WEBVTT - TechStuff Looks at Industrial Light and Magic 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:05.360 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:13.440 stuff works dot com. You know that disturbance in the 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:18.080 force isn't an illusion. It's the beginning of another episode 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.200 of tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette, and I 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:22.600 am an editor here at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.760 Apparently deceived into thinking that would be a cool new intro. 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.680 Sitting across from me as usual is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:34.000 Hello from a podcast from long long ago and far 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.519 far away, and far far away. I am pretty far 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:40.000 out there, so yeah, we wanted to talk today about 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:46.200 a special visual effects studio named Industrial Light and Magic. 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.600 And the reason why we decided to cover this particular 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:53.559 topic is that, well, Industrial Light and Magic is part of, 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.560 well one of the many things that George Lucas created, 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:01.520 including things like Lucas Film. And that's been the news recently, 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.160 because that's the recording of this podcast. It has not 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:08.479 been that long since Disney announced its intention to acquire 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:13.680 Lucas Film for the parents lie some of four point 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:19.600 zero five billion with a B dollars, mostly all of 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:24.679 which apparently will be donated to George Lucas's educational charity. Right, Yeah, 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.200 it's pretty phenomenal George Lucas back in Twousen pledged that 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:33.160 he was going to dedicate his wealth to philanthropic endeavors, 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:38.480 mostly due uh to um more, mostly towards education, which 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:40.880 kind of it's nice and it shows that he's following 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:45.600 in the same sort of vein as other notable rich 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:49.320 people and philanthropists like Bill Gates. Yeah, and that's not 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.000 really what the the podcast is about. We're not talking 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.600 about George and and things. But I did want to 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.360 throw that in there simply because that was a pretty 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:00.280 amazing thing to do. It's a very kind of bone 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:02.480 would do that, very cool thing to do. Uh. It 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.320 almost makes me not want to criticize him for some 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:09.079 of the decisions he's made. Well, I think it gives 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.519 us a picture of who he is as a person, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.359 and although he does see himself, I think as a 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:21.560 as someone who is empowered to revise things that were 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.519 previously released and then that that does infuriate a lot 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.440 of people, among other things that he's done. But you know, 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:30.800 I get the sense to that, Hey, he's not a 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:32.959 bad guy. Of course that's what he wants us to think. 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.760 But come on, come on, how who's going to go 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:40.079 to the extent of of donating the majority of their 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.720 wealth to education in order to convince the world they're 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.200 not a bad guy. He's clearly a good guy. Yeah, 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.120 I would say so. So he's a better guy than 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:52.560 I am. So so well, well done, Mr Lucas. But 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:54.520 but yeah, I mean he's he's also the same kind 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:59.520 of person that is driven creatively. He's he's willing to 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:06.240 come up with complete new uh businesses to support his 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:09.400 creative habits. We might say, even though we may not 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:12.800 necessarily agree with them. I would I would say personally 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:16.160 for me that you know, his heart's in the right place. 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:18.360 He's trying to create a good story and it doesn't 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.480 always pan out. Sounds like you gotta remember back, all right. 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:27.360 So he founded Industrial Light and Magic. Yes in Yes, Now, 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:30.720 that's two years before the release of Star Wars A 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.560 New Hope, one of the best documentaries ever to be made. Well, 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.520 he um as a filmmaker, and his his filmmaking career 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:43.080 began before that. Um but he you know, American Graffiti 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.840 wasn't exactly um a, it wasn't as it wasn't a 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:51.560 positive experience, wasn't It wasn't a special effects driven masterpiece. 