Euan worked on numerous films including; In the Mouth of Madness, The Mask, Disclosure, The Lost World, Dragonheart, Episode 1, Harry Potter 3, and several others. Euan's skillset quickly landed him in the role of CG Supervisor. He had a fun experience on Dragonheart where he met fellow Scotsman, Sean Connery. When the film premiered in the UK Euan got to hang out with Connery and introduce his parents to the original 007.
After more than a decade at ILM it was time for a change of pace and Euan headed to Vancouver to work at Electronic Arts. The transition to games was exciting and challenging. He continued to build new skills and expanding his roles with each move. Sometime later he returned to Marin to help set up the new studio at Image Movers Digital and worked for a time at The Orphanage.
Today Euan works for himself on multiple exciting start ups. His ventures have included developing creative toys, mobile AR applications, games, VR, NFTs, and original content. Euan's drive, enthusiasm, and creativity have kept him always busy with new ideas, new projects, and new opportunities. It was so much fun chatting with Euan about this life and career.

Dan Goldman Mar 21, 2022

This week on 8111, Dan Goldman. Dan grew up in Colorado where his mom worked as a teacher and his dad, a physicist. He enjoyed drama as a young person and acted in plays in both jr. high and high school. When it came time to head off to college he chose Brown for a degree in Theatre.

Fate intervened his freshman year when he was assigned an academic advisor who was a well known computer science professor from the School of Engineering. By the time his sophomore year rolled around, Dan had transferred to the computer science program at Stanford and decided to pursue drama on the side.

In 1992, his sophomore year at Stanford, he landed an internship working in the Computer Graphics division at Industrial Light and Magic. That internship later turned into a full-time job where Dan worked for the next 12 years, eventually as a CG Supervisor. Dan’s credits include; Meteor Man, The Flintstones, Mission Impossible, Men in Black, The Phantom Menace, Galaxy Quest, & Attack of the Clones, among others.

Dan then decided to return to grad school for his PhD in computer science and enrolled at University of Washington. He worked part-time at ILM while also working on his dissertation. When school ended he went to work at Adobe Research for the next decade where he helped develop numerous projects including what would become “content-aware fill” in Photoshop.

Today Dan works at Google on the team developing the exciting Project Starline. It was a blast to reconnect with Dan and hear his story. Talking with Dan you can’t help but admire his boundless curiosity & enthusiasm for tackling complex problems. His drive and positive outlook are infectious.

Fon Davis Mar 14, 2022

8111 is back from hiatus this week with Fon Davis! Fon was born in Vietnam. His dad was in the Air Force and in 1975 his family moved to California. As a kid he was always interested in working with his hands and making things. He loved science fiction films and making models.
One of his first jobs was at (Colossal) Pictures where he worked with Henry Selick. When Selick left to make Nightmare Before Christmas Fon joined the team at Skellington and stayed on through James and the Giant Peach. While working there he met several people from the ILM model shop including Steve Gawley.
Shortly after Skellington he landed his dream job in the ILM model shop where he would work for the next decade. His credits include; Starship Troopers, Galaxy Quest, Pearl Harbor, Star Wars, Terminator, Mission Impossible, Jurassic Park, Interstellar, and Guardians of the Galaxy (to name only a few).
Today Fon lives in Southern California and works with his team at Fonco Studios. It was a blast to chat with Fon and hear his story. He is, no doubt one of the nicest guys in the business.

8112 Dec 23, 2021

This week, just a brief announcement about going on hiatus. I'm undergoing treatment for leukemia and its taken me outta the normal daily world for a while. I plan to be back sometime in early Spring. I've got lots of great interviews lined up for the future. Thanks for all your support and please stay tuned.

David Dozoretz Dec 14, 2021

This week on 8111 David Dozoretz. David grew up in Arizona. He is the creator of ZAFARI, a children's animated TV show on NBCUniversal/Dreamworks TV and the first TV show rendered exclusively in Epic's Unreal game engine.
An ILM and Lucasfilm alum, David also founded Persistence of Vision, a leading feature film pre-visualization company that produced work on films such as Star Wars, JJ Abrams' Star Trek and Mission: Impossible series, X-Men and more..
David and I were interns at ILM at the same time. His career has been nothing short of amazing and it was great fun to catch up with him.

Josh Pines Dec 06, 2021

This week on 8111, Josh Pines!! Josh grew up in Long Island, NY. His father was a celestial mechanic (aerospace engineer) and his mother worked as a probability and statistics professor at Hofstra. He was the youngest of three with two older sisters.
As a kid, he spent weekends going with his parents to Manhattan exploring the museums, attending operas, movies, and music venues. He played classical piano growing up and set his sites on a music degree at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. When that didn't work out, he wound up going to the Cooper Union where he earned a degree in electrical engineering.
He played in several bands during college and really enjoyed electronic music. He connected the exploration of electronic music to other elements in engineering (sound waves, time varying signals going through circuits, Fourier analysis, signal processing, etc.) Everything he was interested in related to music suddenly seemed to have a direct connection to image making. After graduation he stuck around campus for a few years teaching film classes.
Josh first began working in visual effects at MAGI in 1982 at the tail end of their work on "Tron" and went on to lead the computer graphics division at R/Greenberg Associates in NYC. Later he supervised film effects and film recording at Degraf/Wahrman in Los Angeles.
Josh was then hired by ILM where he supervised the film scanning/recording department for more than 10 years, and worked extensively with both traditional and digital cinema technologies. He has received a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and has credits on several feature films. Today he lives in the Bay Area and often commutes to LA for work.
Josh is still looking for a clown based solution for several problems facing industry. There is no denying his brilliance, his wit, and great sense of humor. I'm forever a fan. It was a super fun chat catching up with Josh and hearing his story.

Frank Gravatt Nov 29, 2021

Frank Gravatt was born in the San Francisco Bay Area. He began sculpting clay models at a young age and excelled in his craft. Horror movies, both old and new, have always been a fascination of his and Frank started sculpting monsters, and working with makeup to create the faces he saw in the movies.
In his early career he began working at various retail chains until he landed a job in maintenance at Industrial Light & Magic. While working at ILM he brought his clay models in to the office for his coworkers to see, and soon landed a job making clay horses for Hallmark. From this point forward Frank went on the path to eventually be hired as a digital effects modeler and supervisor. His first movie was Casper (1995), although uncredited, he used his eye for detail and creativity from sculpting and began learning the trade of digital effects modeling.
His first credited movie was Mars Attacks! as a digital modeler. Frank went on to create for movies such as Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, several Harry Potter films, Van Helsing, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and War of the Worlds.
He was nominated for a Visual Effects Society (VES) award in 2003 for "Best Character Animation in a Live Action Motion Picture" for his work in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). He was nominated again, and won, a VES award in 2012 for "Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Feature Motion Picture" for his work in Rango (2011). Frank was again nominated for "Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture" in 2014 for his work in Pacific Rim.
He has since worked on movies such as The Revenant, Captain America: Civil War, and Transformers: The Last Knight. Today, Frank continues to live in the Bay area with his five amazing kids and fiancée Trudie. It was a blast to reconnect with Frank and hear his incredible story.

Scott Ross Nov 22, 2021

Scott Ross joins me this week to talk candidly about his time at ILM and Lucasfilm and his four decade career in entertainment and technology.
A native of New York City, Scott began his career in Media Studies at Hofstra University where he graduated with a BS in Communication Arts in 1974.
During the 70’s Ross toured with numerous bands such as the Miles Davis group and The Allman Brothers Band. In the 80’s Ross was General Manager of Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic. In 1991 Ross was named VP of the LucasArts Entertainment Group, which was comprised of Skywalker Sound, LucasArts Commercial Productions, LucasArts Attractions, Editdroid/Soundroid and ILM. Most recently he was the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Digital Domain, Inc., one of the largest digital production studios in the motion picture and advertising industries.
Scott is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (EMMYS).

