Speaker 1: Get text with technology with tech Stuff Stuff, be there
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and today
Speaker 1: I want to bring to you a classic episode of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. It's been a while since I've dug into
Speaker 1: the archives and brought up something what was recorded before,
Speaker 1: and I tend to avoid that if I can. But
Speaker 1: we've got a lot going on at how Stuff works.
Speaker 1: As I record this, the entire editorial team is all
Speaker 1: a buzz about our presence at south By Southwest. By
Speaker 1: the time you hear this, we will have gone and returned.
Speaker 1: But uh I in order to get everything done, I
Speaker 1: needed to do a quick rerun, and that's why I'm
Speaker 1: gonna look at this classic episode tech Stuff looks at
Speaker 1: industrial light and magic. That means you're going to hear
Speaker 1: the one and only Chris Palette, my former co host,
Speaker 1: who uh phenomenal guy, great co So if you haven't
Speaker 1: heard any classic episodes, prepared to be amazed at his
Speaker 1: wit and humor. Also, I just want to give you
Speaker 1: a quick update to the story, so I'll do that
Speaker 1: when we get back at the end of the episode.
Speaker 1: So please enjoy this classic episode. I'll rejoin you at
Speaker 1: the end. See you in a bit. So, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk today about a special visual effects studio
Speaker 1: named Industrial Light and Magic. And the reason why we
Speaker 1: decided to cover this particular topic is that, well, Industrial
Speaker 1: Light and Magic is part of well, it's one of
Speaker 1: the many things that George Lucas created, including things like
Speaker 1: Lucas Film, And that's been the news recently, because that's
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast. It has not been that
Speaker 1: long since Disney announced its intention to acquire Lucas Film
Speaker 1: for the Parents Lee some of four point zero five
Speaker 1: billion with a B dollars, mostly all of which apparently
Speaker 1: will be donated to George Lucas's educational charity. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty phenomenal. George Lucas back in twos ten pledged
Speaker 1: that he was going to dedicate his wealth to philanthropic endeavors,
Speaker 1: mostly due uh to um more, mostly towards education, which
Speaker 1: kind of it's nice and it shows that he's following
Speaker 1: in the same sort of vein as other notable rich
Speaker 1: people and philanthropists like Bill Gates. Yeah, and that's not
Speaker 1: really what the the podcast is about. We're not talking
Speaker 1: about George and and things, but I did want to
Speaker 1: throw that in there simply because that was a pretty
Speaker 1: amazing thing to do. Everyone would do that very cool
Speaker 1: thing to do. Uh. It almost makes me not want
Speaker 1: to criticize him for some of the decisions he's made. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it gives us a picture of who he
Speaker 1: is as a person us and although he does see himself,
Speaker 1: I think as a as someone who uh is empowered
Speaker 1: to revise things that were previously released and then that
Speaker 1: that does infuriate a lot of people, among other things
Speaker 1: that he's done. But you know, I get the sense
Speaker 1: to that, Hey, he's not a bad guy. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's what he wants us to think. But come on,
Speaker 1: come on, how who's going to go to the extent
Speaker 1: of of donating the majority of their wealth to education
Speaker 1: in order to convince the world they're not a bad guy.
Speaker 1: He's clearly a good guy. Yeah, I would say so,
Speaker 1: so he's a better guy than I am. So so
Speaker 1: well well done, Mr Lucas. But but yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: he's he's also the same kind of person that is
Speaker 1: driven creatively. He's he's willing to come up with complete
Speaker 1: new uh businesses to support his creative habits. We we
Speaker 1: might say, even though we may not necessarily agree with them,
Speaker 1: I would argue, I would say personally for me that
Speaker 1: you know, his heart's in the right place. He's trying
Speaker 1: to create a good story and it doesn't always pan out.
Speaker 1: You gotta sounds like you gotta remember back, all right.
Speaker 1: So he founded Industrial Light and Magic. Yes in Yes. Now,
Speaker 1: that's two years before the release of Star Wars A
Speaker 1: New Hope, one of the best documentaries ever to be made. Well,
Speaker 1: he um as a filmmaker and his his filmmaking career
Speaker 1: began before that. Um but he you know, American Graffiti
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly um A, it wasn't as it wasn't a
Speaker 1: positive experience, wasn't It wasn't a special effects driven masterpiece.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a very good film. I liked it,
Speaker 1: but um you know, it wasn't It wasn't the kind
Speaker 1: of film that that George Lucas has come to be
Speaker 1: known for. He mega super effects blockbuster, which uh many
Speaker 1: would argue that he is responsible for and in part
Speaker 1: due to Industrial Light and Magic. Really, the the two
Speaker 1: people I think who are responsible for the blockbuster special
Speaker 1: effects extravaganza are Lucas and Spielberg, And of course Spielberg
Speaker 1: has had quite a bit of involvement in uh several
Speaker 1: of Lucas's endeavors. But anyway, yeah, he so he founded
Speaker 1: this visual effects company and it was probably because Lucas
Speaker 1: uh he he knew he wanted to do things a
Speaker 1: certain way, and in order to do that, he wanted
Speaker 1: to limit his dependence upon other companies as much as possible.
Speaker 1: So he started to make stuff. He said, well, there's
Speaker 1: no visual effects company out there that that is going
Speaker 1: to do the stuff I need to have done, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make it myself. And uh so he's kind
Speaker 1: of a hacker. Yeah, it really is a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: and and this was all due to necessity. You know,
Speaker 1: he wanted to have as much control over the project
Speaker 1: as possible in order to do that, and then that
Speaker 1: he had to build all this stuff, and so he
Speaker 1: set out to do it, and that's exactly what he did.
Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing. Well, there's a you know, the
Speaker 1: industrial line. Magic has been responsible for many different advances
Speaker 1: in movie making technology over the years. Back in one
Speaker 1: of the first things they developed was the Dixtra flex
Speaker 1: camera system that's named after John Distra, who was actually
Speaker 1: the lead designer on this camera design. Uh, and it's
Speaker 1: it was made because if you've if well it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to say, like if you if you saw
Speaker 1: the Star Wars and New Hope back in its cinematic
Speaker 1: release version, this is pre special addition, all the effects
Speaker 1: there for things like the ship battles and stuff, all
Speaker 1: the all the ships, all the the Death Star stuff,
Speaker 1: all that was made with practical effects, practical miniature models
Speaker 1: that so, so the X Wings going through the trench
Speaker 1: and Death Star that was all done with managers. So
Speaker 1: this is pre computer generated special effects in that sense. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the sound to the the orchestra. Uh, would you
Speaker 1: know they would put these models on the dolly and
Speaker 1: then the orchestra will be on a dolly behind them
Speaker 1: playing the music. No, let's go a little too far there, Chris,
Speaker 1: But but this long way to go for a bad joke. This,
Speaker 1: this camera, this camera was was special because in order
Speaker 1: to get the effect that Lucas wanted, he wanted the
Speaker 1: spaceship seems to look like uh, like dog fights, like
Speaker 1: airplane dog fights from World War two movies. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and the reason that those uh that that film, uh,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about existing film. The reason that that
Speaker 1: film is so effective. I think is because it's been
Speaker 1: It was shot by another airplane in the air at
Speaker 1: the same time as a dog fight. And this this
Speaker 1: motion control photography that I LM developed for this um used. Uh, basically,
Speaker 1: we're using cameras that moved in with the spaceship models,
Speaker 1: so it appeared that you were flying in the in
Speaker 1: the dog fights between the different fighters or the Millennium
Speaker 1: Falcon and the Tie fighters. Yea, so it was there
Speaker 1: was a real sense of movement right right. The camera
Speaker 1: was mounted on a crane, and the crane was mounted
Speaker 1: on a Dolly track, so they don't do a Hello
Speaker 1: Dolly joke, I didn't say, okay, so anyway, so the
Speaker 1: crane could move back and forth along this track, the
Speaker 1: camera could could move in various ways to adjust the
Speaker 1: the pitch or the tilt of the of the camera's angle,
Speaker 1: so it could follow the motions of the miniature and
Speaker 1: make it you have this this really swoopy effect where
Speaker 1: like Chris was saying, you're following the action very closely,
Speaker 1: and uh, it was a necessity for him to achieve
Speaker 1: the effect he wanted. So he builds this Actually he
Speaker 1: puts John Dixtra in charge of it, and John and
Speaker 1: his team built it. I call him John Smart. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they shoot the movie, and in nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: Star Wars New Hope hits theaters and becomes an amazing success.
Speaker 1: The two movies that that really launched the era of
Speaker 1: blockbuster summer hits were Jaws and Star Wars. Yeah. Um
Speaker 1: and uh. You know what you get when you come
Speaker 1: up with a new kind of special effects technology an
Speaker 1: Academy Award. Yes, they won that for Vision visual Effects
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven. John Steers, I think of him
Speaker 1: as Dikest, John Dikester, Richard Grant, M Grant mckeun, and
Speaker 1: Robert Blaock. I can't can't say any of their names.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna call him the guys. They're all John. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a matter of fact. They also got a Special
Speaker 1: Achievement Award in nineteen eighty visual Effects. Right. But before
Speaker 1: we get to nineteen eight, something happens in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine that I want to talk about something something special.
Speaker 1: There was a special division formed in nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 1: and Industrial Light and Magic. That division was called the
Speaker 1: Graphics Group, Uh, specializing in Computer Animation and effects. Wait,
Speaker 1: I feel like I should know who these guys are.
Speaker 1: When we get to nineteen eight six, it all become clear.
Speaker 1: But yeah, in nineteen seventy nine, the division, the Graphics
Speaker 1: Group forms an Industrial Light and Magic. That division will
Speaker 1: become incredibly important and influential and but oddly enough, their
Speaker 1: most influential days will be after they leave Lucas Film
Speaker 1: and Industrial Line Magic. So moving on, UH nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: that's when Empire Strikes Back, the second greatest documentary. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think that people would argue that's better than Star
Speaker 1: Wars most people, And you know, I actually prefer a
Speaker 1: New Hope to Empire, but I really love Empire too.
Speaker 1: It's just one of those things where you know, New
Speaker 1: Hope really resonates with me, but Empire is great. So
Speaker 1: Empire Strikes Back comes out. They do win the Special
Speaker 1: Achievement Academy Award for Visual Effects for that. The Indiana
Speaker 1: Jones and Raiders The Last Start comes out. Now, that
Speaker 1: was another UH the project that UH had Spielberg's involvement,
Speaker 1: and they won the Academy Award for Visual Effects for that.
Speaker 1: They also made a movie, Did you ever see Dragon Slayer? Okay,
Speaker 1: So I saw Dragon Slayer back when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: Dragon Slayers a fantasy film, and it's pretty much what
Speaker 1: you would think it is. It's a story about a
Speaker 1: young hero who uh sets out to slay a dragon.
Speaker 1: It's a little more complicated and that, but that's just yea.
Speaker 1: So they designed a new kind of filmmaking for this
Speaker 1: as well. They decided that there's a problem with working
Speaker 1: with practical effects for monsters that are um the go beyond,
Speaker 1: like some think someone in just a suit right, because
Speaker 1: one of the things you could do is you could
Speaker 1: do stop motion animation to create a monster effect, because
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to build a giant monster so and
Speaker 1: it it really it's hard to make it look right too.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of work. If I've shown my
Speaker 1: kids older monster movie bits, and it's kind of easy
Speaker 1: to on the one hand, when you grew up with
Speaker 1: pre I l M movies and technology and and Jonathan
Speaker 1: and I probably barely qualify into that. But you know,
Speaker 1: you look at at some of the old monster movies
Speaker 1: and you could see the zipper marks in the costumes
Speaker 1: and the older stuff. You don't you're not freaked out
Speaker 1: by that. Anymore. But you know, the practical effects um
Speaker 1: could be done very very well, and even when they're
Speaker 1: done very very well, it still doesn't have the same
Speaker 1: effect that the newer ones do, and just it's it's
Speaker 1: just weird to think about now. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: looking at the new stuff, it looks so very very real. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: back then, you know, with the practical effects, that's pretty
Speaker 1: much all they had at their their disposal at this point.