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:54.320 You know, it was a very good film. I liked it, 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.360 but um, you know, it wasn't It wasn't the kind 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.640 of film that that George Lucas is come to be 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.400 known for. Well, he make a super effects blockbuster, which 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.360 uh many would argue that he is responsible for and 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.320 in part due to industrial Lite and magic. Really, the 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.880 the two people I think who are responsible for the 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:17.320 blockbuster special effects extravaganza are Lucas and Spielberg. And of 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.560 course Spielberg has had quite a bit of involvement in 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.560 uh several of Lucas's endeavors. But anyway, Yeah, he so 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.799 he founded this visual effects company, and it was partly 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:30.880 because Lucas, uh he he knew he wanted to do 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:34.080 things a certain way, and in order to do that, 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:39.919 he wanted to limit his dependence upon other companies as 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.560 much as possible. So he started to make stuff. He said, well, 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:46.800 there's no visual effects company out there that is going 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.040 to do the stuff I need to have done, so 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.240 I'm going to make it myself. And uh so he's 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:54.600 kind of a hacker. Yeah, it really is a lot 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:58.040 of ways, and and this was all due to necessity, 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.160 you know, he wanted to have as much control all 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.760 over the project as possible. In order to do that, 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.279 and then that he had to build all this stuff, 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:07.680 and so he set out to do it, and that's 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.320 exactly what he did. It's kind of amazing. Well, there's 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.120 a you know, the industrial light and magic has been 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:18.960 responsible for many different advances in movie making technology over 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.920 the years. Back in nine, one of the first things 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:29.039 they developed was the Dixtra Flex camera system. That's named 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.760 after John Distra, who was actually the lead designer on 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.200 this camera design. Uh. And it's it was made because 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.640 if you if well it's kind of hard to say, 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:39.599 like if you if you saw The Star Wars and 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.719 New Hope back in its cinematic release version, this is 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:48.600 pre special edition. All the effects there for things like 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.680 the ship battles and stuff, all the all the ships, 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.960 all the the Death Star stuff, all that was made 0:05:56.160 --> 0:06:03.120 with practical effects, practical miniature models that so, so the 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.240 X Wings going through the trench and Death Star that 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:10.320 was all done with managers. So this is pre computer 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:14.640 generated special effects in that sense. Yeah, and the sound 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.039 to the the orchestra, Uh, would you know they would 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.000 put these models on the Dolly and then the orchestra 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.159 will be on the dolly behind them playing the music. 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.240 No let's go a little too far there, Chris, but 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.159 but this long way to go for a bad joke. 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.960 This this camera, this camera was was special because in 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.800 order to get the effect that Lucas wanted, he wanted 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:39.800 the spaceship scenes to look like um, like dog fights, 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:44.200 like airplane dog fights from World War two movies. Yeah. 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.080 And and the reason that those uh that that film, 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.520 uh and we're talking about existing film. Yeah, the reason 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.920 that that film is so effective, I think is because 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:59.720 it's been it was shot by another airplane in the 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.240 air at the same time as a dog fight. And 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:06.920 this this motion control photography that I LM developed for 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:13.320 this UM used uh, basically was using cameras that moved 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.240 in with the spaceship models, so it appeared that you 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.480 were flying in the in the dog fights between the 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.960 different fighters or the Millennium Falcon and the Tie fighters. 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.280 So it was there was a real sense of movement 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.360 right right. The camera was mounted on a crane, and 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.800 the crane was mounted on a dolly track, So they 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:40.280 don't do a Hello Dolly joke. I didn't anyone, Okay, 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:44.360 So the so the crane could move back and forth 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.920 along this track. The camera could could move in various 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.560 ways to adjust the the pitch or the tilt of 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.680 the of the camera's angle, so it could follow the 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:59.440 motions of the miniature and make it you have this 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:03.040 this really swoopy effect, where like Chris was saying, you're 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.760 following the action very closely. And uh, it was a 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.920 necessity for him to achieve the effect he wanted. So 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.400 he builds this thing. Actually, he puts John Dixtra in 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:15.520 charge of it, and John and his team built it. 