Jeff Light Nov 15, 2021

This week on 8111, Jeff Light! Jeff grew up in Lima, Ohio. His dad was an attorney and his mom kept Jeff and his three sisters mostly out of trouble. He loved theatre and movies as a kid and was inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey which he saw the Summer before Jr. High. He bought a Yashika LD6 Super 8 movie camera and began playing with filmmaking and visual effects.

He was pre-med at University of Cincinnati for his first year but it just didn’t make his heart sing. He changed schools to Ohio State University where he earned his BFA and MA degrees in Photography & Cinema. He stuck around after his MA and taught animation to students. From there he worked at Cranston Surrey Productions doing motion graphics. Always curious and working to address needs on specific jobs, Jeff began learning programming and digital image processing.

Lincoln Hu gave a presentation at SIGGRAPH and Jeff connected with him afterwards and was told to put his resume and materials together for an interview at ILM. He was first hired to work in the Scanning department on Terminator 2 in December of 1990. His background in film and programming were a perfect fit for the time when ILM was in transition from analog to digital. During his years at ILM Jeff taught Unix classes, composited on Hook and Death Becomes Her, technical direction on Jurassic Park, and was later tasked with helping develop and create the motion capture department.

He went on to work at Dreamworks for a number of years and later served as the Chair of Visual Effects at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Today Jeff is back in California working on his own projects and keeping his finger on the pulse of the industry.

Jeff is a true renaissance man. His innate curiosity, love of cinema, problem solving skills, and overall enthusiasm make him a great teacher, and a fascinating interview. It was so fun to talk with Jeff about his life and creative passions.

http://jefflightmedia.com/

Leah Anton Nov 08, 2021

This week on 8111, Leah Anton. Leah was born on a dairy farm in Northern Minnesota and moved to the Twin Cities shortly thereafter where she grew up. Her mother worked as a nurse and also took art classes. At the age of five Leah’s mom took her to a life drawing class and it sparked a lifelong love for art and drawing. Throughout middle school and high school Leah was a self described “art kid”. She experimented with painting on a large scale, doing murals, working with airbrush, and exploring photography.

Leah attended Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) as an undergrad and continued honing her skills. While continuing to paint she began to spend more time doing photography. After college Leah moved to New York City, working at Grey Advertising and freelancing at a design studio doing photo assistant work connected to architecture.

After a few years in New York, Leah moved back to Minnesota and landed a job working at WCCO on the PaintBox. Her ability to draw was the hook that landed her the gig and she quickly learned the technical parts of the system. From there she started freelancing in post-production houses around the country doing ad work and sports graphics.

After a freelance stint in Portland, Leah was on her way to Baja for holiday and stopped to visit friends in San Francisco. She wound up landing an entry level job at ILM doing wire removal on Hook. After about six weeks, the job ended and Leah got a call from a friend at CBS to come work the Olympics in France. When she came back to California she worked for the start-up company 3DO and was later hired back doing painting and composting at ILM where she worked for the next 18 years.

Today Leah lives in the Bay Area, continues to write, and working doing photography. It was so much fun talking with Leah and hearing her story.

Endla Burrows Nov 01, 2021

This week on 8111, Endla Burrows. Endla (whose first name is Estonian) was born and grew up in the Bronx. Her mother worked as a nurse and her dad worked in multiple jobs in the city including working as an elevator operator in a high rise. Endla loved watching tv as a kid and would often sit with an encyclopedia by her side so she could look up anything that she saw or heard and didn’t understand.
Endla’s boundless curiosity and thirst for knowledge served her well in school. She was often able to learn subjects quickly in an autodidactic modality. She attended the University of Pennsylvania where she earned an undergraduate degree in English. During her time at U. Penn, Endla also joined crew and became an avid rower. An injury sidelined her rowing activities and she soon discovered what would become a lifelong passion for rugby.
Endla attended film classes at Temple University (while earning an MBA) and loved the process of filmmaking. She made a number of films, including a documentary on women who play rugby. She landed an internship at WHYY and got an opportunity to work on a short film with Director Tamara Jenkins.
Endla moved to California and eventually landed a job working at ILM as an assistant to Charlie Clavadetscher. She absorbed everything and quickly made herself invaluable. She eventually became the head of the training department and changed the way ILM onboarded new employees and helped connect the dots across departments and programs within the facility. After about seven years, she moved on working at Digital Domain, the Jim Henson Company, and as a Producer at Mokko Studio in Montreal. She's currently earning her MFA in film and writing her own stories.
Endla is amazing. Her curiosity, intelligence, sense of humor, and passion have propelled her career forward at every turn. Through listening and observation her unique insights and empathy helped make ILM a success in those early days of massive growth. It was so much fun to catch up with Endla and hear her amazing story.

Daniel Jeannette Oct 25, 2021

This week on 8111, Daniel Jeannette. Daniel grew up near Normandy. His parents both worked for the Dutch company Philips, where Daniel worked during the Summer to save money to buy a Super 8 camera. As a kid he was always interested in drawing, in part from his love of comics. While at the same time, he had a natural mechanical inclination born from his interest in motorcycles that he would both ride as well maintain.

He attended the Gobelins school and studied animation. During his French military service, Daniel worked in the film/video division along with his other duties. Afterwards he got a call from an old school friend to come work doing animation cleanup on a television program. After a long five years working as an apprentice, Daniel finally got a chance to work as a full blown animator in Spain.

A motorcycle accident in Paris kept Daniel from returning to Spain and led to an opportunity working for Disney. He then moved to London to work for Spielberg on American Tales until 1994 when he was invited to come work at ILM.

Daniel’s credits include; Jumanji, Dragon Heart, Jurassic Park 2, Mighty Joe Young, The Mummy, Van Helsing, Happy Feet, Where the Wild Things Are, and many others.

Today, Daniel lives in Los Angeles and works freelance as a VFX Supervisor, Director, Animation Supervisor, and consultant. It was a blast catching up with Daniel and hearing his amazing story.

Corey Rosen Oct 18, 2021

This week on 8111, Corey Rosen. Corey answers the question of “what would an 8111 theme song sound like”. Corey grew up in Rochester, NY. His dad is a children’s dentist and his mom is a teacher. He’s the middle child of three brothers. As a kid he went to sleep away camp in the Catskill mountains where they put on plays. Theatre became a permanent fixture in his life.
Corey gravitated towards filmmaking as a kid, remaking some of his favorite character driven films with friends from the neighborhood. He went on to study Radio, TV & Film at Northwestern University. Corey worked as a producer on a student comedy TV show called “Stinky’s Pub” and there he learned a number of skills. After his sophomore year he worked as an intern at Jim Henson studios and Comedy Central.
The following year Corey applied to the LucasArts internship program and was accepted, in part via a shared interest in golf by Lisa Vaughn. He interned in the scanning and optical department in the Summer of 1993. Corey was in a near fatal car accident on interstate 580 and kept working at ILM from his hospital bed. This led to a full time job that lasted for the next 12 years.
Corey and Scott Leberecht created their own short films at ILM including the Sprit of Spawn and the Sprit of Sleepy Hallow. These fun short films led to an opportunity to work as a writer developing original projects for Lucasfilm Animation. He then returned to doing cloth work as a TD and started to feel like it was time to move on.
Post ILM he has worked at The Orphanage, Image Movers Digital, and now at Tippett Studio writing theme park ride films. Corey recently wrote a book called, “Your Story Well Told” in connection with work he’s done on The Moth on NPR. It was great to reconnect with Corey and hear his story.