Speaker 1: Back they developed something called go Motion and Go Motion. Uh.
Speaker 1: The way that they explain it on the Industrial Light
Speaker 1: and Magic website is that it worked by fusing quote,
Speaker 1: both electronic and mechanical components into a device that could
Speaker 1: record the dragon in Dragon Slayers movements based on an
Speaker 1: animator's design and play them back so the camera could
Speaker 1: capture them as they occurred. So the reason for this
Speaker 1: is because if they if they were to do it
Speaker 1: in traditional stop motion, there'd be no motion blur when
Speaker 1: something moves quickly, because because all you're doing is just
Speaker 1: taking a bunch of individual photographs really of objects that
Speaker 1: are not in motion, and then you're playing them back
Speaker 1: to make it look like the object was in motion
Speaker 1: to get motion blur. The thing actually needs to be moving.
Speaker 1: It helps, but that's not how stop motion works because
Speaker 1: the name stop Anyway, it was an interesting development. It
Speaker 1: was something that they had, um uh created two again
Speaker 1: to meet the needs of the project that without having
Speaker 1: to you know, completely reinvent everything. Two They they got
Speaker 1: another Academy award. Um I'm not gonna go through every
Speaker 1: Academy award Industrial Line Magic has won because that would
Speaker 1: be ridiculous. But they got it for one of my
Speaker 1: favorite films as a kid growing up, which was ET
Speaker 1: the Extraterrestrial. Yes, I loved this movie as a kid.
Speaker 1: I think I must have seen it three or four
Speaker 1: times the summer that it came out, and I probably
Speaker 1: cried my eyes out every single time I watched it
Speaker 1: because I'm a SAP. I've been a sap all my life.
Speaker 1: I still am a SAP. I probably could watch ET
Speaker 1: without crying now, but back as a kid, there was
Speaker 1: just no hope. Um But anyway, that that was another
Speaker 1: very popular film made by h. Lucas and Spielberg. So
Speaker 1: uh And of course we should point out uh Lucas's
Speaker 1: involvement in some of these films is more of a
Speaker 1: kind of advisory sort of role. Industrial line, Magic worked
Speaker 1: on lots of projects, not just lucasfilm projects, which is
Speaker 1: why you know et is an Amblin project, not lucasfilm. Well.
Speaker 1: I wanted to point that out too, that it would
Speaker 1: have been easy for George Lucas to restrict Industrial Light
Speaker 1: and Magic to working on his films. Yeah, but then
Speaker 1: we would have hardly any of them because he didn't
Speaker 1: do very many. Well, I mean, that's that's part of it.
Speaker 1: But I mean he could have. He could have done say, uh,
Speaker 1: the Indiana Jones films and the Star Wars film stuff
Speaker 1: that he was intimately more intimately involved with, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the projects that he and Spielberg worked on together in
Speaker 1: some capacity. But he you know, they decided to spend
Speaker 1: this off into its own company, and in doing so
Speaker 1: they made I would argue that they made film richer
Speaker 1: for it. I mean you could say that, you know,
Speaker 1: working on on Star Trek too, um, you know, and
Speaker 1: one of the greatest documentaries ever made ever boy. Um,
Speaker 1: so you might say, well, you know, Star there there's
Speaker 1: this whole Star Wars versus Star Trek, which I think
Speaker 1: is silly anyway, um personally, but you know, they you
Speaker 1: might say, well, you wouldn't necessarily you might want Star
Speaker 1: Wars to be the dominant uh science fiction space franchise.
Speaker 1: You know, why would you let him work on Star Trek. Well,
Speaker 1: I think, like I said, it really populated film with
Speaker 1: the DNA of Industrial LIGHTE and Magic and made them
Speaker 1: the powerhouse that they are now. Um and yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they got a nomination for that too. Um. They
Speaker 1: did other work for other are of the Star Wars
Speaker 1: and Star Trek films and going through you could see
Speaker 1: this in their the timeline on the Industrial LIGHTE and
Speaker 1: Magic website. Um. But yeah, they really and they got
Speaker 1: involved in stuff. Now you would say, also, these films
Speaker 1: are going to be heavily dependent on uh, special effects,
Speaker 1: and you would expect that to be so. But um
Speaker 1: on other stuff like um, you know you would see
Speaker 1: it too for things like Back to the Future, the
Speaker 1: Back to the Future franchise, But they also worked on
Speaker 1: the Industrial line. Magic also worked on stuff like Out
Speaker 1: of Africa and Young Sherlock Holmes, uh, stuff that had
Speaker 1: special effects. But some of this stuff is less special
Speaker 1: effect driven. The special effect the special and special effects
Speaker 1: in this case is making it look photo realistic rather
Speaker 1: than looking fantastic. Yeah, UM, yeah, I agree. The uh
Speaker 1: and and you know there are other analogs we can
Speaker 1: compare this to, like the wet A Workshop, which did
Speaker 1: all the work for the Lord of the Rings movies,
Speaker 1: and the Hobbit has also done work for other other
Speaker 1: production companies. That's so they have done designed for lots
Speaker 1: of stuff, not just the Peter Jackson productions, So there
Speaker 1: are other similarities there. I'm glad you mentioned Young Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1: In five I lm achieved something no one had done before.
Speaker 1: They created the first computer generated character in a film,
Speaker 1: fully computer generated character. Uh, Sam glassmates Stained Glass Man
Speaker 1: from Young Sherlock Holmes. Uh. In this case, what's happening
Speaker 1: for those of you who have not seen Young Sherlock Holmes,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty good movie that's slowly paced, but
Speaker 1: it's I enjoyed it. Uh. It's It's got a lot
Speaker 1: of cute references in it that clue you into the
Speaker 1: man that Holmes will become and actually the man that
Speaker 1: Watson will become as well, though it really messes up
Speaker 1: their ages anyway. Uh. There's there's this The plot involves
Speaker 1: this stuff, this substance that causes people to hallucinate and
Speaker 1: they hallucinate these terrifying visions that drive them to essentially suicide.
