WEBVTT - Classic TechStuff: Industrial Light and Magic 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:12.640 Get text with technology with tech Stuff Stuff, be there 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:16.120 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and today 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:18.759 I want to bring to you a classic episode of 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:21.760 tech Stuff. It's been a while since I've dug into 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.120 the archives and brought up something what was recorded before, 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:27.720 and I tend to avoid that if I can. But 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:29.800 we've got a lot going on at how Stuff works. 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.960 As I record this, the entire editorial team is all 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.080 a buzz about our presence at south By Southwest. By 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.320 the time you hear this, we will have gone and returned. 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.920 But uh I in order to get everything done, I 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:46.199 needed to do a quick rerun, and that's why I'm 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.440 gonna look at this classic episode tech Stuff looks at 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.320 industrial light and magic. That means you're going to hear 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:56.480 the one and only Chris Palette, my former co host, 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:01.560 who uh phenomenal guy, great co So if you haven't 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.959 heard any classic episodes, prepared to be amazed at his 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:06.920 wit and humor. Also, I just want to give you 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:11.120 a quick update to the story, so I'll do that 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:13.720 when we get back at the end of the episode. 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.640 So please enjoy this classic episode. I'll rejoin you at 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:26.319 the end. See you in a bit. So, Yeah, we 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:31.160 wanted to talk today about a special visual effects studio 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:36.240 named Industrial Light and Magic. And the reason why we 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:40.039 decided to cover this particular topic is that, well, Industrial 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.640 Light and Magic is part of well, it's one of 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:47.160 the many things that George Lucas created, including things like 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.840 Lucas Film, And that's been the news recently, because that's 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:52.680 the recording of this podcast. It has not been that 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:58.240 long since Disney announced its intention to acquire Lucas Film 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:02.800 for the Parents Lee some of four point zero five 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:08.720 billion with a B dollars, mostly all of which apparently 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.919 will be donated to George Lucas's educational charity. Right, Yeah, 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.200 it's pretty phenomenal. George Lucas back in twos ten pledged 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:21.400 that he was going to dedicate his wealth to philanthropic endeavors, 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:26.720 mostly due uh to um more, mostly towards education, which 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.079 kind of it's nice and it shows that he's following 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:33.839 in the same sort of vein as other notable rich 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.560 people and philanthropists like Bill Gates. Yeah, and that's not 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.240 really what the the podcast is about. We're not talking 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:42.840 about George and and things, but I did want to 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:46.600 throw that in there simply because that was a pretty 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.560 amazing thing to do. Everyone would do that very cool 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.960 thing to do. Uh. It almost makes me not want 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.400 to criticize him for some of the decisions he's made. Well, 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:58.880 I think it gives us a picture of who he 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:02.440 is as a person us and although he does see himself, 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:07.160 I think as a as someone who uh is empowered 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:12.400 to revise things that were previously released and then that 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.240 that does infuriate a lot of people, among other things 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:17.520 that he's done. But you know, I get the sense 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.160 to that, Hey, he's not a bad guy. Of course, 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.240 that's what he wants us to think. But come on, 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.760 come on, how who's going to go to the extent 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.399 of of donating the majority of their wealth to education 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.600 in order to convince the world they're not a bad guy. 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.720 He's clearly a good guy. Yeah, I would say so, 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.320 so he's a better guy than I am. So so 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:41.440 well well done, Mr Lucas. But but yeah, I mean 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.520 he's he's also the same kind of person that is 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:49.920 driven creatively. He's he's willing to come up with complete 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:56.160 new uh businesses to support his creative habits. We we 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.240 might say, even though we may not necessarily agree with them, 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:02.120 I would argue, I would say personally for me that 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:04.800 you know, his heart's in the right place. He's trying 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.280 to create a good story and it doesn't always pan out. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:09.720 You gotta sounds like you gotta remember back, all right. 