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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and I love

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Speaker 1: all things tech. It's done, and my friends, not for

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Speaker 1: the quister. That's a different show, but a time for

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Speaker 1: another classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally published

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Speaker 1: November two thousand twelve, and it is titled tech Stuff

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Speaker 1: looks at Industrial Light and Magic, one of my favorite

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Speaker 1: companies looking into just because they were responsible for so

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Speaker 1: many memorable moments in cinematic history. Let's listen in Sitting

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Speaker 1: across from me as usual is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: Hello from a podcast from long long ago and far

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Speaker 1: far away and far far away. I am pretty far

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Speaker 1: out there. So yeah, we wanted to talk today about

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Speaker 1: a special visual effects studio named Industrial Light and Magic.

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Speaker 1: And the reason why we decided to cover this particular

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Speaker 1: topic is that, well, Industrial Light and Magic is part

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Speaker 1: of h Well, it's one of the many things that

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Speaker 1: George Lucas created, including things like Lucasfilm, and that's been

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Speaker 1: the news recently because that's the recording of this podcast.

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Speaker 1: It has not been that long since Disney announced its

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Speaker 1: intention to acquire Lucas Film for the parents ly sum

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Speaker 1: of four point zero five billion with a B dollars

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Speaker 1: all stocks, mostly all of which apparently will be donated

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Speaker 1: to George Lucas's educational charity. Right, Yeah, it's pretty phenomenal.

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Speaker 1: George Lucas back in two pledged that he was going

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Speaker 1: to dedicate his wealth to philanthropic endeavors mostly due uh

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Speaker 1: to um are mostly towards education, which kind of it's

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Speaker 1: nice and it shows that he's following in the same

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Speaker 1: sort of vein as other notable rich people and philanthropists

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Speaker 1: like Bill Gates. Yeah, and that's not really what the

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Speaker 1: the podcast is about. We're not talking about George and things.

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Speaker 1: But I did want to throw that in there simply

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Speaker 1: because that was a a pretty amazing thing to do.

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Speaker 1: Everyone would do that, very cool thing to do. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It almost makes me not want to criticize him for

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Speaker 1: some of the decisions he's made. Well, I think it

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Speaker 1: gives us a picture of who he is as a person,

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Speaker 1: and although he does see himself, I think as a

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Speaker 1: as someone who is empowered to revise things that were

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Speaker 1: previously released, and then that that that does infuriate a

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Speaker 1: lot of people, among other things that he's done. But

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Speaker 1: you know, I get the sense to that, Hey, he's

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Speaker 1: not a bad guy. Of course, that's what he wants

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Speaker 1: us to think. But come on, come on, how who's

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Speaker 1: going to go to the extent of of donating the

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Speaker 1: majority of their wealth to education in order to convince

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Speaker 1: the world they're not a bad guy. He's clearly a

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Speaker 1: good guy. Yeah, I would say so. So he's a

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Speaker 1: better guy than I am. So so well, well done,

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Speaker 1: Mr Lucas. But but yeah, I mean he's he's also

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Speaker 1: the same kind of person that is driven creatively. He's

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Speaker 1: he's willing to come up with complete new uh businesses

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Speaker 1: to support his creative habits, we might say, even though

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Speaker 1: we may not necessarily agree with them. I would I

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Speaker 1: would say personally for me that you know, his heart's

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Speaker 1: in the right place. He's trying to create a good

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Speaker 1: story and it doesn't always pan out. You got you

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Speaker 1: gotta remember back, all right? So he founded Industrial Light

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Speaker 1: and Magic in Yes, now, that's two years before the

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Speaker 1: release of Star Wars and New Hope, one of the

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Speaker 1: best documentaries ever to be made. Well he um as

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Speaker 1: a filmmaker. His his filmmaking career began before that. Um,

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Speaker 1: but he you know, American Graffiti wasn't exactly m A.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't as it wasn't a positive experience, wasn't. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't a special effects driven masterpiece. You know, it was