Marty Brenneis Oct 11, 2021

This week on 8111, the Droid himself, Marty Brenneis! Marty’s nickname, “Droid” comes from the following axiom; An engineer builds one and then you get a droid to build 99 more.

Marty grew up in Berkeley attending Berkeley High School. He was part of the student stage crew helping put on full blown productions. He basically grew up in the business with his mom working doing hair and makeup, and his dad working as a still photographer.

Marty saw Star Wars at the Coronet theater in 1977 and knew immediately that he’d one day work for Lucasfilm. He went on and earned a two year degree in electronics. His brother John was then working at American Zoetrope and they needed a wiring “droid”. So Marty came in to help, and that gig led to an opportunity to come to ILM wiring blue-screens. It quickly became self-evident that Marty was highly useful in the new growing Northern California studio.

Marty’s credits include; Apocalypse Now, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dragonslayer, ET, Star Trek 2 Batteries Not Included, to name only a few.

If you ever worked at ILM on Kerner, you knew who Marty Brenneis was. In many ways, Marty epitomizes so much of the ILM work ethos and culture. He’s a human Swiss Army knife and the ultimate creative problem solver. It was so much fun to chat with Marty and hear his story.

Jeff Mann Oct 04, 2021

Jeff was born in Southern California. As a kid he took apart the family lawn mower to build himself a go-kart. He loved the hotrod culture and grew up in a very “American Graffiti” way. He always liked drawing and started surfing around age fifteen. After high school he worked for about 18 months at Lockheed Aircraft working on C5A Delta planes. In 1968 Jeff packed all his belongings into his VW bus and shipped it all to Hawaii where he spent the next year until he ran out of money. He then sold his VW and flew back home and moved up to the Bay Area to attend art classes at the College of Marin.

From there he went to San Francisco State University and studied with the realists like Robert Bechtle. He also did some design for the theatre program and made some short animated films exploring various modes of expression. After graduation with a degree in painting and drawing he then moved up to Sausalito where he started working on boats. He helped restore and old 1910 tug boat and then worked on numerous projects with the crew he met there. He lived on a houseboat for a time and eventually wound up renting a 2000 square foot building on the Napa Street pier. He built it out to have a living quarters, an artist studio, and a boat building shop.

His friend got a 1910 Danish cargo ship. For six years Jeff and a crew worked on getting it fully sea worthy with the goal of circumnavigating the globe. They ran all kinds of shake down cruises with the boat and Jeff eventually had accumulated enough time at sea to qualify for a Coast Guard captain’s license. He had a whole career ready to go at sea, but decided that wasn’t what he really wanted to do.

In 1981 Lorne Peterson hired Jeff for a three week model building gig. He wound up working at ILM for the next 24 years. Jeff worked in numerous capacities on films like Star Trek 2, Poltergeist, ET, Return of the Jedi, Young Sherlock Holmes, to name just a few. Jeff later became a senior staff member and helped oversee the company’s massive growth and the transition to working digitally.

Today Jeff lives in Ojai, California where he maintains a studio practice, showing his work in shows and galleries. It was a great time chatting with Jeff and hearing about his amazing life and career.

Julija McDowell Sep 27, 2021

Julija grew up in Canada. As the oldest sister she often helped take care of her siblings. Her mother, who worked as a travel agent, instilled a deep sense of creativity and “making”. As a family they wouldn’t buy Christmas presents for one another but would make presents. She attended a preforming arts high school where people were literally dancing in the halls. Julija was more interested in the visual arts and after high school followed in her aunt’s footsteps pursuing a degree in graphic design and advertising.

After graduation she landed an entry level gig at an ad agency she wasn’t crazy about, leaving after a few months. She went back to working as a lifeguard. Around the same time Julija started working as a fashion model. That opportunity allowed her to travel all over Europe, eventually living in London and working at Harrod’s as a perfume girl. One night she was watching a tv program on Channel 4 about animation and she decided to go back to school to study animation.

Julija returned to Canada to attend Sheridan. Her first contact and mentor was Wayne Gilbert, who also later went on to work at ILM. For her senior project, Julija and lifelong pal Jenn Emberly, teamed up and made a short animated film that got into numerous film festivals and set the stage for a successful career.

Julija and Jenn were hired as an animation team to come work at ILM. They packed up a car, driving from Toronto to San Francisco, and went straight to work on Jumanji. Julija worked at ILM for ten years on numerous projects including; The Mummy, Mars Attacks!, Men in Black 2, and others. She also did work for The Orphanage and IMD on additional projects.

After starting a family, Julija started her own small business where she developed an app and curriculum for parents to engage in educational projects with their kids 6 and under. Shortly thereafter, Julija and her family decided to move to Australia where she started Tinker Tank, a brick and mortar educational maker space offering experiential, kid driven, project based learning.

Julija is an inspiration and the work she’s doing with Tinker Tank is so important. It was great fun to catch up with her and hear her story.

John Stillman Sep 20, 2021

John Stillman is a Bay Area native. As a kid, he played baseball, soccer, and football. He earned a bachelor's degree at UCLA in Design. Shortly after graduation John travelled around Europe landing a job in Prague where he worked as a Production Manager and Associate Art Director for Prognosis, an English language newspaper.
After a year or so abroad John came back to California and applied for a job at Industrial Light & Magic working as a production assistant. He wound up working there for the next seven years eventually working as a lighting technical director. John’s ILM credits include; Speed 2, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Deep Rising, Sleepy Hallow, Mission to Mars, and Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace (to name just a few).
After his first stint at ILM John went to work for a startup called I-Beam with some pals from ILM. They commuted each day from Marin to Palo Alto in a stretch limousine they bought as a group. When the start up went bust, John moved back into visual effects working at Giant Killer Robots, Weta Digital in New Zealand (on Return of the King), at Image Movers Digital, Atomic Fiction, and eventually back for a second stint at ILM for four more years (The Avengers, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).
Shifting gears John decided to go back to school, moving across the country and enrolling at MIT earning a master’s degree in Integrated Design. Today John lives in Boston working full time as the Principal Tech Artist and Developer at PTC. When he’s not at work he’s an awesome dad to his two kids, coaching little league, soccer, and even hockey. John is an amazing artist and technician. He’s been a great friend for over 25 years and it was a blast catching up with him.

Kim Smith Sep 13, 2021

Kim Smith is an artist in the truest sense of the word. She was born in NYC and grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Her father was a very successful illustrator. At an early age, Kim was very interested in archeology. She combined her interest in science with a natural affinity for art and creativity. She attended Syracuse University and studied art. Her initial interest was working as a studio artist. Kim was also interested in cartography and the way in which maps developed so differently across different cultures and periods of history. After school she travelled to France and lived with relatives speaking French daily and continuing to explore her creative impulses.
Kim later moved to California where she worked at Sotherby’s as an assistant in the print department. Her French language skills and her artist’s background proved highly useful during her time with the auction house. From there Kim went to work building models for theme park rides. It landed her “in the studio” full time getting paid to do work for commercial projects.
After honing her skills Kim landed at ILM where she worked for decades doing both traditional and digital work. Her film credits include; Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, The Hunt For Red October, Back to the Future 3, Dreams, Rocketeer, Star Trek 6, Hook, Death Becomes Her, Alive, Forrest Gump, Jumanji, Star Treks: Generations and First Contact, Mars Attacks!, The Mummy, Star Wars Episode 1 and Episode 3, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pacific Rim, Ender’s Game, to name just a few.
Our wide ranging conversation explores Kim’s background, the life of an artist, the pros and cons of analog vs digital, and the creative problem solving required for working in visual effects. Kim is an amazingly talented, thoughtful, gifted artist, and all around super cool human. It was great fun to chat with her and hear her story. I think we definitely broke some new ground for the show in our chat.