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.400 I call him John Smart. Uh, and they they shoot 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.040 the movie and in nineteen seventy seven, Star Wars New 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:28.080 Hope hits theaters and becomes an amazing success. The two 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:33.520 movies that that really launched the era of blockbuster summer 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:38.840 hits were Jaws and Star Wars. Yeah, um, and uh, 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.960 you know what you get when you come up with 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:46.920 a new kind of special effects technology an Academy Award. Yes, 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.120 it won that for vis Visual Effects in nineteen seventy seven. 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.120 John Steers, I think of him as dikest, John Dikes, 0:08:53.440 --> 0:09:00.120 Richard Grant mc grant mckeun, and Robert Black that can't 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.240 say any of their names, I'm just gonna call him. 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.760 They're all John now. Yeah, it's a matter of fact. 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.720 They also got a Special Achievement Award in nineteen eighty 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.839 Visual Effects. Right, but before we get to nineteen eighties, 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:13.800 something happens in nineteen seventy nine that I want to 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:18.280 talk about something, something special. There was a special division 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.720 formed in nineteen seventy nine and Industrial Light and Magic. 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:26.640 That division was called the Graphics Group, Uh, specializing in 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.800 computer animation and effects. Wait, I feel like I should 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:31.960 know who these guys are. When we get to nineteen 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:34.360 eight six, it'll all become clear. But yeah, in nineteen 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:37.559 seventy nine, the division, the Graphics Group, forms an Industrial 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:42.760 Light and Magic. That division will become incredibly important and influential. 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:48.120 And but oddly enough, their most influential days will be 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:53.920 after they leave Lucas Filmy and Industrial Line Magic. So 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:58.760 moving on, uh, nineteen eighty that's when Empire strikes back, 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.240 the second greatest documentary. Actually, I think that people would 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.160 argue that's better than Star Wars people, and you know, 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.240 I actually prefer a New Hope to Empire. But I 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:10.480 really love Empire too. It's just one of those things 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.520 where you know, a new hope really resonates with me. 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.880 But Empire is great, so Empire Strikes Back comes out. 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:21.880 They do win the Special Achievement Academy Award for Visual 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.439 Effects for that. The one Indiana Johnes and Raiders The 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.880 Last Start Comes Out Now, that was another UH the 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:33.720 project that UH had Spielberg's involvement, and they won the 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.600 Academy Award for Visual Effects for that. They also made 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:41.440 a movie Did you ever see Dragon Slayer? Okay, so 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:43.400 I saw Dragon Slayer back when I was a kid. 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.800 Dragon Slayer is a fantasy film and it's pretty much 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:47.800 what you would think it is. It's a story about 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:52.560 a young hero who UH sets out to slay a dragon. 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.440 It's a little more complicated and that, but that's yeah. 0:10:55.960 --> 0:11:00.520 So they designed a new kind of filmmaker for this 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:05.120 as well. They decided that there's a problem with working 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:11.280 with practical effects for monsters that are um the go beyond, 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.520 like something someone in just a suit, right, because one 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:15.840 of the things you could do is you could do 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:20.360 stop motion animation to create a monster effect, because it's 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:25.679 it's hard to build a giant monster, so and it 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:27.679 it really it's hard to make it look right too. 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:30.680 It takes a lot of work. If I've shown my 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:37.640 kids older monster movie bits, and it's kind of easy 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.280 to on the one hand, when you grew up with 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.280 pre I l M movies and technology and Jonathan and 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.640 I probably barely qualify for that. But you know, you 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.280 look at some of the old monster movies and you 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.960 could see the zipper marks in the costumes and the 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:58.000 older stuff. You don't, you're not freaked out by that anymore. 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:02.360 But you know, the practice coal effects m could be 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.720 done very very well, and even when they're done very 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.040 very well, it still doesn't have the same effect that 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.400 the newer ones do. And just it's it's just weird 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.520 to think about now. But yeah, I mean, looking at 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.240 the new stuff, it looks so very very real. Yeah. Well, 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.000 back then, you know, with the practical effects, that's pretty 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.439 much all they had at their their disposal at this point. 