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Speaker 1: a very good film. I liked it, but um, you know,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't. It wasn't the kind of film that George

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Speaker 1: Lucas has come to be known for. He made a

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Speaker 1: super effects blockbuster, which many would argue that he is

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Speaker 1: responsible for, and in part due to industrial lite and magic. Really,

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Speaker 1: the the two people I think who are responsible for

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Speaker 1: the blockbuster special effects extravaganza are Lucas and Spielberg. And

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Speaker 1: of course Spielberg has had quite a bit of involvement

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Speaker 1: in uh several of Lucas's endeavors. But anyway, yeah, he

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Speaker 1: so he founded this visual effects company, and it was

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Speaker 1: probably because Lucas he knew he wanted to do things

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Speaker 1: a certain way, and in order to do that, he

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Speaker 1: wanted to lit his dependence upon other companies as much

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Speaker 1: as possible. So he started to make stuff. He said, well,

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Speaker 1: there's no visual effects company out there that is going

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Speaker 1: to do the stuff I need to have done, so

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Speaker 1: I'm going to make it myself. And uh so he's

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Speaker 1: kind of a hacker. Yeah, it really is a lot

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Speaker 1: of ways. And and this was all due to necessity.

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Speaker 1: You know, he wanted to have as much control over

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Speaker 1: the project as possible in order to do that, and

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Speaker 1: then that he had to build all this stuff, and

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Speaker 1: so he set out to do it, and that's exactly

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Speaker 1: what he did. It's kind of amazing. Well, there's a

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Speaker 1: you know, the industrial line. Magic has been responsible for

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Speaker 1: many different advances in movie making technology over the years.

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Speaker 1: Back in nine, one of the first things they developed

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Speaker 1: was the Dixtra flex camera system that's named after John Distra,

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Speaker 1: who was actually the lead designer on this camera design.

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Speaker 1: Uh and it's it was made because if you if

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Speaker 1: well it's kind of hard to say, like if you

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Speaker 1: if you saw the Star Wars and New Hope back

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Speaker 1: in its cinematic release version, this is pre special addition.

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Speaker 1: All the effects there for things like the ship battles

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Speaker 1: and stuff, all the all the ships, all the the

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Speaker 1: Death Star stuff, all that was made with practical effects,

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Speaker 1: practical miniature models. That so, so the X wings going

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Speaker 1: through the Trench and Death Star. That was all done

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Speaker 1: with managers. So this is pre computer generated special effects

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Speaker 1: in that sense. Yeah. And the sound too, the the orchestra. Uh,

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Speaker 1: would you know they would put these models on the

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Speaker 1: dolly and then the orchestra will be on the dolly

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Speaker 1: behind them playing the music. No, let's going a little

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Speaker 1: too far in there, Chris, But but this long way

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Speaker 1: to go for a bad joke. This this camera, This

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Speaker 1: camera was special because in order to get the effect

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Speaker 1: that Lucas wanted, he wanted the spaceship scene to look

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Speaker 1: like um, like dog fights, like airplane dog fights from

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Speaker 1: World War two movies. Yeah. And and the reason that

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Speaker 1: those uh that that film, uh, and we're talking about

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Speaker 1: existing film. The reason that that film is so effective,

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Speaker 1: I think is because it's been it was shot by

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Speaker 1: another airplane in the air at the same time as

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Speaker 1: a dog fight. And this this motion control photography that

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Speaker 1: I LM developed for this UM used uh, basically was

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Speaker 1: using cameras that moved in with the spaceship models, so

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Speaker 1: it appeared that you were flying in the in the

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Speaker 1: dog fights between the different fighters or the Millennium Falcon

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Speaker 1: and the tie fighters. So it was there was a

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Speaker 1: real sense of movement right right. The camera was mounted

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Speaker 1: on a crane, and the crane was mounted on a

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Speaker 1: Dolly track, so they don't do a Hello Dolly joke.