Trish Krause Sep 06, 2021

Trish grew up in Montreal, Quebec. Many ILMrs may remember her as Trish Schutz. She grew up the youngest in her family with two older sisters. Her mother was a creative influence with painting, drawing, and sewing throughout Trish’s childhood. Her dad was a dentist. Trish attended Catholic school and after high school she took her first animation and art classes. She later graduated from Sheridan College in Ontario for computer animation.

In 1986 Trish went to SIGGRAPH in Boston at the recommendation of a teacher and discovered a realm of possibilities of ways to put her degree to work. Her first job out of school was working independently for about 8 months doing animation for education videos teaching math (also a favorite subject in school). A former animation teacher from Sheridan came knocking on her door encouraging her to apply for an internship at PDI. In 1993 she left Canada to work at PDI/Dreamworks in Santa Clara, California.

In 1994, after her internship Trish applied for jobs at Pixar, Rhythm & Hues, and ILM. She got a job offer from ILM to come work on Casper. Trish’s ILM credits include; Casper, Mars Attacks!, Spawn, The Phantom Menace, ET: The Special Edition, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Jurassic Park III, Pirates of the Caribbean, to name just a few. After about 9 years ILM, Trish returned to work at Dreamworks in Redwood City where she worked on Shrek 2 and Madagascar fulfilling an interest in working on fully animated features.

After the birth of her first daughter she decided to work freelance and worked for ILM and The Orphanage on different projects in a 911 capacity without the need for a full-time commitment. With the arrival of her second daughter she worked for a time at Tippett Studios. In 2009 her vision started to falter slightly and a following cataract surgery she left the business.

With her mother’s passing Trish decided to answer a calling to completely change careers and become a nurse. After going back to school, Trish is now an RN working full-time helping people in (from my POV) one of the most noble and selfless pursuits. Today she lives with her family in the Bay Area and brings her infectious positivity, kindness, and her keen animator’s observation skills, to her work as a nurse.

On a personal note, when I started this podcast I was so excited to eventually talk with Trish as I find her mid-career shift to be absolutely inspiring. Her story is a great life lesson for anyone who wants to shift gears.

Chris Townsend Aug 30, 2021

Chris grew up in the UK. As a young man he travelled to China and worked numerous odd jobs while exploring. His background in graphic design helped him land opportunities to work in creative ways doing motion graphics for television news. His boundless curiosity and wanderlust took him all over China, Singapore, Thailand, and even Australia.
With passion, enthusiasm and dedication he eventually landed a job at Industrial Light & Magic where he worked for more than a decade as an artist and supervisor. Chris’ ILM credits include; Congo, Mission: Impossible, Daylight, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Ang Lee’s Hulk, AI, and The Island (to name just a few).
In 2007 he left ILM to work with first time director and former ILM VFX Supervisor Eric Brevig on Journey to the Center of the Earth, the first ever stereoscopic motion picture shot and released digitally, Chris continued working as a freelancer on numerous films including; The Wolverine, Ninja Assassin, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and Captain America: The First Avenger.
He was nominated for a BAFTA and an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on Iron Man 3, oversaw nearly 3000 shots on Avengers: Age of Ultron and was the overall supervisor for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 as well as Captain Marvel. In 2015 he was given an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree by his alma mater, Coventry University.
Chris’ enthusiasm for his work is self evident. His career continues to expand with his latest work as the Marvel VFX Supervisor on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings. It was great fun to catch up with Chris and hear about his amazing career.

Eric Brevig Aug 23, 2021

This week on 8111, Eric Brevig. Eric grew up as an only child in West Los Angeles. He loved going to the movies growing up and he made his own short films with kids from the neighborhood. His mom worked at a bank near 20th Century Fox and one of her clients got Eric a set visit to The Towering Inferno on the day they blew up the building. It was an eye opening experience. He went on to attend UCLA for film school and earned a Master’s degree where he made a complicated short film involving stop-motion monsters and live action.

After school Eric worked as an intern for the camera union. The internship exposed him to all kinds of opportunities working for a short stint at Apogee and Universal Heartland which was doing work on the TV series Buck Rogers. He worked for a time at Doug Trumball’s while they were working on Blade Runner. While there he met Rocco Gioffre who went off and started Dream Quest Images (with Scott Squires, Hoyt Yeatman, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and Bob Hollister). They needed a matte cameraperson and Eric was the right fit for the job. He worked on Lost Boys, Scrooged and other films as VFX Supervisor.

After working on Total Recall for Dream Quest, Eric was hired by ILM to come work as Supervisor on Hook for Steven Spielberg. Eric worked at ILM for fifteen years on some massive projects. Over the years he's worked with filmmakers like Spielberg, Michael Bay, Roland Emerich, Barry Sonnenfeld, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, James Cameron, and Frank Oz (to name a few).

Eric’s visual effects credits include; The Abyss, Total Recall, Hook, Disclosure, The Indian in the Cupboard, Men in Black, Wild Wild West, Pearl Harbor, The Island, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and many others. As Director he’s made the films; Journey to the Center of the Earth and Yogi Bear. Eric’s enthusiasm for filmmaking and visual effects is infectious. Along the way he’s been helped by others and he’s payed it forward helping people he’s worked with, promoting colleagues on films where he’s been a key decision maker. It was great fun to talk to Eric and hear about his amazing career.

Alex Laurant Aug 16, 2021

Alex was raised by his mom in San Francisco. She was a fine art painter and art has always been a part of his family. So he’s always drawn since his was a little kid. He watched late night monster movies and scoured the local news stand for every magazine on movies he could find. In school he and a friend made stop motion animated films of their own inspired by Ray Harryhausen. He saw a presentation by Linwood Dunn at the SFMOMA and it set his trajectory for the future.

Alex attended CCAC in Oakland for college and focused on illustration and graphic design. He freelanced for several years after school working as a graphic designer just as things were moving from analog techniques to digital. A gig working for a company in the South Bay doing multimedia presentations led to work doing a kind of story boarding and animation combining several of his skills and connecting him to working in the digital space.

Alex moved onto another company and became and art director and eventually a manager/team leader working on multi-media “edu-tainment” projects. He was leaning new things everyday and building a set of skills that he’d use for years to come. A chance meeting at an art supply store with another art director Michael Brumsfeld from Colossal Pictures eventually led to a job at ILM.

Alex worked as designer and visual effects art director on multiple films at ILM including; Star Wars: Special Editions, Saving Private Ryan, The Mummy, Mission to Mars, Minority Report, among others. After eight years Alex left in 2004 to work in games at Electronic Arts in London.

Today he continues to work in games. Alex is a great artist, a kind human, and thoughtfully shares his journey. It was great fun to catch up with him and hear his story.

David Tanaka Aug 09, 2021

David Tanaka grew up in the Bay Area. As a kid he was fascinated with a small hand cranked toy you could look into and watch Super 8mm film. He later took that toy apart and began making his own short films with friends. He wound up earning a degree in film from UC Berkeley. A visiting artist lecture with Ease Owyeung inspired David to begin looking for ways to get a job at ILM. After several tries he landed an internship at ILM working in the group that did amusement park rides (now defunct). He later moved over to the Art Department and eventually landed a full-time position as an assistant VFX Editor.