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:29.600 Back they developed something called go motion and go Motion Uh. 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:31.800 The way that they explain it on the Industrial Light 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.320 and Magic website is that it worked by fusing quote, 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.640 both electronic and mechanical components into a device that could 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.840 record the dragon in Dragon Slayers movements based on an 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.280 animator's design and play them back so the camera could 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:50.960 capture them as they occurred. So the reason for this 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.520 is because if they if they were to do it 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:58.240 in traditional stop motion, there'd be no motion blur when 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.320 something moves quickly, because because all you're doing is just 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:06.960 taking a bunch of individual photographs really of objects that 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.199 are not in motion, and then you're playing them back 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.360 to make it look like the object was in motion. 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.600 To get motion blur, the thing actually needs to be moving. 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.400 It helps, but that's not how stop motion works, because 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:24.360 the name stop Anyway, it was an interesting development. It 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:29.960 was something that they had um created two again to 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.520 meet the needs of the project that without having to 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:40.199 you know, completely reinvent everything. Two They they got another 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.440 Academy award. Um, I'm not gonna go through every Academy 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.480 award Industrial Line Magic has won because that would be ridiculous. 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:48.720 But they got it for one of my favorite films 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.480 as a kid growing up, which was Et the Extraterrestrial. Y. 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:58.320 I loved this movie as a kid. I think I 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.080 must have seen it three or four times the summer 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:04.320 that it came out, and I probably cried my eyes 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.280 out every single time. I watched it because I'm a sap. 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.040 I'm gonna sap all my life. I still am a sap. 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.960 I probably could watch ET without crying now, but back 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.520 as a kid, there was just no hope. Um. Anyway, 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:20.560 that that was another very popular film made by h 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:25.080 Lucas and Spielberg. So uh, and of course we should 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.480 point out, uh, Lucas's involvement in some of these films 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.080 is more of a kind of advisory sort of role. 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.400 Industrial Light Magic worked on lots of projects, not just 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.000 lucasfilm projects, which is why you know Et is an 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.440 Amblin project, not lucasfilm. Well. I wanted to point that 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:45.680 out too, that it would have been easy for George 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:49.360 Lucas to restrict Industrial Light and Magic to working on 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:51.960 his films. Yeah, but then we would have hardly any 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:54.440 of them because he didn't do very many. Well, I mean, 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:56.480 that's that's part of it. But I mean he could have. 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:00.840 He could have done, say, uh, the Indiana Jones films 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.360 and the Star Wars film stuff that he was intimately 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:07.720 more intimately involved with, um, you know, the projects that 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.880 he and Spielberg worked on together in some capacity, but 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:15.040 he you know, they decided to spend this off into 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:19.200 its own company, and in doing so they made I 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.880 would argue that they made film richer for it. I 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.480 mean you could say that, you know, working on on 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:29.440 Star Trek two, um, you know and one of the 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:35.680 greatest documentaries ever made ever boy. Um, So you might say, well, 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.800 you know, start there, there's this whole Star Wars versus 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.280 Star Trek, which I think is stilly anyway, um personally, 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.080 but you know they You might say, well, you wouldn't 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.280 necessarily you might want Star Wars to be the dominant 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:53.240 uh science fiction space franchise. You know, why would you 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:57.040 let him work on Star Trek. Well? I think, like 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:01.320 I said, it really populated film them with the DNA 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.320 of Industrial LIGHTE and Magic and made them the powerhouse 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.200 that they are now. Um. And yeah, I mean they 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.800 got a nomination for that too. Um. They did other 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.440 work for other uh of the Star Wars and Star 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:17.040 Trek films and going through you could see this in 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.560 their the timeline on the Industrial LIGHTE and Magic website. Um. 