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Speaker 1: I didn't any worry, Okay, So anyway, so the crane

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Speaker 1: can move back and forth along this track, the camera

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Speaker 1: could could move in various ways to adjust the pitch

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Speaker 1: or the tilt of the of the camera's angle so

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Speaker 1: it could follow the motions of the miniature and make

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Speaker 1: it you have this this really swoopy effect where like

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Speaker 1: Chris was saying, you're following the action very closely, and uh,

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Speaker 1: it was a necessity for him to achieve the effect

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Speaker 1: he wanted. So he builds this thing. Actually he puts

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Speaker 1: John Dixtra in charge of it, and John and his

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Speaker 1: team built it. I call him John Smart. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: they they shoot the movie and in nineteen seventy seven,

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Speaker 1: Star Wars New Hope hits theaters and becomes an amazing success.

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Speaker 1: And the two movies that that really launched the era

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Speaker 1: of blockbuster summer hits were Jaws and Star Wars um

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Speaker 1: and uh. You know what you get when you come

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Speaker 1: up with a new kind of special effects technology. An

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Speaker 1: Academy Award. Yes, they won that for Vision Visual Effects

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven. John Steers, I think of him

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Speaker 1: as Dike Strit, John Dikest, Richard Grant, Grant mckewn, and

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Speaker 1: Robert Blackock. I can't keep saying any of their names.

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna call him the guys they're all John now, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a matter of fact. They also got a Special

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Speaker 1: Achievement Award in nineteen eighty Visual Effects. Right, but before

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Speaker 1: we get to nineteen eighties, something happens in nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: nine that I want to talk about something, something special.

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Speaker 1: There was a special division formed in nineteen seventy nine

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Speaker 1: and Industrial Light and Magic. That division was called the

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Speaker 1: Graphics Group. Uh, specializing in computer animation and effects. Wait,

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Speaker 1: I feel like I should know who these guys are.

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Speaker 1: When we get to nineteen eight six, it'll all become clear.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, in nineteen seventy nine, the division, the Graphics Group,

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Speaker 1: forms an Industrial Line Magic. That division will become incredibly

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Speaker 1: important and influential and uh, but oddly enough, their most

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Speaker 1: influential days will be after they leave Lucas Film and

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Speaker 1: Industrial Line Magic. So moving on, uh, nineteen eighty that's

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Speaker 1: when Empire Strikes Back the second greatest documentary. Actually, I

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Speaker 1: think that people would argue that's better than Star Wars

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Speaker 1: most people. You know, I actually prefer a New Hope

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Speaker 1: to Empire, but I really love Empire too. It's just

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Speaker 1: one of those things where you know, a New Hope

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Speaker 1: really resonates with me, but Empire is great. So Empire

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Speaker 1: Strikes Back comes out. They do win the Special Achievement

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Speaker 1: Academy Award for Visual Effects for that. The nineteen one

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Speaker 1: Indiana Johnes and Raiders The Last Start Comes Out. Now,

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Speaker 1: that was another UH the project that UH had Spielberg's involvement,

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Speaker 1: and they won the Academy Award for Visual Effects for that.

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Speaker 1: They also made a movie Did you ever see Dragon Slayer? Okay,

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Speaker 1: so I saw Dragon Slayer back when I was a kid.

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Speaker 1: Dragon Slayer is a fantasy film, and it's pretty much

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Speaker 1: what you would think it is. It's a story about

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Speaker 1: a young hero who UH sets out to slay a dragon.