While at ILM David helped create a program that allowed employees to propose and make small independent projects. David went on to make a number of PSA for organizations like Swords to Plowshares. Others in the company made music videos, short films, spec commercials, and experimental art films. David worked at ILM for fifteen years.

His next job was working at Pixar for the next decade or so cutting trailers and marketing material for the company. David has continued to work as a freelance editor and creative for numerous clients. He also has been giving back through teaching and his work with the VES (Visual Effects Society).

David is an incredibly talented, kind, and thoughtful human. While he mentions others who helped him along the way, so many of the people I’ve talked to for this podcast mentioned David as having been critical to their successes. It was a pleasure to catch up with David and hear his inspiring story of creativity, tenacity, and generosity.

Paula Karsh Aug 02, 2021

Paula Karsh grew up in Pittsburg and earned a Master's degree in Education. She later moved to California with her husband, who was enrolled at Stanford in their film program. She spent some time teaching and later found a job working at a film production company where Lucasfilm was one of her first clients. This later led to an opportunity to come to ILM and work on their Production Services team.
Paula worked as the Head of Production Services for 27 years. She has an amazing story and insight into the needs of a visual effects and film production company. When Dennis Muren calls you in the morning and wants a dead turkey vulture to study the way the wing moves for Dragonslayer, and he needs it by that afternoon, Paula is the one who can get you what you need. Her work, and the work of countless others behind the scenes helped make possible so many of the films you love. While she never won and Oscar, her and her team's work at ILM made it all possible with their critically important work.
Post ILM, Paula worked doing hospice care, and also as a volunteer firefighter. Paula is an amazing human being and it was amazing to catch up with her and hear her story.

Scott Squires Jul 26, 2021

Scott Squires grew up in Indiana. As a kid he built his own microscope and was fascinated with bugs and ants. He worked for the local paper as a photographer in high school and was always interested in filmmaking. He travelled out to California shortly after high school and would up with a job opportunity working on Close Encounters of the Third Kind where he helped develop the “cloud tank”.

Scott worked at ILM for 20 years where he served as Visual Effects Supervisor and directed multiple commercials and ride films. Scott was also the ILM CTO during the transition to digital.

He has had 3 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nominations for Visual Effects - The Mask, Dragonheart, & The Phantom Menace. He also received an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Scientific and Engineering Award for Pioneering Work in Film Input Scanning.

For the last 4 years, he Co-Founded and was CTO as well as Creative Director at Pixvana, a company specializing in making cloud tools to create the highest quality 360-degree videos for interactive VR use. Scott directed several special VR projects including The Play for the Holodome at the Seattle MPOP.

He has co-founded and helped run 3 companies: a visual effects company (Dream Quest– later sold to Disney), a software company based on the Commotion roto and paint software Scott wrote in C++ (Puffin Designs – later sold to Avid), and a virtual reality company (Pixvana) with complete cloud processing and streaming.

Squires is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and is a Visual Effects Society Fellow. He is a Director of Photography in the International Cinematographers Guild. He was a co-editor and writer on the Visual Effects Handbook and holds 3 patents for special video processes.

Scott’s boundless curiosity and enthusiasm for creative problem solving has propelled him forward throughout his life and made him an industry pioneer of the highest order. His kind and quiet unflappable demeanor, his willingness to share, and his overall good nature make him unique among luminaries of visual effects. It was a real honor and pleasure to chat with Scott about his career, past, present, and future.

Barbara Townsend Jul 19, 2021

Barbara Townsend was born in Florida, spent some time in Arizona, Texas, St. Louis, and lived her formative years in Memphis. As a young person in high school, she had her own radio show. She attended Arkansas State earning a BS degree in Radio/TV.

After school, Barbara moved back to St. Louis and worked at a local access station running cameras for college football, taping interviews with fans, and doing general production work. She continued a successful career in broadcasting working on the Today Show in NY, Saturday Night Live, and Meet the Press in Washington. She was fascinated by Chyron and took the training course in Long Island which opened doors throughout the industry. Her skillset and interests grew leading to opportunites doing broadcast graphics with Paintbox and Harry systems. At a career crossroads, Barbara approached her boss and asked to go out to Santa Barbara to train on Wavefront. It changed her trajectory for the next decade.

A connection with Henry LaBounta led to an interview with John Berton in the computer graphics division of ILM. Barbara was hired and worked at the company as a technical director for the next 11 years. Her credits include, Baby’s Day Out, Star Trek, The Mask, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Men in Black 2, Magnolia, Pearl Harbor, Hulk, and many others.
She later spent a number of years working full-time as a mother. As her kids got a little older, she pursued a master’s degree in counseling and today works as a full-time therapist engaging with clients in her private practice. She is engaged in psychedelic assisted therapy and using her systems knowledge, education, and life experience to help people with severe depression.

Barbara is an amazing person and it was truly great to catch up with her and hear about her incredible journey.

Stu Maschwitz Jul 12, 2021

Stu Maschwitz grew up in Minnesota. As a kid he loved movies. His dad was an entomologist and his mother was an artist working with textiles. He made short animated movies as a young kid and later shot numerous skateboarding videos with friends. He eventually made his way to CalArts and made every opportunity at the school count.
After graduation he landed a job at ILM where he’d work for the next 4 years. He was a founding member of the Rebel Mac group at the company and eventually left to branch out on his own. He co-founded and ran The Orphanage with former ILM colleagues Scott Stewart and Jonathan Rothbart for the next 10 years.
Stu has worked as a Visual Effects Supervisor, commercial and music video director, and software developer. Today he works with Red Giant Software developing tools for artists and creating his own projects. Most notably with his 2018 animated short film “Tank”.
Stu is a true raconteur in the world of filmmaking and visual effects. With his blog, Prolost, and his ongoing work with industry partners he shares his knowledge and skills with great generosity and humor. There’s no doubt he’d make a world class teacher. But in most every way, he already is. It was so fun to catch up with Stu and hear about his amazing journey.

John Goodson Jul 05, 2021

John Goodson grew up in North Carolina, Alaska, and Northern California. His dad was a surgeon in the Air Force and John loved airplanes and science fiction. Space 1999, Star Trek, and later Star Wars captured his imagination as a young person and he began building models.
He earned a degree in Product Design from North Carolina State. He loved to draw hard surface models and objects and he's always made his own models and props. He got a 1966 Ford Mustang as his first car and it needed some body work. So he went to a bodyshop that was run by a patient of his dad's and learned how to work with all kinds of materials and developed a sense of precision in "making".
He and his pal Tony Hudson made their own Empire Strikes Back snowscape with working miniatures in a spare bedroom in his parents house. Some time later, Tony wound up working at ILM and he and John talked on the phone frequently while John was in Design School. He continued to build and develop his skillset making all kinds of models from the starship Enterprise to the EVA pod from 2001. He came out to stay with Tony for a few weeks in California and wound up with a full-time job in the ILM model shop where he worked for the next 31 years.
John's credits are beyond impressive and include; Back to the Future 2, Die Hard 2, Star Trek VI, The Rocketeer, Alive, Mission Impossible, Deep Impact, Mission to Mars, Planet of the Apes, Harry Potter, Terminator 3, Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, & 3, Rogue One, and The Mandalorian. Just to name a few...
John's enthusiasm, passion for making, and love of problem solving are inspiring. He shares some amazing stories of his experiences, the techniques developed, and solutions found to complex problems on numerous projects. It was an absolute blast talking to John and we could have easily gone on for another couple hours. May be this one will someday get a part 2...