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:24.360 But yeah, they really and they got involved in stuff. 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.400 Now you would say, also, these films are going to 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:33.240 be heavily dependent on uh special effects, and you would 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.440 expect that to be so, but um on other stuff 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:38.400 like um, you know you would see it too, for 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:40.320 things like Back to the Future, the Back to the 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.440 Future franchise. But he also worked on the Industrial LIGHTE 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.160 and magic, also worked on stuff like Out of Africa 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:50.680 and Young Sherlock Holmes. Uh, stuff that had special effects. 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.320 But some of this stuff is less special effect driven. 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:56.680 The special effect the special and special effects in this 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:01.280 case is making it look photo realist take rather than 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:08.480 looking fantastic. Yeah, um yeah, I agree the uh and 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:10.440 and you know there are other analogs we can compare 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.320 this to, like the wet A Workshop, which did all 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.359 the work for the Lord of the Rings movies, and 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:21.160 the Hobbit has also done work for other other production companies. 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.840 That's so they have done designed for lots of stuff, 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:29.320 not just the Peter Jackson productions, so there are other 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.639 similarities there. I'm glad you mentioned Young Sherlock Holmes. In 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:37.879 five I LM achieved something no one had done before. 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.320 They created the first computer generated character in a film, 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:45.639 fully computer generated character. Uh. That Stained glass Man Stained 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.440 Glass Man from Young Sherlock Holmes. Uh. In this case, 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.800 what's happening for those of you who have not seen 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.400 Young Sherlock Holmes, which is a pretty good movie that's 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.360 slowly paced, but it's I enjoyed it. Uh it's it's 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.359 got a lot of cute ref princes in it that 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:05.280 clew you into the man that Holmes will become and 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:07.560 actually the man that Watson will become as well, though 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.000 it really messes up their ages anyway. Uh, there's there's this. 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:14.879 The plot involves this stuff, this substance that causes people 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:20.359 to hallucinate, and they hallucinate these terrifying visions that drive 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.840 them to essentially suicide. And in this particular case, it's 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.439 a character who is looking he's in a building with 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.560 stained glass windows, and one of the stained glass figures 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.520 comes to life, jumping out of the window and it's 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:37.480 a night that is made out stained glass that stalks 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.320 the guy. So that's the scene, and that was the 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.440 first use of a computer a fully computer generated character 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.680 in the film Who's stalking Nice. So in n six 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:52.840 here's where the spinoff happens. That um that I mentioned. 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.520 So back in seventy nine they had the Graphics Group 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.920 division and eighties six lucasfilm spins off the Graphics Group 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.800 Division as its own company, with a healthy dose of 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:11.360 funding from a certain Mr. Steve Jobs who had kind 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.159 of lost his job. Yeah he was, he had a 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.000 gig and then they cut him loose. Yeah he he 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:19.800 he had just founded Apple and then got pushed off 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:25.080 to the very edges of that company and essentially they 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.800 kind of fired him without saying he's fired. And then 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.840 he said, all right, I guess I'm going and he left. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.560 And then but yeah, he poured in a great deal 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:40.800 of money to the graphics group, which became Pixar. So 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:45.200 Pixar at this time was again really kind of pioneering 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.760 computer graphics, computer animation. It would of course be several 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:55.400 years before um Pixar would enter in it's uh, it's 0:19:55.560 --> 0:20:02.440 long and fruitful relationship with Disney. Yes, so, but that 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:04.840 that did have its you know, start way back then. 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.320 And yeah they were um of course they weren't what 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.600 they are now. But you know, and you might say, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.760 I can't believe that George Lucas allowed this to happen, 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.040 But at the time it probably wasn't so clear cut, 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:20.440 and it was very expensive to do what they were doing, 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:24.199 and there there were there were no clear indicators at 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.600 that time I mean, computer hardware wasn't what it is 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:28.879 now either. It would be a good long decade before 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.480 you start to see this really kind of payoff, But 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:38.240 BOYD did it. So Industrial Line Magic entered in with 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.320 a partnership with a little company called Kodak, which uh, 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:45.040 of course has seen some hard times recently, but Kodak 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:51.480 and I LM produced the first high resolution film input scanner. 