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:15.560 So he founded Industrial Light and Magic. Yes in Yes. Now, 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:19.000 that's two years before the release of Star Wars A 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.800 New Hope, one of the best documentaries ever to be made. Well, 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.760 he um as a filmmaker and his his filmmaking career 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:31.320 began before that. Um but he you know, American Graffiti 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:35.120 wasn't exactly um A, it wasn't as it wasn't a 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:39.800 positive experience, wasn't It wasn't a special effects driven masterpiece. 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:42.560 You know, it was a very good film. I liked it, 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:45.600 but um you know, it wasn't It wasn't the kind 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.880 of film that that George Lucas has come to be 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.599 known for. He mega super effects blockbuster, which uh many 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.000 would argue that he is responsible for and in part 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.120 due to Industrial Light and Magic. Really, the the two 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.520 people I think who are responsible for the blockbuster special 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.240 effects extravaganza are Lucas and Spielberg, And of course Spielberg 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:09.000 has had quite a bit of involvement in uh several 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.640 of Lucas's endeavors. But anyway, yeah, he so he founded 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.760 this visual effects company and it was probably because Lucas 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.520 uh he he knew he wanted to do things a 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:24.040 certain way, and in order to do that, he wanted 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.960 to limit his dependence upon other companies as much as possible. 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.440 So he started to make stuff. He said, well, there's 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.040 no visual effects company out there that that is going 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.280 to do the stuff I need to have done, so 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.680 I'm gonna make it myself. And uh so he's kind 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.160 of a hacker. Yeah, it really is a lot of ways, 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.520 and and this was all due to necessity. You know, 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.680 he wanted to have as much control over the project 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:51.480 as possible in order to do that, and then that 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.760 he had to build all this stuff, and so he 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:56.760 set out to do it, and that's exactly what he did. 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.120 It's kind of amazing. Well, there's a you know, the 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:05.160 industrial line. Magic has been responsible for many different advances 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:09.360 in movie making technology over the years. Back in one 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:14.359 of the first things they developed was the Dixtra flex 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.960 camera system that's named after John Distra, who was actually 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.200 the lead designer on this camera design. Uh, and it's 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.280 it was made because if you've if well it's kind 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.080 of hard to say, like if you if you saw 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:29.479 the Star Wars and New Hope back in its cinematic 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:34.720 release version, this is pre special addition, all the effects 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.720 there for things like the ship battles and stuff, all 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.960 the all the ships, all the the Death Star stuff, 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:49.720 all that was made with practical effects, practical miniature models 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.280 that so, so the X Wings going through the trench 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.240 and Death Star that was all done with managers. So 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:02.280 this is pre computer generated special effects in that sense. Yeah. 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.840 And the sound to the the orchestra. Uh, would you 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:07.640 know they would put these models on the dolly and 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:09.600 then the orchestra will be on a dolly behind them 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.920 playing the music. No, let's go a little too far there, Chris, 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.760 But but this long way to go for a bad joke. This, 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.520 this camera, this camera was was special because in order 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:23.560 to get the effect that Lucas wanted, he wanted the 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:28.200 spaceship seems to look like uh, like dog fights, like 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.680 airplane dog fights from World War two movies. Yeah. And 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:36.640 and the reason that those uh that that film, uh, 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.080 and we're talking about existing film. The reason that that 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:44.800 film is so effective. I think is because it's been 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.480 It was shot by another airplane in the air at 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.400 the same time as a dog fight. And this this 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:59.520 motion control photography that I LM developed for this um used. Uh, basically, 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.800 we're using cameras that moved in with the spaceship models, 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.280 so it appeared that you were flying in the in 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:11.480 the dog fights between the different fighters or the Millennium 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.000 Falcon and the Tie fighters. Yea, so it was there 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.800 