Mark Moore Jun 28, 2021

Mark Moore grew up in the Pacific Northwest. As a kid he loved art, movies, cars, and airplanes. He attended University of Washington as an undergrad where he studied industrial design. He moved to San Francisco after graduation to be closer to ILM and found work in the city building architectural models and toys.
A mutual colleague led to a friendship with John Bell, who was working as an art director at ILM, and they shared a laugh corresponding for a time via FAX machine. Mark soon landed a gig at ILM where he worked for the next 13 years as a storyboard/concept artist, visual effects art director -- and eventually in 1996 as the ILM Art Department Creative Director -- Mark has worked with many top Hollywood filmmakers including: John Carpenter, Nicholas Meyer, Frank Oz, Tim Burton, Stephen Sommers, Rob Cohen, Brian De Palma, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Ang Lee.
In 2002, Mark went freelance, moved to Texas, and has since worked on films with directors Robert Rodriguez, Mike Judge (on Idiocracy!), Jonathan Liebesman, Jon Favreau (on Ironman), and Jeff Nichols (on his incredible indie film Mud). In 2012, Mark began consulting with 900 lbs of Creative in Dallas on a variety of projects for feature films and interactive museum exhibits.
Mark is one of the funniest and most positive people I've ever worked with. His boundless energy and enthusiasm is infectious and he always makes me laugh. Thanks to Mark for an inspiring conversation. By the end of this interview you have to ask yourself one question, "are you pushin' it...or are you milking it?"

Ellen Poon Jun 21, 2021

Ellen Poon grew up in Hong Kong in the 1960s. She was a middle child out of five and her mom loved going to the movies. From a very young age she was motivated to excel, and was always an independent thinker. A great teacher at university got her interested in graphics by challenging students to make images and patterns using Pascal. She realized that computer science was an area where she could be super creative. She went on to earn a PhD in computer science from the University of London.
Ellen is a founding member of MPC's Computer Graphics department. During her tenure at ILM, she was the first woman to be made Visual Effects Supervisor. Ellen has won two Hong Kong Film Awards for her work on Hero and Monster Hunt. Her film credits include: Jurassic Park, Star Wars: Episode 1, Jumanji, Frozen, and Raya and the Last Dragon.
Within minutes of meeting Ellen you know you are talking to one of the kindest, coolest, and smartest people you’ll ever meet. It was great to reconnect and hear her story.

Neil Lim Sang Jun 14, 2021

Neil Lim Sang was born in Jamaica. His family emigrated to Canada when he was six. His dad was diagnosed with ALS and passed when Neil was only fifteen. He was partnered with a Big Brother who had a strong influence on his interest in making art.

He attended art college and worked with all kinds of traditional media. After finishing there he continued on at Sheridan where he studied both computer graphics and animation. His first jobs were in New York City and Mexico City doing animated flying logos.
He came to work in Berkeley in the early 1990's at Rocket Science Games. He later landed a job at ILM in the commercials division where he forged his skills and what he calls his "vfx tourettes". Commercials ran at a breakneck speed and taught Neil how to do great work fast. After seven years Neil left to pursue other opportunities including Sony where he worked on Polar Express doing motion capture, and a tour in Australia on Happy Feet 2.
Today he works as a senior artist on all kinds of projects. Neil's passion for music fuels his creative drive. He’s an incredible colleague and friend with a positive work ethic and an amazing story. It was so much fun to catch up with Neil and talk about his genuine zest for life.

Habib Zargarpour Jun 07, 2021

Habib Zargarpour was born in Iran. He moved to Belgium at an early age (4th grade), moved to the south of France for high school, and Vancouver for university.
For a time Habib was interested in airplane design but later gravitated towards architecture. Attending Art Center to study industrial design he honed his skills and interests. One of those interests took the form of doing a 3D design for a lawnmower on the computer. His work in the digital space continued to grow. After school he worked for numerous clients doing designs for things like a camcorder for Panasonic.
Before graduating Habib landed a gig doing visual effects for “Adventures in a Dinosaur City”. He and a group of friends wound up doing three and a half minutes of CG effects for the project by developing their own tools. He later did work on the Roger Corman “Fantastic Four” creating the fire effects for Johnny Storm.
Some time later, an opportunity to work at ILM came up on “The Mask”. For the next ten years he worked at ILM developing key tools on additional films including; “Twister”, 2 “Star Trek” films, “Star Wars: Episode 1” (the pod race sequence), “The Perfect Storm”, & “Signs”. In 2003, he left to work at Electronic Arts for the next seven years doing realtime rendering for games. He spent some time at Microsoft working on the Xbox team where he began work on the Photon project doing development work for James Cameron and Joe Letteri. He later landed a gig developing realtime previs tools for “The Jungle Book” and “Ready Player One”.
He worked on “Blade Runner 2049” and “Greyhound” with Digital Monarch Media, which was later acquired by Unity. Today he’s working at Unity developing new techniques and realtime tools for virtual production and working on his own film “Squadron”.
Habib is absolutely brilliant and one of the nicest people in the business. With every project he’s worked on he’s made an indelible imprint on the industry with boundless enthusiasm and excitement for the medium.

John Schlag May 31, 2021

John Schlag grew up in Baltimore and became the church organ player from the ages of 13 to 17. Everyone thought he'd grow up to become a music major but instead he studied electrical engineering at University of Delaware and later attended Carnegie Melon for his Master's degree. He spent a few years at NYIT and then drove across the country on his motorcycle. He later landed at MacroMind (later to become Macromedia) where he worked with Alex Seiden developing a 3D program that never launched in time. He then landed a job in 1990 at ILM in the computer graphics division on Terminator 2 followed up by Death Becomes Her. John helped develop Viewpaint for Jurassic Park. He helped supervise and set up tools for the crowd scenes in Forrest Gump and the pingpong scenes with the digital pingpong ball.
After four years at ILM John left to work as a freelance consultant and to spend more time being a dad. John moved to Germany for a few years working as a VFX supervisor on numerous projects and later landed at ESC Entertainment to work on the Matrix sequels. Since then he’s has worked with Nvidia, Sony Imageworks, Digital Domain, Adobe Research, and Google.
John is a great storyteller and shares his knowledge and perspective on the evolution of digital tools and the immeasurable value of experience.

Robert Bruce May 24, 2021

Robert Bruce, "brucer" was his ILM email nickname, grew up in California. He attended a number of schools and flirted briefly with the idea of becoming a classical guitarist. He eventually landed in Sonoma where he earned an undergraduate degree in Computer Science. Rob later came to work at ILM, but wound up leaving after an unexpected health issue forced him to change gears. He returned to school earning a master's degree in Library Science and began his own career in academia.
Rob is amazing and we talk about the old days, old friends, and the pros and cons of a life in academia.

Paul Hill May 17, 2021

Paul Hill grew up in Arlington, Virginia. He is the youngest of three children and attended catholic school in his youth. He earned a degree in english from the University of Virginia with an emphasis in creative writing. After college he went to work for the US government helping coordinate resettlement of Vietnamese refugees from South Vietnam to the United States. Paul moved to San Francisco and got a job working for Dolby Laboratories as their Creative Director. From there he did a stint at Skywalker Sound and eventually landed at ILM where he would work for the next 16 years. Since ILM, he’s worked on multiple projects including several feature films, commercials, Audi’s website portal, and numerous other projects.

Paul’s documentary film “Alaska Far Away”, and the new documentary on PepsiMan are available online. Paul Hill is a wonderful human being. Its 100% true that he is the kind of person you always dream of working with. His work ethic, kindness, empathy, and good humor are unparalleled in the business. It was a great pleasure to reconnect with Paul and hear his story. He once even won 25K on Jeopardy!