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.159 Now this was important because what I could let you 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.600 do is digitally scan film, then you could edit it 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.280 the computer, and then you would print it back out 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:07.760 onto film, and uh, you wouldn't have to do all 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:13.240 those edits manually using the traditional methods of cutting film 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.240 and editing that way, so it gave a lot more 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:19.960 versatility to the editing process. And you guys may not 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:23.199 be aware of this, but it really is true that 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.840 films are made in the editing booth. That you can 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:32.000 shoot hours and hours and hours of footage of actors 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.400 doing lines and and uh and running around and explosions 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.200 and whatever. But until you get into the editing booth 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:41.240 and put it all together, you do not have a movie. 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:47.199 And in fact, I have seen evidence of amazing films 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:52.680 coming from what you would imagine to be um worthless footage, 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:56.719 and it's all due to a really creative editor finding 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.520 ways to make something interesting when before, like might watch 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.720 a sequence that originally was twelve minutes long and you think, wow, 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.200 this is unusable, and then editor gets ahold of it 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:10.320 and cuts it down to like seven and a half minutes, 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:15.399 and suddenly it's phenomenal. And so, uh this is one 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:18.720 of those important developments in the industry. Now, granted, this 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:22.119 is only important as long as film remains a factor, 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:24.919 and of course that doesn't always hold true. We've got 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:26.879 a lot of digital productions out there. In fact, almost 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:29.760 everything is digital now yea, and now of course, uh 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:34.720 thanks to who was that anyway? Um foreshadowing. Uh yeah, 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:39.600 although this device used charged couple device UM image sensor, 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:42.720 it was not a digital camera in the way that 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.720 we think of now. You know, this was a scanner, 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:48.240 so it was you know, you you you you did 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:51.440 use a film camera first and then use the scanner 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:54.160 and then it would again put film out, so that 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.320 you know, the projectors, the projectors we use were film projectors. 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.719 They weren't digital yet, so uh yeah, going fully digital 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:04.159 was not a viable option at this point. Um I 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:07.520 d A nine. They created the first computer generated three 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:12.040 dimensional fluid based character. And boy, how many fluid based 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:16.639 characters I have loved in the cinema over the years. 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:21.040 I can't think of any right now, apart from the 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:24.320 alien water creature from the Abyss, which is what this 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:27.080 is talking about. Yes, now, I saw well, I don't 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:29.720 know if you if you argue that the terminators being 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:31.960 sort of liquid, okay, yeah, and we'll get to the 0:23:32.040 --> 0:23:34.239 terminators as well, but yeah, I guess so so the 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:39.399 T one thousand's that's really higher? So liquid metal? You know? No, 0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:43.200 it was. I remember I saw The Abyss in the theater, 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:46.520 and I remember not thinking as much of the plot 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:49.440 as I would have liked to have. But the effects 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:52.960 were amazing. The effects were amazing, And I still remember 0:23:52.960 --> 0:23:57.280 watching Um, well, I shouldn't I suppose I shouldn't give 0:23:57.280 --> 0:24:01.120 away one spoiler, but the pseudopod at actually gets um 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:04.879 it's it's a movie that came out in Okay, spoilers 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:08.320 don't apply anymore. When the door shuts and cuts the pseudopods. 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:11.639 I got to that point yet, I just get the 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:13.920 point where the doors open and the pseudopods, right, there 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:15.320 and it's friends, and I thought they were all going 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:19.600 to have a picnic, and so the pseudopod when it 0:24:19.600 --> 0:24:24.000 gets cut, turns into real water and hit fo um. 0:24:24.280 --> 0:24:27.560 Just it was amazing, It was fantastic. Well yeah, and 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:29.320 that that was one of those challenges. I mean, there 0:24:29.320 --> 0:24:33.280