was a real sense of movement right right. The camera 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.840 was mounted on a crane, and the crane was mounted 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.480 on a Dolly track, so they don't do a Hello 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:31.120 Dolly joke, I didn't say, okay, so anyway, so the 0:08:31.160 --> 0:08:33.880 crane could move back and forth along this track, the 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.800 camera could could move in various ways to adjust the 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.839 the pitch or the tilt of the of the camera's angle, 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:45.720 so it could follow the motions of the miniature and 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:50.200 make it you have this this really swoopy effect where 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.360 like Chris was saying, you're following the action very closely, 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:56.760 and uh, it was a necessity for him to achieve 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.600 the effect he wanted. So he builds this Actually he 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.800 puts John Dixtra in charge of it, and John and 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.280 his team built it. I call him John Smart. Uh. 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.560 And they shoot the movie, and in nineteen seventy seven, 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:15.319 Star Wars New Hope hits theaters and becomes an amazing success. 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:20.480 The two movies that that really launched the era of 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:26.360 blockbuster summer hits were Jaws and Star Wars. Yeah. Um 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.880 and uh. You know what you get when you come 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.480 up with a new kind of special effects technology an 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:37.480 Academy Award. Yes, they won that for Vision visual Effects 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.079 in nineteen seventy seven. John Steers, I think of him 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:45.080 as Dikest, John Dikester, Richard Grant, M Grant mckeun, and 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:49.080 Robert Blaock. I can't can't say any of their names. 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:53.240 I'm just gonna call him the guys. They're all John. Yeah, 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.480 it's a matter of fact. They also got a Special 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.040 Achievement Award in nineteen eighty visual Effects. Right. But before 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.360 we get to nineteen eight, something happens in nineteen seventy 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:03.800 nine that I want to talk about something something special. 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.640 There was a special division formed in nineteen seventy nine 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.120 and Industrial Light and Magic. That division was called the 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:17.080 Graphics Group, Uh, specializing in Computer Animation and effects. Wait, 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.360 I feel like I should know who these guys are. 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.559 When we get to nineteen eight six, it all become clear. 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.520 But yeah, in nineteen seventy nine, the division, the Graphics 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.360 Group forms an Industrial Light and Magic. That division will 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:33.840 become incredibly important and influential and but oddly enough, their 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:39.840 most influential days will be after they leave Lucas Film 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:44.840 and Industrial Line Magic. So moving on, UH nineteen eighty 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:49.400 that's when Empire Strikes Back, the second greatest documentary. Actually, 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.640 I think that people would argue that's better than Star 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.200 Wars most people, And you know, I actually prefer a 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.800 New Hope to Empire, but I really love Empire too. 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:00.240 It's just one of those things where you know, New 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.240 Hope really resonates with me, but Empire is great. So 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.439 Empire Strikes Back comes out. They do win the Special 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:12.600 Achievement Academy Award for Visual Effects for that. The Indiana 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:14.840 Jones and Raiders The Last Start comes out. Now, that 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:20.880 was another UH the project that UH had Spielberg's involvement, 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:23.600 and they won the Academy Award for Visual Effects for that. 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:29.480 They also made a movie, Did you ever see Dragon Slayer? Okay, 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:31.640 So I saw Dragon Slayer back when I was a kid. 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:34.160 Dragon Slayers a fantasy film, and it's pretty much what 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:36.120 you would think it is. It's a story about a 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.800 young hero who uh sets out to slay a dragon. 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.640 It's a little more complicated and that, but that's just yea. 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:48.760 So they designed a new kind of filmmaking for this 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:53.360 as well. They decided that there's a problem with working 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:59.520 with practical effects for monsters that are um the go beyond, 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.520 like some think someone in just a suit right, because 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:03.959 one of the things you could do is you could 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:08.240 do stop motion animation to create a monster effect, because 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:13.720 it's it's hard to build a giant monster so and 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:15.920 it it really it's hard to make it look right too. 