Speaker 1: And in this particular case, it's a character who is
Speaker 1: looking he's in a building with stained glass windows, and
Speaker 1: one of the stained glass figures comes to life, jumping
Speaker 1: out of the window, and it's a night that is
Speaker 1: made out of stained glass that stalks the guy. So
Speaker 1: that's the scene, and that was the first use of
Speaker 1: a computer a fully computer generated character in the film
Speaker 1: Who's Stalking Nice. So in nine six here's where the
Speaker 1: spinoff happens. That um that I mentioned. So back in
Speaker 1: seventy nine they had the Graphics Group Division, and eight
Speaker 1: six Lucasfilm spins off the Graphics Group Division as its
Speaker 1: own company with a healthy dose of funding from a
Speaker 1: certain Mr. Steve Jobs who had kind of lost his job.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was he had a gig and then they
Speaker 1: cut him loose. Yeah, he he just founded Apple and
Speaker 1: then got pushed off to the very edges of that
Speaker 1: company and essentially they kind of fired him without saying
Speaker 1: he's fired. And then he said, all right, I guess
Speaker 1: I'm going and he left. And then but yeah, he
Speaker 1: poured in a great deal of money to the Graphics
Speaker 1: Group which became Pixar. So Pixar at this time was
Speaker 1: again really kind of pioneering computer graphics, computer animation. It
Speaker 1: would of course be several years before um Pixar would
Speaker 1: enter in it's uh, it's long and fruitful relationship with Disney. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: but that that did have its you know, start way
Speaker 1: back then. And yeah, they were um of course they
Speaker 1: weren't what they are now. But you know, and you
Speaker 1: might say, I can't believe that George Lucas allowed this
Speaker 1: to happen, but at the time it probably wasn't so
Speaker 1: clear cut. It was very expensive to do what they
Speaker 1: were doing, and there there were there were no clear
Speaker 1: indicators at that time. I mean, computer hardware wasn't what
Speaker 1: it is now either. It would be a good long
Speaker 1: decade before you start to see this really kind of payoff,
Speaker 1: but boy did it. So Industrial Line Magic entered in
Speaker 1: with a partnership with a little company called Kodak, which, uh,
Speaker 1: of course has seen some hard times recently. But Kodak
Speaker 1: and I LM produced the first high resolution film input scanner.
Speaker 1: Now this was important because what I could let you
Speaker 1: do is digitally scan film. Then you could edit it
Speaker 1: with a computer and then you would print it back
Speaker 1: out onto film, and uh, you wouldn't have to do
Speaker 1: all those edits manually using the traditional methods of of
Speaker 1: cutting film and editing that way, So it gave a
Speaker 1: lot more versatility to the editing process. And you guys
Speaker 1: may not be aware of this, but it really is
Speaker 1: true that films are made in the editing booth. That
Speaker 1: you can shoot hours and hours and hours of footage
Speaker 1: of actors doing lines and and uh and running around
Speaker 1: and explosions and whatever. But until you get into the
Speaker 1: editing booth and put it all together, you do not
Speaker 1: have a movie. And in fact, I have seen evidence
Speaker 1: of amazing films coming from what you would imagine to
Speaker 1: be um worthless footage, and it's all due to a
Speaker 1: really creative editor finding ways to make something interesting when before,
Speaker 1: like you might watch a sequence that originally was twelve
Speaker 1: minutes long and you think, wow, this is unusable, and
Speaker 1: then an editor gets ahold of it and cuts it
Speaker 1: down to like seven and a half minutes, and suddenly
Speaker 1: it's phenomenal. And so uh, this is one of those
Speaker 1: important developments in the industry. Now, granted, this is only
Speaker 1: important as long as film remains a factor, and of
Speaker 1: course that doesn't always hold true. We've done a lot
Speaker 1: of digital productions out there. In fact, almost everything is
Speaker 1: digital now yeah and now of course, uh thanks to
Speaker 1: who was that anyway? Um foreshadowing? Uh yeah, although this
Speaker 1: device used charged couple device, uh image sensor, it was
Speaker 1: not a digital camera in the way that we think
Speaker 1: of now. You know, this was a scanner, so it
Speaker 1: was you know, you you you, you did use a
Speaker 1: film camera first and then use the scanner and then
Speaker 1: it would again put film out, so that you know,
Speaker 1: the projectors, the projectors we use were film projectors. They
Speaker 1: weren't digital yet, so uh yeah, going fully digital was
Speaker 1: not a viable option at this point. Um nine nine.
Speaker 1: They created the first computer generated three dimensional fluid based character.
Speaker 1: And boy, how many fluid base characters I have loved
Speaker 1: in the cinema over the years. I can't think of
Speaker 1: any right now, apart from the alien water creature from
Speaker 1: the Abyss, which is what this is talking about. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: I saw, well, I don't know if you if you
Speaker 1: argue that the terminators being sort of liquid and we'll
Speaker 1: get to the terminators as well, but yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 1: So the T one thousands that's really higher a liquid metal,
Speaker 1: you know, No, it was. I remember I saw the
Speaker 1: Abyss in the theater, and I remember not thinking as
Speaker 1: much of the plot as I would have liked to have.
Speaker 1: But the effects were amazing. The effects were amazing, And
Speaker 1: I still remember watching, Um, well, I shouldn't I suppose
Speaker 1: I shouldn't give away one spoiler, but the pseudopod actually
Speaker 1: gets um it's it's a movie that came out in Okay,
Speaker 1: spoilers don't apply anymore. When the door shuts and cuts
Speaker 1: the Pseudopod's got at that point. Yet, I I just
Speaker 1: got the why where the doors open and the pseudopods
Speaker 1: right there and it's friends and I thought they were
Speaker 1: all gonna have a picnic. And so when it gets cut,
Speaker 1: turns into real water and lash four four. Um, just
Speaker 1: it was amazing, It was fantastic. Well, yeah, and that
Speaker 1: that was one of those challenges. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: several things that have been challenges for computer graphics artists
Speaker 1: to recreate in a photo realistic way. Water was one
Speaker 1: of them. Fire is another one. Hair is a big one.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of fire, a lot of
Speaker 1: challenges that that that various people working on computer graphics.