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Speaker 1: It's a little more cop kid and that, but that's

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Speaker 1: there just yea. So they designed a new kind of

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Speaker 1: filmmaking for this as well. They decided that there's a

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Speaker 1: problem with working with practical effects for monsters that are

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Speaker 1: um the go beyond like something someone in just a suit, right,

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Speaker 1: Because one of the things you could do is you

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Speaker 1: could do stop motion animation to create a monster effect,

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Speaker 1: because it's it's it's hard to build a giant monster

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Speaker 1: so and it it really it's hard to make it

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Speaker 1: look right. It takes a lot of work. If I've

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Speaker 1: shown my kids older monster movie bits, and it's kind

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Speaker 1: of easy to on the one hand, when you grew

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Speaker 1: up with pre I l M movies and technology and

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Speaker 1: and Jonathan and I probably barely qualify for that. But

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Speaker 1: you know, you look at some of the old monster

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Speaker 1: movies and you could see the zipper marks in the

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Speaker 1: costumes and the older stuff. You don't you're not freaked

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Speaker 1: out by that anymore. But you know, the practical effects

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Speaker 1: um could be done very very well, and even when

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Speaker 1: they're done very very well, it still doesn't have the

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Speaker 1: same effect that the newer ones do, right, And it's

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Speaker 1: just it's it's just weird to think about now. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, looking at the new stuff, it looks so

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Speaker 1: very very real. Yeah, well, back then, you know, with

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Speaker 1: the practical effects, that's pretty much all they had at

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Speaker 1: their their disposal. At this point back they developed something

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Speaker 1: called go Motion and Go Motion. Uh. The way that

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Speaker 1: they explain it on the Industrial Light and Magic website

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Speaker 1: is that it worked by fusing quote both electronic and

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Speaker 1: mechanical opponents into a device that could record the dragon

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Speaker 1: in Dragon Slayers movements based on an animator's design and

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Speaker 1: play them back so the camera could capture them as

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Speaker 1: they occurred. So the reason for this is because if

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Speaker 1: they if they were to do it in traditional stop motion,

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Speaker 1: there'd be no motion blur when something moves quickly, because

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Speaker 1: because all you're doing is just taking a bunch of

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Speaker 1: individual photographs really of objects that are not in motion,

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Speaker 1: and then you're playing them back to make it look

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Speaker 1: like the object was in motion. To get motion blur,

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Speaker 1: the thing actually needs to be moving. It helps, but

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Speaker 1: that's not how stop motion works because the name stop Anyway,

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Speaker 1: it was an interesting development. It was something that they

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Speaker 1: had um created two again to meet the needs of

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Speaker 1: the project that without having to you know, completely reinvent everything.

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Speaker 1: Two they they got another Academy award. Um I'm not

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Speaker 1: gonna go through every Academy award Industrial Line Magic has

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Speaker 1: won because that would be ridiculous. But they got it

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Speaker 1: for one of my favorite films as a kid growing up,

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Speaker 1: which was Et the Extraterrestrial. Yes, I loved this movie

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Speaker 1: as a kid. I think I must have seen it

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Speaker 1: three or four times this summer that it came out,

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Speaker 1: and I probably cried my eyes out every single time

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Speaker 1: I watched it because I'm a SAP. I'm gonna sap

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Speaker 1: all my life. I still am a SAP. I probably

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Speaker 1: could watch ET without crying now, but back as a kid,

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Speaker 1: there was just no hope. Um. But anyway, that that

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Speaker 1: was another very popular film made by h. Lucas and Spielberg.

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Speaker 1: So uh, and of course we should point out, uh,

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Speaker 1: Lucas's involvement in some of these films is more of

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Speaker 1: a kind of advisory sort of role. Industrial Line Magic

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Speaker 1: worked on lots of projects, not just lucasfilm projects, which

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Speaker 1: is why you know E t s an Eblin project,

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Speaker 1: not lucasfilm. Well. I wanted to point that out too,

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Speaker 1: that it would have been easy for George Lucas to

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Speaker 1: restrict Industrial Light and Magic to working on his films. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but then we would have hardly any of them because

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Speaker 1: he didn't do very many. Well, I mean that's that's

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Speaker 1: part of it. But I mean he could have he

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Speaker 1: could have done say, uh, the Indiana Jones films and

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Speaker 1: the Star Wars film stuff that he was intimately more