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:18.920 It takes a lot of work. If I've shown my 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:25.880 kids older monster movie bits, and it's kind of easy 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.520 to on the one hand, when you grew up with 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.400 pre I l M movies and technology and and Jonathan 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.760 and I probably barely qualify into that. But you know, 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.280 you look at at some of the old monster movies 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.479 and you could see the zipper marks in the costumes 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.280 and the older stuff. You don't you're not freaked out 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:50.040 by that. Anymore. But you know, the practical effects um 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.600 could be done very very well, and even when they're 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:54.680 done very very well, it still doesn't have the same 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:59.160 effect that the newer ones do, and just it's it's 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.240 just weird to think about now. But yeah, I mean, 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:05.480 looking at the new stuff, it looks so very very real. Yeah, well, 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.240 back then, you know, with the practical effects, that's pretty 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.679 much all they had at their their disposal at this point. 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:17.600 Back they developed something called go Motion and Go Motion. Uh. 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.040 The way that they explain it on the Industrial Light 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.440 and Magic website is that it worked by fusing quote, 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.880 both electronic and mechanical components into a device that could 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:31.080 record the dragon in Dragon Slayers movements based on an 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.520 animator's design and play them back so the camera could 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:39.199 capture them as they occurred. So the reason for this 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.760 is because if they if they were to do it 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:46.480 in traditional stop motion, there'd be no motion blur when 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.560 something moves quickly, because because all you're doing is just 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:55.200 taking a bunch of individual photographs really of objects that 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:57.439 are not in motion, and then you're playing them back 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.600 to make it look like the object was in motion 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:02.880 to get motion blur. The thing actually needs to be moving. 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.640 It helps, but that's not how stop motion works because 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:12.599 the name stop Anyway, it was an interesting development. It 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:18.120 was something that they had, um uh created two again 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.680 to meet the needs of the project that without having 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:28.120 to you know, completely reinvent everything. Two They they got 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.280 another Academy award. Um I'm not gonna go through every 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.040 Academy award Industrial Line Magic has won because that would 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.080 be ridiculous. But they got it for one of my 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.240 favorite films as a kid growing up, which was ET 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:44.960 the Extraterrestrial. Yes, I loved this movie as a kid. 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:47.960 I think I must have seen it three or four 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.760 times the summer that it came out, and I probably 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.160 cried my eyes out every single time I watched it 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.240 because I'm a SAP. I've been a sap all my life. 0:14:57.320 --> 0:14:59.320 I still am a SAP. I probably could watch ET 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.960 without crying now, but back as a kid, there was 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:06.080 just no hope. Um But anyway, that that was another 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:11.080 very popular film made by h. Lucas and Spielberg. So 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.200 uh And of course we should point out uh Lucas's 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.560 involvement in some of these films is more of a 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:21.160 kind of advisory sort of role. Industrial line, Magic worked 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.080 on lots of projects, not just lucasfilm projects, which is 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.800 why you know et is an Amblin project, not lucasfilm. Well. 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.240 I wanted to point that out too, that it would 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:36.200 have been easy for George Lucas to restrict Industrial Light 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:39.120 and Magic to working on his films. Yeah, but then 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.280 we would have hardly any of them because he didn't 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:43.560 do very many. Well, I mean, that's that's part of it. 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:47.360 But I mean he could have. He could have done say, uh, 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:51.600 the Indiana Jones films and the Star Wars film stuff 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:55.320 that he was intimately more intimately involved with, um, you know, 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:57.880 the projects that he and Spielberg worked on together in 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:02.160 some capacity. But he you know, they decided to spend 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.720 this off into its own company, and in doing so 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.360 they made I would argue that they made film richer 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.960 for it. I mean you could say that, you know, 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:17.280 working on on Star Trek too, um, you know, and 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:22.520 one of the greatest documentaries ever made ever boy. Um, 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.200 so you might say, well, you know, Star there there's 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.080 this whole Star Wars versus Star Trek, which I think 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:33.040 is silly anyway, um personally, but you know, they you 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.240 might say, well, you wouldn't necessarily you might want Star 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.280 Wars to be the dominant uh science fiction space franchise. 