Rod Bogart May 10, 2021

Rod Bogart, aka RGB, (the best initials in the biz) grew up in Colorado. His dad worked at IBM and occasionally brought computers home. Computer Science was a natural pursuit and Rod went on to earn his BS and MS degrees. After graduating he spent some time running a visualization lab on the University of Michigan campus. He later worked at PDI in Hollywood where he helped develop procedurally based image processing tools to automate wire removal and the removal of most anything from any shot. He joined the ILM R&D group in 1995 and helped develop the Open EXR standard with Florian Kainz, Drew Hess, and Piotr Stanczyk which went on to win a Scientific and Technical Achievement Academy Award. Years later at Pixar he developed their color science pipeline. Rod then moved to NYC where he worked for HBO on their HDR tools and workflows. Today he is the senior software engineer on the virtual production team at Epic. He’s been at ground zero of virtually every major development in the business for the last 30 years.

Rod is one of the most kind and intelligent people I've ever worked with. He has an uncanny ability to take highly complex technical concepts and explain them in terms anyone can follow and understand. It was great fun to reconnect with him and hear his story.

Gonzalo Escudero May 03, 2021

Gonzalo Escudero grew up in Madrid. He went to school for architecture and later landed a job doing motion graphics at a small local firm. He attended SIGGRAPH and wound up with a job offer to come work at ILM. After working as a Technical Director on a number of high profile projects Gonzalo left ILM to pursue a career as an actor in New York City. Gonzalo shares his story about taking risks, following your dreams, and giving yourself space to grow as a person. You might even say, “Change in plans…”.

Natasha Devaud Apr 26, 2021

Natasha Devaud was born and raised in Switzerland. As a little girl she learned how to knit before she knew how to write her own name. She earned a degree in Education and moved to Palo Alto in the US to work as a nanny and learn english. She returned to Switzerland to enroll in an accelerated program in fashion design. An intriguing and fateful visit to a lab at ECAL in Lausanne led to a Master's Degree in computer graphics. Natasha travelled to SIGGRAPH in Chicago to serve as a volunteer and went the following year to Anaheim where she was hired by Rhythm & Hues. She was later hired by ILM where she worked for the next 22 years. Her credits include several Star Wars, Transformers, Harry Potter and Marvel movies. Natasha was my office mate for several years at ILM in the 1990's. She's always been a great friend and her story of happy accidents, passion, drive, and luck is amazing.

Chris White Apr 19, 2021

R. Christopher White grew up in Dale City, Virginia and always had an interest in computers. After seeing some rigid body dynamics during a Summer program at George Washington University he was hooked. Chris earned his BFA in Computer Arts at Syracuse University. He went on to graduate school at University of Illinois’ Electronic Visualization Lab in Chicago and applied for the ILM internship for the fourth time and got in developing tools for Twister. He would up working at ILM for the next seven years. He later left, finished his graduate degree and soon headed for New Zealand where he’s been ever since.

Today, Chris is a Visual Effects Supervisor with over 25 years of industry experience. From feature films and streaming media to special venue projects, he has a passion for making engaging environments, creatures, and effects. His work has been recognized with multiple awards from the Visual Effects Society, along with Academy Award, BAFTA, and Emmy nominations.

Some of his more notable work includes Twister, Star Wars Episode I, Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King, King Kong, Avatar, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, and The Umbrella Academy. He is currently working on the Avatar sequels at Weta Digital in New Zealand.

Enthusiastic about giving back to the next generation of artists, he enjoys guest lecturing at universities and conferences. As an active member of InclusionFX, Chris offers young people from traditionally underrepresented groups mentoring and career guidance in visual effects.

Mark Siegel Apr 12, 2021

Mark Siegel grew up in Minneapolis loving science fiction and monster movies. He was an avid reader of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and the articles sparked his imagination. He earned a degree in Theatre from the University of Minnesota and attended the Ringing Bros. Clown College. His stage and circus experience taught him skills for working with prosthetics and make up. He landed a job at Universal Studios as part of a Verne Langdon monster makeup show for tourists. This eventually led to work as a sculptor and fx artist working on multiple films including Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Dune, Ghostbusters, and many others. He was later hired by ILM where he worked for decades on numerous projects in both traditional and digital formats. Today he is retired and living in the Bay Area. Mark is a great storyteller. He’s had an amazing career spanning many disciplines that all inform his work in fascinating and unexpected ways.

Scott Grenier Apr 05, 2021

Scott Grenier grew up in Southern California. After high school and community college he got a job working at a computer repair shop. That job opened doors to other opportunities working in IT. With the help of a great mentor, Scott eventually found his way to ILM in the mid 1990's. Scott shares his awesome story of skill building on the job. From the soft skills of helping co-workers with tech issues, to enterprise system architecture, to sales, he's added new skills with each career move. It was a blast catching up with Scott and hearing about his journey.

Terry Molatore Mar 29, 2021

Terry Molatore grew up in Los Angeles, the youngest of six children. In the 1970's she attended UC Santa Cruz and later worked at the Nuart movie theater on Santa Monica Blvd. She landed a job doing traditional rotoscoping on The Empire Strikes Back for an LA company called VCE which eventually led to a gig at ILM that wound up lasting 22 years. Terry left ILM to work at Imagemovers and later travelled to New Zealand to work at Weta Digital. Just before the pandemic, she retired from visual effects and is now developing stories connected to her family experience and background. Terry is one of my all time favorite ILMrs and we have a great conversation about her background, old friends, growing up an LA kid, and the state of the world.

Kim Thompson Steel Mar 22, 2021

Kim Thompson Steel grew up in the suburbs of Toronto. As a kid she loved drawing and Saturday morning cartoons. She studied traditional hand drawn animation at Sheridan College. A fortuetous studio visit from Steve "Spaz" Williams led to a Summer internship at ILM in 1992 just as Jurassic Park was gearing up. She later returned to ILM as an employee in the commercials division. She also worked on numerous feature films including; Men in Black, Flubber, a couple of the Star Wars prequels, AI, Galaxy Quest, and some of the Harry Potter films. Today she lives in Marin with her family and runs her own business. https://kimthompsonsteel.com

Indira Guerrieri Mar 15, 2021

Indira Guerrieri was born in Rome. Her parents were both deeply involved in the arts, her father even worked on the script for the classic Italian Neo-Realist film "Bicycle Thieves". She attended university in the US, eventually earning an undergraduate degree in Art History. She returned to Europe and worked for a time on a PaintBox system at a local company. When an opportunity to sign up for the Erasmus Programme in the EU came up she signed on and learned a host of skills in the world of computer graphics. She worked for a time with SoftImage doing demos and training and eventually landed a job at ILM on Casper as a Technical Director. Her career has taken her all over the world on all kinds of commercial, film, and special venue projects. Today she lives in California and works remotely with a team in New Zealand.

Amelia Chenoweth Mar 08, 2021

Amelia Chenoweth grew up in the East Bay. After high school she attended Brown, graduated from RISD, and had a very brief stint in grad school at Art Center. She began her career at Chaos in San Francisco where she was hired to work as a technical director. She was later hired at ILM to work on Casper. She's also worked for Weta Digital in New Zealand, Sony Imageworks, and Pixar. Amelia shares her story of working in the industry from a young age. Her many credits include; Casper, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Contact, Deep Impact, The Mummy, The Frightners (at Weta Digital), Men in Black 2, the Pixar short Lifted, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Super 8, Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Black Panther.
She's been a great friend for 25 years and it was an absolute blast catching up with her.