Speaker 1: I've had to try and find a way of of
Speaker 1: designing so that it has that realistic feel on camera.
Speaker 1: And of course Pixar was doing a lot of this
Speaker 1: too around the same time. So in ninety one they
Speaker 1: created the first computer graphics main character. This is the
Speaker 1: one you were referring to, the T one. Yes, that
Speaker 1: was in ninety one and in Terminator two Judgment Day,
Speaker 1: which I remember. I liked it a lot when it
Speaker 1: came out, and as the years go on, I start
Speaker 1: to change my opinion on that, mainly because of my
Speaker 1: love for the first film, even as schlocky and goofy
Speaker 1: as it is, because they kind of totally changed the
Speaker 1: Tea character terminated character in that one. Anyway, now you two.
Speaker 1: They won their twelve Academy Award for Computer Graphics Work,
Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. They also had the first time
Speaker 1: they with human skin texture computer generated human skin texture.
Speaker 1: This was for the movie Death Becomes Her. Did you
Speaker 1: see that one? No? I haven't. I have great effects
Speaker 1: and it's an interesting concept, but I don't know, I
Speaker 1: just did not click with me. But but again, people,
Speaker 1: the effects were amazing, so that's undeniable. The actual film however,
Speaker 1: left me a little cold. Death becomes her. It's been stiff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there wasn't. That was a short time later when they
Speaker 1: actually created a character that seemed to breathe with skin,
Speaker 1: muscles and texture. This is a Jurassic Park. Now. Jurassic
Speaker 1: Park was one of those movies again that when it
Speaker 1: first came out, I remember that people were just completely
Speaker 1: stunned with the quality of the of the digital dinosaurs,
Speaker 1: and that those movies you would watch scenes and you'd think, okay,
Speaker 1: that had to be practical. They must have built a
Speaker 1: giant robot dinosaur for this scene. And then most times
Speaker 1: that was not the case. It was all computer generated. Uh.
Speaker 1: From today's standards. If you were to go back and
Speaker 1: watch Jurassic Park, I say, it largely holds up. But
Speaker 1: there are definitely bits where you'll think, Okay, I can
Speaker 1: kind of tell that's computer generated. Apart from the fact that, yes,
Speaker 1: we know that dinosaurs aren't walking around right now, beyond that,
Speaker 1: I can tell its computer generated. Uh. And there are
Speaker 1: a couple of scenes that are more obvious than others.
Speaker 1: But you gotta thank you know, for nine it was
Speaker 1: a pretty phenomenal achievement. And like I said it more.
Speaker 1: It holds up more than it doesn't. Right now, again,
Speaker 1: another short jump to a film where they did their
Speaker 1: first computer graphic photo realistic hair and fur. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because they had a great model to work
Speaker 1: from with Robin Williams, who is probably the hairyest, furiest
Speaker 1: man on the planet. You're looking at me, funny, Uh,
Speaker 1: that was a that was a joke. That was a joke.
Speaker 1: He was a hairy man. But does a joke make
Speaker 1: jokes about that? They created the effects for all these
Speaker 1: computer generated animals, and these animals were supposed to look
Speaker 1: not They're supposed to like almost a slight fantasy version
Speaker 1: of the real animal, because the idea was these were
Speaker 1: all generated from this magical board game and so it wasn't.
Speaker 1: They didn't need to look exactly like the real world
Speaker 1: version of those animals. They need to look a little
Speaker 1: hyper realistic, but not so much as to be distracting.
Speaker 1: So that was the goal they had for that film. Um.
Speaker 1: They also created, uh, the first synthetic speaking character with
Speaker 1: distinct personality, so how they word it on their timeline,
Speaker 1: That would be Casper from Casper the Ghost which uh
Speaker 1: ghosts I did not watch. But now these were This
Speaker 1: was a case where you're talking about a computer generated
Speaker 1: character that not only appears on screen, but has a
Speaker 1: large an important presence in the film and has to
Speaker 1: be able to convey emotion and meeting and motive. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so that's, you know, that's more challenging than creating
Speaker 1: something that looks real. You have to have something that's
Speaker 1: behaving in a realistic way and a believable way so
Speaker 1: that the audience has an emotional connection with that character,
Speaker 1: and that that it's not easy to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: computer animators and animators in general will tell you, you know,
Speaker 1: once you develop that kind of style where you can
Speaker 1: create that on a reliable basis, it's an amazingly effective
Speaker 1: and useful tool. And before you get there, it is
Speaker 1: just a painstaking process thinking, well, you know, I created
Speaker 1: this character and the sad thing happens to this character,
Speaker 1: but no one seems to care. It's I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a tricky thing to to be able to invoke empathy
Speaker 1: in your audience. Ninety eight they were awarded to I
Speaker 1: l M was awarded two patents for some techniques. One
Speaker 1: was for hair, fur and feathers. Uh. In this case,
Speaker 1: it was the hair, fur and feathers effects they made
Speaker 1: for another movie, Mighty Joe Young, which was a remake.
Speaker 1: I saw the original Mighty Joe Young way back when
Speaker 1: I didn't see the remake. Um, this one was hair raising,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was. And the other one was for
Speaker 1: facial animation, which was again created originally for the film Casper,
Speaker 1: but was also used on other movies like Men in Black.
Speaker 1: They created the most realistic digital human character ever seen
Speaker 1: in film, which was not the Daddy. It was the Mummy.
Speaker 1: Chris is not having a great morning right now. Hey,
Speaker 1: I just listened by the way slight tangent. I just
Speaker 1: listened to one of our older episodes, and uh, and
Speaker 1: you ground my my will to live into the dirt
Speaker 1: with your puns. So you're gonna sit here and you're gonna,
Speaker 1: you're gonna, you're gonna endure this, alright. Two thousand Um.
Speaker 1: That was with the the real time on character motion
Speaker 1: capture system developed for Star Wars episode one. So this
Speaker 1: is this is where they have someone's favorite movie of all,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Yeah. Star Wars episode one. The phenominis which
Speaker 1: I'll say this, I think it's the best of the prequels. Alright,
Speaker 1: that's as much praise as I can give it. But anyway,
Speaker 1: also it has jar Jar, so do the other two prequels.