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:42.960 You know, why would you let him work on Star Trek. Well, 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:48.840 I think, like I said, it really populated film with 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.880 the DNA of Industrial LIGHTE and Magic and made them 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.080 the powerhouse that they are now. Um and yeah, I 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.560 mean they got a nomination for that too. Um. They 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:02.360 did other work for other are of the Star Wars 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.000 and Star Trek films and going through you could see 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.159 this in their the timeline on the Industrial LIGHTE and 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:11.480 Magic website. Um. But yeah, they really and they got 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:15.000 involved in stuff. Now you would say, also, these films 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:20.800 are going to be heavily dependent on uh, special effects, 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.800 and you would expect that to be so. But um 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.280 on other stuff like um, you know you would see 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:28.159 it too for things like Back to the Future, the 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.600 Back to the Future franchise, But they also worked on 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:33.400 the Industrial line. Magic also worked on stuff like Out 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:38.040 of Africa and Young Sherlock Holmes, uh, stuff that had 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.840 special effects. But some of this stuff is less special 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.760 effect driven. The special effect the special and special effects 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:49.280 in this case is making it look photo realistic rather 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:56.440 than looking fantastic. Yeah, UM, yeah, I agree. The uh 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:58.360 and and you know there are other analogs we can 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.360 compare this to, like the wet A Workshop, which did 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:03.440 all the work for the Lord of the Rings movies, 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:07.920 and the Hobbit has also done work for other other 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.600 production companies. That's so they have done designed for lots 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:17.080 of stuff, not just the Peter Jackson productions, So there 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.840 are other similarities there. I'm glad you mentioned Young Sherlock Holmes. 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:26.119 In five I lm achieved something no one had done before. 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.560 They created the first computer generated character in a film, 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:34.360 fully computer generated character. Uh, Sam glassmates Stained Glass Man 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:37.360 from Young Sherlock Holmes. Uh. In this case, what's happening 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.399 for those of you who have not seen Young Sherlock Holmes, 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.359 which is a pretty good movie that's slowly paced, but 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.000 it's I enjoyed it. Uh. It's It's got a lot 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.600 of cute references in it that clue you into the 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.240 man that Holmes will become and actually the man that 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.679 Watson will become as well, though it really messes up 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.720 their ages anyway. Uh. There's there's this The plot involves 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:05.119 this stuff, this substance that causes people to hallucinate and 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:10.440 they hallucinate these terrifying visions that drive them to essentially suicide. 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.320 And in this particular case, it's a character who is 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.800 looking he's in a building with stained glass windows, and 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:21.679 one of the stained glass figures comes to life, jumping 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:23.760 out of the window, and it's a night that is 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.920 made out of stained glass that stalks the guy. So 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.359 that's the scene, and that was the first use of 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.200 a computer a fully computer generated character in the film 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:36.680 Who's Stalking Nice. So in nine six here's where the 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:42.040 spinoff happens. That um that I mentioned. So back in 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.960 seventy nine they had the Graphics Group Division, and eight 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:50.360 six Lucasfilm spins off the Graphics Group Division as its 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:55.320 own company with a healthy dose of funding from a 0:19:55.359 --> 0:20:00.440 certain Mr. Steve Jobs who had kind of lost his job. 