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Speaker 1: intimately involved with, um, you know, the projects that he

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Speaker 1: and Spielberg worked on together in some capacity. But he

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Speaker 1: you know, they decided to spend this off into its

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Speaker 1: own company, and in doing so they made I would

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Speaker 1: argue that they made film richer for it. I mean

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Speaker 1: you could say that, you know, working on on Star

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Speaker 1: Trek two, um, you know, and one of the greatest

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Speaker 1: documentaries ever made it Ever, We're gonna take a quick

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Speaker 1: break right now and we will come back with more

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Speaker 1: about industrial light and magic. So you might say, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, start there, there's this whole Star Wars versus

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Speaker 1: Star Trek, which I think is silly anyway, um personally,

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Speaker 1: but you know they you might say, well, you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily you might want Star Wars to be the dominant

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Speaker 1: uh science fiction space franchise. You know, why would you

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Speaker 1: let him work on Star Trek. Well, I think, like

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Speaker 1: I said, it really populated film with the DNA of

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Speaker 1: industrial light and magic and made them the powerhouse that

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Speaker 1: they are now. Um, And yeah, I mean they got

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Speaker 1: a nomination for that too. Um. They did other work

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Speaker 1: for other of the Star Wars and Star Trek films

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Speaker 1: and going through You could see this in their the

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Speaker 1: timeline on the Industrial Light and Magic website. Um but yeah,

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Speaker 1: they really and they got involved in stuff. Now you

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Speaker 1: would say, also, these films are going to be heavily

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Speaker 1: dependent on uh special effects, and you would expect that

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Speaker 1: to be so. But um on other stuff like um,

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Speaker 1: you know you would see it too, for things like

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Speaker 1: Back to the Future, the Back to the Future franchise,

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Speaker 1: but he also worked on the Industrial Line. Magic also

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Speaker 1: worked on stuff like Out of Africa and Young Sherlock Holmes,

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Speaker 1: stuff that had special effects. But some of this stuff

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Speaker 1: is less special effect driven. The special effect the special

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Speaker 1: and special effects in this case is making it look

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Speaker 1: photo realistic rather than looking fantastic. Yeah, um yeah, I

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Speaker 1: agree the UH and and you know, there are other

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Speaker 1: analogs we can compare this to, like the wett A

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Speaker 1: Workshop which did all the work for the Lord of

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Speaker 1: the Rings movies, and the Hobbit has also done work

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Speaker 1: for other other production companies. That's so they have done

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Speaker 1: designed for lots of stuff, not just the Peter Jackson production,

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Speaker 1: So there are other similarities there. I'm glad you mentioned

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Speaker 1: Young Sherlock Holmes. Inive I l M achieved something no

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Speaker 1: one had done before. They created the first computer generated

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Speaker 1: character in a film, fully computer generated character. Uh that

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Speaker 1: stained Glass Man, Stained Glass Man from Young Sherlock Holmes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In this case, what's happening for those of you who

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Speaker 1: have not seen Young Shelock Holmes, which is a pretty

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Speaker 1: good movie that's slowly paced, but it's I enjoyed it. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's It's got a lot of cute references in it

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Speaker 1: that clue you into the man that Holmes will become

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Speaker 1: and actually the man that Watson will become as well,

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Speaker 1: though it really messes up their ages anyway. Uh, there's

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Speaker 1: there's this The plot involves this stuff, this substance that

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Speaker 1: causes people to hallucinate, and they hallucinate these terrifying visions

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Speaker 1: that drive them to essentially suicide. And in this particular case,

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Speaker 1: it's a character who is looking he's in a building

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Speaker 1: with stained glass windows, and one of the stained glass

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Speaker 1: figures comes to life, jumping out of the window, and

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Speaker 1: it's a night that is made out stained glass that

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Speaker 1: stalks the guy. So that's the scene. And that was

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Speaker 1: the first use of a computer a fully computer generated

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Speaker 1: character in the film Who's Stalking Nice. So in idea six,

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Speaker 1: here's where the spinoff happens. That um that I mentioned.