Speaker 1: It also has Darth Vader saying yippie. And I still
Speaker 1: say it's better than the other two. Um, But that's
Speaker 1: neither here nor there. What they developed was this motion
Speaker 1: capture system that worked in real time. Now, this is
Speaker 1: really useful, and that you could get an actor wearing
Speaker 1: a special suit that would have sensors on our or
Speaker 1: really it's not even sensors, it's just points of reference,
Speaker 1: so for a camera to pick up um and then
Speaker 1: the actor could physically portray a performance within a space.
Speaker 1: And then they take that information that the actor has
Speaker 1: created by moving through the space and the camera picks up.
Speaker 1: They feed it through software and that becomes the guideline
Speaker 1: for the computer generated character that will replace the physical
Speaker 1: actor who was moving through there. Jar Jar is an
Speaker 1: example of that. That was one of the characters that
Speaker 1: that used this um this technology to create the performance. Now,
Speaker 1: while I do not much care for the character of
Speaker 1: jar Jar, I do admit that it was an interesting
Speaker 1: use of technology to be able to give a computer
Speaker 1: generated character more of a physical performance by actually mapping
Speaker 1: it to someone's real movements, because otherwise you've got animators
Speaker 1: trying to simulate real movements as best they can. And
Speaker 1: sometimes it works great and you watch it and you think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that looks real, and sometimes you're like, huh, that doesn't
Speaker 1: look right at all. Yeah, they're going to use this
Speaker 1: technique again, and some of the movies that are coming
Speaker 1: up to to pardon my pun, great effect, um, some
Speaker 1: of my my favorite recent more recent movies. Yep. They
Speaker 1: also began to develop other stuff. In two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: they developed ambient occlusion. Yeah that's uh, that's just what
Speaker 1: it sounds like. Yeah, which, there you go. They actually
Speaker 1: used this in the movie Pearl Harbor. Like it's just
Speaker 1: what it sounds like. I have no idea what you mean. Basically,
Speaker 1: they were using a combination of light and shadows that
Speaker 1: made the lighting appear realistic through the use of computer graphics.
Speaker 1: And they really it really showed uh showed up for
Speaker 1: the first time in Pearl Harbor, the movie, not not
Speaker 1: the actual actual Pearl Harbor, not the place nor the
Speaker 1: historical event. Yes, but they yeah, I mean with the
Speaker 1: the planes in the attack on the the American fleet
Speaker 1: and that you know in the early morning hours. Um,
Speaker 1: you know it required a lot of clever lighting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And shadows. Yeah, you're talking about explosions, You're talking about
Speaker 1: shadows being cast by lots of different objects. You're talking
Speaker 1: about smoke. I mean, there's there are a lot of
Speaker 1: effects here that we kind of you know, you take
Speaker 1: for granted when you watch it on a film, but
Speaker 1: to be able to recreate it realistically in a computer
Speaker 1: environment is not easy, and that that's why a lot
Speaker 1: of this technology went toward. That same year, they also
Speaker 1: created on set visualization processes that would allow a filmmaker
Speaker 1: to put actors into an environment, let's say, like a
Speaker 1: big green screen environment, and look at the virtual sets
Speaker 1: around the real actors, complete with the actual camera motions. Um.
Speaker 1: This was This is useful when you're making a movie
Speaker 1: where a lot of the backgrounds you create are digitally inserted.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not a computer animated film. It's still
Speaker 1: a live action film. But the uh, the the sets
Speaker 1: might be virtual. And we saw this in a lot
Speaker 1: of the movies, like a lot of the Star Wars
Speaker 1: prequels had it. The example they give specifically within the
Speaker 1: Island Timeline is with Steven Spielberg's movie AI Artificial Intelligence. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's another let down. A lot of movies here that
Speaker 1: I didn't really care so much. Yeah, but back to
Speaker 1: the Future I loved. So there's there's that in Dressed Park.
Speaker 1: I love that too. So it's okay, I'll just keep
Speaker 1: doing all right, two thousand three or do we were
Speaker 1: about to say something? I'm sorry, Well, I was going
Speaker 1: to point out that the uh for the ambient occlusion thing.
Speaker 1: They do point out that. Um a few years later
Speaker 1: in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave
Speaker 1: them a cy Tech Award for the ways in which
Speaker 1: ambient inclusion helped advance computer graphics in the motion picture industry. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, looking at it in retrospect, it
Speaker 1: may not have seemed like a big deal at the time.
Speaker 1: It may have seemed all that that movie is lit
Speaker 1: and you know, shadowed very well, but it has played
Speaker 1: a significant role in many, many other films since then.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I mean that's before we went too far. Sure,
Speaker 1: these these developments they're making are things that are are
Speaker 1: pushing forward the filmmaking industry across the entire industry, not
Speaker 1: just for a single movie. Uh, it really I l
Speaker 1: M has done a lot to shape the way movies
Speaker 1: are today. Uh. Without their influence, I would say that
Speaker 1: we'd be we'd have very different films right now if
Speaker 1: it were not for industrial line magic. Doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that they would be better or worse, but they would
Speaker 1: certainly be different. It went so, Yeah, you mentioned the
Speaker 1: two thousand three or you mentioned the awards. They also
Speaker 1: got an award for the way that they found to
Speaker 1: render skin or translucent materials, uh, from the the good
Speaker 1: old cy Tech Award. They also in two thousand four
Speaker 1: created a digital baby for a lemony snicket. It's a
Speaker 1: series of unfortunate events and it was this marked, according
Speaker 1: to I l M, the first time that you had
Speaker 1: a computer generated human character shown an extreme close up.