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.800 Yeah he was he had a gig and then they 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.919 cut him loose. Yeah, he he just founded Apple and 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:09.879 then got pushed off to the very edges of that 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:15.560 company and essentially they kind of fired him without saying 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:19.080 he's fired. And then he said, all right, I guess 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.240 I'm going and he left. And then but yeah, he 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.280 poured in a great deal of money to the Graphics 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:31.320 Group which became Pixar. So Pixar at this time was 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:36.560 again really kind of pioneering computer graphics, computer animation. It 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:41.800 would of course be several years before um Pixar would 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:49.760 enter in it's uh, it's long and fruitful relationship with Disney. Yes, so, 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:52.640 but that that did have its you know, start way 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.199 back then. And yeah, they were um of course they 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.320 weren't what they are now. But you know, and you 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:02.439 might say, I can't believe that George Lucas allowed this 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.480 to happen, but at the time it probably wasn't so 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.280 clear cut. It was very expensive to do what they 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.680 were doing, and there there were there were no clear 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.600 indicators at that time. I mean, computer hardware wasn't what 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:16.200 it is now either. It would be a good long 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:20.520 decade before you start to see this really kind of payoff, 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:26.320 but boy did it. So Industrial Line Magic entered in 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.760 with a partnership with a little company called Kodak, which, uh, 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:33.280 of course has seen some hard times recently. But Kodak 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:39.720 and I LM produced the first high resolution film input scanner. 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:43.399 Now this was important because what I could let you 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:48.040 do is digitally scan film. Then you could edit it 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.240 with a computer and then you would print it back 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:55.800 out onto film, and uh, you wouldn't have to do 0:21:55.840 --> 0:22:00.240 all those edits manually using the traditional methods of of 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.040 cutting film and editing that way, So it gave a 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:07.880 lot more versatility to the editing process. And you guys 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:10.280 may not be aware of this, but it really is 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:14.520 true that films are made in the editing booth. That 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:18.680 you can shoot hours and hours and hours of footage 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:23.360 of actors doing lines and and uh and running around 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.879 and explosions and whatever. But until you get into the 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:28.760 editing booth and put it all together, you do not 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.879 have a movie. And in fact, I have seen evidence 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:37.760 of amazing films coming from what you would imagine to 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:43.320 be um worthless footage, and it's all due to a 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:47.880 really creative editor finding ways to make something interesting when before, 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:50.800 like you might watch a sequence that originally was twelve 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:55.040 minutes long and you think, wow, this is unusable, and 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:57.200 then an editor gets ahold of it and cuts it 0:22:57.240 --> 0:22:59.160 down to like seven and a half minutes, and suddenly 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:03.920 it's phenomenal. And so uh, this is one of those 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:07.400 important developments in the industry. Now, granted, this is only 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.600 important as long as film remains a factor, and of 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.320 course that doesn't always hold true. We've done a lot 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:15.480 of digital productions out there. In fact, almost everything is 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:18.800 digital now yeah and now of course, uh thanks to 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:23.760 who was that anyway? Um foreshadowing? Uh yeah, although this 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:28.280 device used charged couple device, uh image sensor, it was 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:31.400 not a digital camera in the way that we think 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:34.719 of now. You know, this was a scanner, so it 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:36.840 was you know, you you you, you did use a 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:40.080 film camera first and then use the scanner and then 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:42.679 it would again put film out, so that you know, 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:45.679 the projectors, the projectors we use were film projectors. They 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:49.119 weren't digital yet, so uh yeah, going fully digital was 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:53.080 not a viable option at this point. Um nine nine. 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:58.439 They created the first computer generated three dimensional fluid based character. 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:03.120 And boy, how many fluid base characters I have loved 0:24:03.119 --> 0:24:06.600 in the cinema over the years. I can't think of 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:11.239 any right now, apart from the alien water creature from 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:13.960 the Abyss, which is what this is talking about. Yes, now, 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:16.399 I saw, well, I don't know if you if you 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:19.840 argue that the terminators being sort of liquid and we'll 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:22.200 get to the terminators as well, but yeah, I guess so. 0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:26.760 So the T one thousands that's really higher a liquid metal, 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:30.480 you know, No, it was. I remember I saw the 0:24:30.480 --> 0:24:34.040 Abyss in the theater, and I remember not thinking as 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:36.040 much of the plot as I would have liked to have. 0:24:36.600 --> 0:24:40.040 But the effects were amazing. The effects were amazing, And 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:44.879 I still remember watching, Um, well, I shouldn't I suppose 0:24:44.920 --> 0:24:48.520