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Speaker 1: So back in seventy nine they had the Graphics Group Division,

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Speaker 1: and eighty six Lucasfilm spins off the Graphics Group Division

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Speaker 1: as its own company, with a healthy dose of funding

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Speaker 1: from a certain Mr. Steve Jobs who had kind of

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Speaker 1: lost his job. Yeah, he was, he had a gig

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Speaker 1: and then they cut him loose. Yeah, he he just

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Speaker 1: founded Apple and then got pushed off to the very

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Speaker 1: edges of that company and essentially they kind de fired

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Speaker 1: him without saying he's fired. And then he said, all right,

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Speaker 1: I guess I'm going and he left. And then but yeah,

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Speaker 1: he poured in a great deal of money to the

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Speaker 1: Graphics Group, which became Pixar. So Pixar at this time

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Speaker 1: was again really kind of pioneering computer graphics, computer animation.

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Speaker 1: It would of course be several years before um Pixar

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Speaker 1: would enter in it's uh, it's long and fruitful relationship

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Speaker 1: with Disney. Yes, so, but that that did have its

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Speaker 1: you know, start way back then, and yeah, they were. Um,

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Speaker 1: of course they weren't what they are now. But you know,

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Speaker 1: and you might say, I can't believe that George Lucas

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Speaker 1: allowed this to happen. But at the time it probably

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Speaker 1: wasn't so clear cut. It was very expensive to do

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Speaker 1: what they were doing, and there there were there were

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Speaker 1: no clear indicators at that time. I mean, or hardware

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Speaker 1: wasn't what it is now either. It would be a

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Speaker 1: good long decade before you start to see this really

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Speaker 1: kind of payoff, But boy did it. So. Industrial Line

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Speaker 1: Magic entered in with a partnership with a little company

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Speaker 1: called Kodak, which, uh, of course has seen some hard

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Speaker 1: times recently, but Kodak and I LM produced the first

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Speaker 1: high resolution film input scanner. Now this was important because

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Speaker 1: what I could let you do is digitally scan film,

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Speaker 1: then you could edit it with a computer, and then

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Speaker 1: you would print it back out onto film. And uh,

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't have to do all those edits manually using

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Speaker 1: the traditional methods of cutting film and editing that way,

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Speaker 1: So it gave a lot more versatility to the editing process.

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Speaker 1: And you guys may not be aware of this, but

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Speaker 1: it really is true that films are made in the

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Speaker 1: editing book that you can shoot hours and hours and

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Speaker 1: hours of footage of actors doing lines and and uh

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Speaker 1: and running around and explosions and whatever. But until you

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Speaker 1: get into the editing booth and put it all together,

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Speaker 1: you do not have a movie. And in fact, I

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Speaker 1: have seen evidence of amazing films coming from what you

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Speaker 1: would imagine to be um worthless footage, and it's all

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Speaker 1: due to a really creative editor finding ways to make

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Speaker 1: something interesting when before, like you might watch a sequence

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Speaker 1: that originally was twelve minutes long and you think, wow,

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Speaker 1: this is unusable, and then an editor gets ahold of

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Speaker 1: it and cuts it down to like seven and a

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Speaker 1: half minutes, and suddenly it's phenomenal. And so uh, this

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Speaker 1: is one of those important developments in the industry. Now, granted,

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Speaker 1: this is only important as long as film remains a factor,

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Speaker 1: and of course that doesn't always hold true. We've got

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Speaker 1: a lot of ditch old productions out there. In fact,

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Speaker 1: almost everything is digital now. Yeah, and now of course

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Speaker 1: uh thanks to who was that anyway? Um foreshadowing h Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Although this device used charged couple device UM image sensor,

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Speaker 1: it was not a digital camera in the way that

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Speaker 1: we think of now. You know, this was a scanner,

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Speaker 1: so it was you know, you you you, you did

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Speaker 1: use a film camera first and then use the scanner

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Speaker 1: and then it would again put film out, so that

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Speaker 1: you know, the projectors, the projectors and the projectors we

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Speaker 1: use were film projectors. They weren't digital yet, so uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: going fully digital was not a viable option at this point.