Speaker 1: So we're getting to the point now where photo realistic
Speaker 1: computer generated characters are within the realm of possibility for
Speaker 1: a serious filmmaker. Um to the to the point where
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily going to be distracting when you watch
Speaker 1: it and you think, wow, that does not look real.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that everyone pulls it off successfully these days,
Speaker 1: but at least it's much more possible. Two thousand six,
Speaker 1: they developed imo cap, which was an image based performance
Speaker 1: capture system, and this was for one of the Pirates
Speaker 1: of the Caribbean movies. And that same year, two thousand six,
Speaker 1: was when Disney made an acquisition. Disney purchased Pixar. So
Speaker 1: you remember back in that's when Pixar struck out on
Speaker 1: its own, not not struck out in the baseball sense,
Speaker 1: but set out as its own company under the the
Speaker 1: the financial support of Steve Jobs. Well, two thousand six,
Speaker 1: Disney makes a move to acquire that company, Pixar. Disney
Speaker 1: and Pixar had already been making several movies together for
Speaker 1: several years, and uh it was it was a strategic
Speaker 1: move to guarantee that Pixar would remain under the Disney family.
Speaker 1: And that also it was kind of a talent grab
Speaker 1: because John Lasseter, who was the head of Pixar at
Speaker 1: the time, would become the creative head of Walt Disney
Speaker 1: Animation as well as a imagineering So um that that
Speaker 1: little acquisition was made for seven point four billion dollars
Speaker 1: in stocks and other assets. So that made Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: the largest shareholder in Disney at that time and put
Speaker 1: him on the Border Directors to seven point four billion. Now,
Speaker 1: that to me is interesting because we already mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: Disney's buying or trying to buy Lucasfilm. As of the
Speaker 1: recording of this podcast, the deal has not been approved,
Speaker 1: but a Disney would be purchasing them for four point
Speaker 1: oh five billions. So you've got a division, a former
Speaker 1: division of Lucasfilm sold for uh, not quite twice as
Speaker 1: much as what the parent company sold for. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: So two thousand seven, Uh, at this point, I LM
Speaker 1: is working on creating a system to simulate fluid motion.
Speaker 1: And this again is tricky. You know, we talked about
Speaker 1: getting a water effect is challenging, and that's true. It's
Speaker 1: also challenging to simulate fluid mechanics, especially you're talking about
Speaker 1: huge quantities. You know, with with the Pirates of the
Speaker 1: Caribbean movies, you're talking about ships on the ocean, So
Speaker 1: you need to be able to simulate the way the
Speaker 1: ocean really moves and the way that objects floating or
Speaker 1: otherwise you know, somehow in the water, how they would
Speaker 1: move as well. So they did a lot of work
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven to perfect that technique. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: actually used a particular system that they called Zeno and
Speaker 1: an engine, a graphics engine called fiz bam UM. And this, uh,
Speaker 1: this was the series I was mentioning a few minutes ago,
Speaker 1: because they they modeled these effects within what they were
Speaker 1: calling a virtual water tank. But of course in the
Speaker 1: in the last in the second and third movies, in
Speaker 1: the installment, UM, there were lots of appearances by Davy
Speaker 1: Jones and his UH daydream believers, UH, his crew, which
Speaker 1: were who had taken on aspects of sea life as
Speaker 1: they lived underwater. UM. And they there's a really cool
Speaker 1: picture out there where they show the uh motion capture
Speaker 1: UM sticker things that they put on that the actors
Speaker 1: to uh while they are you know, pretending to be
Speaker 1: or they're acting as the crew, and it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of cool because they can't get weight, they don't have
Speaker 1: giant fish heads on, UH, but that's you know how
Speaker 1: they did that. And the amazing sea battle effects and
Speaker 1: all the things, the giant maelstrom UM, just amazing stuff.
Speaker 1: And then of course you know the YEP. And in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight they began to work on FEZ
Speaker 1: because fezes are cool. They are according to a doctor
Speaker 1: I know yes, but no Fez was the name of
Speaker 1: a facial animation system that they had been working on.
Speaker 1: And again this is to refine that that ability to
Speaker 1: capture an actor's performance to translate it to a computer
Speaker 1: generated character. This is one of those things that really
Speaker 1: is problematic. It's interest. It's an interesting question to ask
Speaker 1: who is ultimately responsible for a computer generated character's performance? Um,
Speaker 1: Because if you have a performance within a film that
Speaker 1: is award worthy, but it's a computer generated character, who
Speaker 1: do you give the award to? Do you give it
Speaker 1: to the animator who built or the people who built
Speaker 1: the textures and rendered everything and made it now that
Speaker 1: made sure they made all the tweaks to make the
Speaker 1: character look exactly the way the character looks. Do you
Speaker 1: give it to the actor who physically portrayed that character
Speaker 1: and it's that actor's movements that you are watching, even
Speaker 1: though it's a different, uh, computer generated body that's doing
Speaker 1: the motions. Ultimately it was an actor who went through
Speaker 1: those motions. Uh. Is it the voice actor who may
Speaker 1: or may not be the same person who did the
Speaker 1: physical motions. It's a it's a complicated question because the
Speaker 1: performance comes from so many different people working together to
Speaker 1: create this thing you're watching. And I know that that
Speaker 1: was one of those questions that came up during the
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings movies because there were people who
Speaker 1: were saying that Andy Serkis should be nominated for his
Speaker 1: performance as Gollum in those movies. But how much of
Speaker 1: that performance would you say, is his versus the animators
Speaker 1: who created the Uh, I hesitate to use the word physical,
Speaker 1: but the the visual version of the character that you
Speaker 1: see on the screen. And it's I don't think there's
Speaker 1: an easy answer to that question. It may very well
Speaker 1: mean that one day we'll see a new category of
Speaker 1: award come up where it's best performance of some sort
Speaker 1: as opposed to just best Actor or Best Supporting Actor
Speaker 1: or actress. Yes, wow, you waited all that time just
Speaker 1: to do that, all right? Two thousand nine, Uh, we
Speaker 1: had the very GPU engine which was designed to create firestorms.
Speaker 1: So again you know, looking at the stuff that's hard
Speaker 1: to make look real on computer graphics. You know, fire
Speaker 1: and water, those are big and for those are the
Speaker 1: big ones. Well, they they're working on the Harry Potter
Speaker 1: series of movies and they for the sixth film, they
Speaker 1: really needed to be able to have realistic fire eff
Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's the I l M way
Speaker 1: when if you don't have a system that already doesn't,
Speaker 1: go build one and they and so this kind of
Speaker 1: wraps up where they are today. I mean I l
Speaker 1: M is not the only property outside of Lucasfilm that
Speaker 1: will be acquired by Disney if this deal goes through.