Kurt Nellis Mar 01, 2021

Kurt Nellis joins me this week to talk about his career in visual effects and games. Kurt's credits include; Matrix: Revolutions, xXx: State of the Union, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and King Kong. Kurt shares his story and how he broke into the industry. He's worked at ESC Entertainment, ILM, and Weta Digital. A few years back, he transitioned to working in games at Bungie in Washington state. We discuss the state of the industry and the exciting fusion of visual effects and games.

Dave Carson Feb 22, 2021

Dave Carson joined ILM in the late 1970's to work on the original Empire Strikes Back as a model maker and storyboard artist. That initial job opportunity developed into a full-time position where Dave went on to work on numerous films including; Dragonslayer, Return of the Jedi, Star Trek 3, Goonies, Enemy Mine, Young Sherlock Holmes, Willow, Witches of Eastwick, Hook, Jurassic Park, Casper, and Titanic (to name just a few...). In the mid 1990's Dave served as Visual Effects Supervisor on the Special Editions of Empire and Jedi. He eventually left ILM and went to work at Electronic Arts where he spearheaded groundbreaking work bringing a visual effects and cinematic sensibility to multiple game projects.
Dave's career is a master class in the history of visual effects and the development of new techniques and tools. He approaches all his work with the eye of an artist and shares some great memories from his incredible career.

Mike Corcoran Feb 15, 2021

Mike Corcoran is one of the funniest people I know. He and I started at ILM around the same time in the early 1990's. Mike shares his story of becoming a creature TD and how he worked hard to maximize every opportunity. With great managers and mentors he's travelled all over the world working on some amazing projects including: Mission Impossible, Mighty Joe Young, King Kong, Tin Tin, Prometheus, Black Panther, and many others. Most recently Mike was hired by DNEG as Global Workflow Architect (Creatures). Mike and I have a bourbon infused chat about the old days, old friends, classic cars, music, and the often wild journey of an accidental career in visual effects.

Mary Payne Feb 08, 2021

Mary Payne started her career as an intern at Skywalker Sound working with Randy Thom. She later came to ILM and worked her way up from computer graphics production assistant to lighting technical director. Today she lives, most of the time, in mainland China working with BASE where she recently wrapped up work on their feature animated film, Wish Dragon. Mary shares how she worked her way up by diving in head first and learning new skills at every step.

Stefan Dechant Feb 01, 2021

Stefan Dechant started at ILM as an intern in the art department. His career trajectory is wild and takes him from ILM to a highly successful career working as a Production Designer. Stefan talks about working with Rick Carter and how networking and professional relationships have kept him gainfully empolyed on numerous film projects including; Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Waterworld, Jarhead, Avatar, Kong: Skull Island, Pacific Rim: Uprising, The Tragedy of MacBeth, & Pinocchio (to name just a few).
Talking with Stefan was a blast. His affable personality and enthusiasm for his work comes through in this fun and informative conversation.

Ed Kramer Jan 25, 2021

Ed Kramer started his movie and television career using an analog video computer called Scanimate, and later worked as a sequence supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic. His film credits include: The Mummy, Galaxy Quest, The Mummy Returns, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Twister, and Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest. Today Ed lives in Colorado where he teaches computer graphics and is working on a feature documentary on the early days of CG entitled, Wizards of Hollywood.

Miles Perkins Jan 18, 2021

Miles Perkins grew up in Berkeley, California. He starting playing the bass in elementary school, later playing in various jazz combos and eventually with his own band, Mingus Amungus. He studied philosophy at UCLA and got a job working nights at Skywalker Sound. After college he began work at ILM in San Rafael and eventually became the Director of Marketing and Communications. When Lucasfilm was purchased by Disney, Miles took on the job of Head of Corporate Communications during the transition. Today Miles works at Epic Games leading business development for the Unreal Engine for use in virtual production. Our chat is dynamic and wide ranging, diving deep into creativity, philosophy, inspiration, motivation, personal connections, and the universal power of narrative.

Patricia Rose Duignan Jan 11, 2021

Patricia Rose Duignan (Rose) worked on the original Star Wars at ILM after having been introduced to George Lucas by John Dykstra back in 1975. She’s had an amazing career helping to bring some incredible projects to fruition. After graduating from Stanford she began a long and illustrious career. Her credits include: Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica (1978), and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. She co-authored the 1996 coffee table book, Industrial Light & Magic: Into the Digital Realm, has served on the board of directors for the Visual Effects Society (VES), and has spent several years working to create dynamic and robust mentoring programs for young women and people of color to get involved in the visual effects business.

Mo Husseini Jan 04, 2021

Mo Husseini was born in Egypt, grew up in Jordan, attended boarding school in the UK, and moved to the San Francisco bay area in the late 1980’s. He attended classes at UC Berkeley, apprenticed with various filmmakers and artists, and eventually landed a job at ILM in the commercial editorial group. Mo shares his stories of luck, the generosity of others, the Dunning–Kruger effect (uh-oh), and his amazing post-ILM career. Plus, he’s a super smart and kind human and it was great to catch up with him. We easily could have kept talking for a few more hours.

Laurel Woods Dec 28, 2020

Laurel Woods worked at ILM and Lucasfilm for 7 years in the 90’s. She is one of my dearest friends.
Her epic story includes; a dad who was a former CHP officer, who later owned strip clubs in LA, UCSB, working as an office assistant at Playboy, ILM computer graphics, Lucasfilm, a murder for hire, visiting prison on holidays, MTV, stalking Carrie Fisher, SCUBA diving, Tunisia, writing a memoir, and working for CORE in LA doing COVID-19 testing.
Laurel’s journey takes her across the US and around the globe. She’s easily one of the most incredible people I know.

Terrence Masson Dec 21, 2020

Terrence Masson has had an incredible career. He's worked on 20+ feature films as well as many “special venue" interactive, broadcast commercials and video game projects. Some highlights include three Star Wars movies, getting SouthPark started and the world's largest interactive digital Etch-A-Sketch. Terrence is a member of the Producers Guild of America, the Visual Effects Society and has been active in SIGGRAPH since 1988, including as the 2006 Computer Animation Festival Chair, the 2010 Conference Chair, and Outstanding Service Awards Chair.
Terrence's enthusiasm for the craft is infectious. Today he works at Chair of the MFA program in Computer Arts at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York.

Elle Chan Dec 14, 2020

This week I talk to Elle Chan. Elle worked in the commercials division at ILM for five years in the early 1990's. She talks about growing up in Rochester, NY, how she came to ILM, and the amazing success she's created since leaving and starting her own company, Trademark Event Productions, Inc.

TyRuben Ellingson Dec 07, 2020

On episode two, I chat with my good friend of 28 years, TyRuben Ellingson. Ty has worked as a visual effects art director, concept designer, director, producer, and now educator. His story is a fascinating one and his credits include, Jurassic Park, Avatar, Star Wars: Episode IV (The Special Edition), Casper, Disclosure, Hellboy, Blade 2, Mimic, Elysium, Pacific Rim, and Battle Los Angeles. Today Ty and I work together again in higher education at Virginia Commonwealth University in the School of the Arts in Richmond, VA.

Kim Bromley Nov 30, 2020

The premiere episode of 8111 with Kim Bromley. Kim worked as a Visual Effects Producer at ILM for 14 years. Her credits include, Willow, Back to the Future 2 and 3, Hudson Hawk, Hook, The Nutcracker, Disclosure, Twister, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Small Soldiers, Saving Private Ryan, Cremaster 2, and Galaxy Quest. She has also worked in documentary film and as a highly successful theatre director. I've always looked up to Kim and learned so much from her. She is the first guest I wanted to talk to.

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