Speaker 1: Skywalker's sound is also in there. And you know, Lucas has,
Speaker 1: like we said, he's had a huge influence on the
Speaker 1: way movies are shown today. I mean th h X
Speaker 1: is another example, uh, which Disney I was also going
Speaker 1: to get. So really, when it comes down to the
Speaker 1: the technology behind filmmaking and film projection, film screening, Disney
Speaker 1: is making a huge move here and and some people
Speaker 1: are a little nervous about it. I've got friends who
Speaker 1: work in effects. They work for for effect houses that
Speaker 1: often will get contracted to work on companies um, and
Speaker 1: some of these friends of mine are a little nervous
Speaker 1: because this is sort of showing a consolidation of effects
Speaker 1: houses and that could mean less competition and fewer opportunities
Speaker 1: for these artists. So there are things to worry about
Speaker 1: depending upon what field you are in. Yeah, but nonetheless,
Speaker 1: I still think it will be interesting to see and
Speaker 1: if some of the people leave, um, you know, they
Speaker 1: may very well take the ability to uh do these
Speaker 1: complex the knowledge that it takes to to build these
Speaker 1: complex effects with them, making the acquisition less valuable. There's
Speaker 1: always a chance that people could strike out and create
Speaker 1: their own uh companies as well and start competing with
Speaker 1: their old company. I mean that's happened several times in
Speaker 1: the past as well, so it's too early to say.
Speaker 1: But some of the movies Alam has worked on we've
Speaker 1: talked about, of course, the Star Wars series all the
Speaker 1: way from episode four through six and then one through three. Uh,
Speaker 1: the several Star Trek films generations first contact on Star
Speaker 1: Wars are Star Trek Wrath of con which is my
Speaker 1: favorite of all of the Star Trek films because it's
Speaker 1: very cold. It's space. Yes, it is fine Corinthian leather. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Jurassic Park movies. Uh, you know, had the mask
Speaker 1: Forrest Gump, Twister. Never had I felt that a cow
Speaker 1: really did fly past someone's windshield until I saw Twister. Uh,
Speaker 1: Mission impossible. Three. They They've worked on many, many, many movies.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you if you watch any film that
Speaker 1: has a lot of special effects in it, and you
Speaker 1: wait to the end. Uh, it's amazing how many of
Speaker 1: them have Industrial Light and Magic listed as at least
Speaker 1: part of the team that worked on the effects. Also,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to realize how many films you may
Speaker 1: not have realized have a lot of special effects in
Speaker 1: them because the special effects are to make the film
Speaker 1: look more like real life. Uh, Forrestcump is a good one,
Speaker 1: although you could argue that no, no, that's clear because
Speaker 1: you know, Tom Hanks never actually shook hands with that
Speaker 1: many presidents still. But but even so, that's that's one
Speaker 1: of those where the special effects are there to create
Speaker 1: the story, but they're not you know, it's not spectacle
Speaker 1: the way it would be in a big science fiction
Speaker 1: film or something. Right. So, yeah, they have had a
Speaker 1: monumental effect on the movie industry, definitely, and uh, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they will continue to do so even whether whether
Speaker 1: Disney's deal goes through or not. I'm sure it will
Speaker 1: remain a big player in the the effects industry. All Right,
Speaker 1: we're back, and I wanted to just say that. Of course,
Speaker 1: as we know, Disney did in fact purchase Industrial Light
Speaker 1: and Magic. It amazes me that that happened back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve, because I'm really bad at ordering
Speaker 1: big events in chronological order in my mind. In my mind,
Speaker 1: Chris had already left as co host and the and
Speaker 1: Disney had not even thought about buying Lucasfilm at that time.
Speaker 1: Obviously that's not the case, but that's not how I remember.
Speaker 1: It just shows me that my memory is faulty. Also,
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention, of course, I made a joke
Speaker 1: about Robin Williams in this episode, and I miss Robin
Speaker 1: Williams very much. I even thought about leaving in a
Speaker 1: note to say, cut the joke about Robin Williams. But
Speaker 1: I think, considering who Robin Williams was and his sort
Speaker 1: of irreverence since the humor, that it's more of a
Speaker 1: nice tribute to leave it in than to cut it out.
Speaker 1: So that's why I did not cut out that joke.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to talk about some of the movies
Speaker 1: Industrial Light and Magic has worked on since we published
Speaker 1: that episode, and this is not an exhaustive list, but
Speaker 1: just a few to give you an idea of some
Speaker 1: of the stuff they've worked on. They did effects for
Speaker 1: Star Trek Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, Captain America, The Winter Soldier,
Speaker 1: which is my favorite of the Marvel movie so far,
Speaker 1: Teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtles, Avengers, Age of Ultron, Jurassic World,
Speaker 1: Aunt Man, The Martian, which is great. If you haven't
Speaker 1: seen The Martian or read the book, go do one
Speaker 1: or both of those things. It's a great fun story.
Speaker 1: And Star Wars The Force Awakens. Of course they did
Speaker 1: the effects for that when Star Wars came back. I
Speaker 1: hope you guys enjoyed it. I thought it was okay.
Speaker 1: There are other movies that they're working on right now,
Speaker 1: Captain America Civil War being one of them, the next
Speaker 1: Star Wars movie, the next couple of Star Wars movies another,
Speaker 1: and obviously lots of other stuff. So Industrial Light and
Speaker 1: Magic still going strong under the command of Disney. They've
Speaker 1: even opened up a new studio in Soho in London,
Speaker 1: so that's pretty exciting too. Anyway, thank you for joining
Speaker 1: me on this classic episode of tech stuff. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this look back, and I'll be back with
Speaker 1: new episodes really soon. If you guys want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with me, give me suggestions for future topics
Speaker 1: or guests I should have on the show, interviews, that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Let me know the email addresses tech
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or drop me
Speaker 1: a line on Facebook or Twitter. At Facebook and Twitter,
Speaker 1: I am tech Stuff H s W. And I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again. Really since for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot
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