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Speaker 1: UM nine nine they created the first computer generated three

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Speaker 1: dimensional fluid based character. And boy, how many fluid based

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Speaker 1: characters I have loved in the cinema over the years.

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Speaker 1: I can't think of any right now, apart from the

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Speaker 1: alien water creature from the Abyss, which is what this

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Speaker 1: is talking about now. I saw, well, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you if you argue that the terminators being sort

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Speaker 1: of liquid, okay, yeah, and we'll get to the terminators

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00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 1: as well, but yeah, I guess so so the T

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Speaker 1: one thousands, that's really higher so liquid metal? You know, no,

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Speaker 1: it was. I remember I saw The Abyss in the

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Speaker 1: theater and I remember not thinking as much of the

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Speaker 1: plot as I would have liked to have, but the

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Speaker 1: effects were amazing. The effects were amazing, and I still

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Speaker 1: remember watching, Um well, I shouldn't I suppose I shouldn't

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Speaker 1: give away one spoiler, but the pseudopod actually gets um

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Speaker 1: it's it's a movie that came out in Okay, spoilers

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Speaker 1: don't apply anymore. When the door shuts and cuts the pseudopod,

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Speaker 1: I's got to that point yet. I just get to

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Speaker 1: the point where the doors open and the pseudopods right there,

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Speaker 1: and it's friends, and I thought they were all going

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Speaker 1: to have a picnic. And so the pseudopod when it

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Speaker 1: gets cut, turns into real water and four floor. Um.

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Speaker 1: Just it was amazing, It was fantastic. Yeah, And that

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00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: that was one of those challenges. I mean, there are

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Speaker 1: several things that have been challenges for computer graphics artists

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Speaker 1: to recreate in a photo realistic way. Water was one

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Speaker 1: of them. Fire is another one. Hair is a big one.

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Speaker 1: So there are a lot of fire, a lot of

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Speaker 1: challenges that that that various people working on computer graphics.

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Speaker 1: I've had to try and find a way of of

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Speaker 1: designing so that it has that realistic feel on camera.

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Speaker 1: And of course Pixar was doing a lot of this

415
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Speaker 1: too around the same time. So in ninety one they

416
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Speaker 1: created the first computer graphics main character. This is the

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Speaker 1: one you were referring to the T one. Yes, that

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Speaker 1: was in ninety one and in Terminator two Judgment Day,

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Speaker 1: which I remember. I liked it a lot when it

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Speaker 1: came out, and as the years go on, I start

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Speaker 1: to change my opinion on that, mainly because of my

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Speaker 1: love for the first film, even as schlocky and goofy

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Speaker 1: as it is um because they kind of totally changed

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Speaker 1: the tea character Terminator character in that one anyway now

425
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Speaker 1: need too. They won their twelve Academy Award for Computer

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Speaker 1: Graphics Work, which is pretty amazing. They also had the

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Speaker 1: first time they with human skin texture computer generated human

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Speaker 1: skin texture. This was for the movie Death Becomes Her.

429
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:29,840
Speaker 1: Did you see that, Alan, No? I have great effects

430
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,479
Speaker 1: and it's an interesting concept, but I don't know, just

431
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,879
Speaker 1: did not click with me. But but again, people, the

432
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,959
Speaker 1: effects were amazing, so that's undeniable. The actual film, however,

433
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 1: it left me a little cold. Death Becomes Her It's stiff. Hey,

434
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: it's Jonathan from the President again here to say we're

435
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 1: gonna take another quick break and then come back to

436
00:26:52,240 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 1: conclude our episode about industrial light and magic. There wasn't.

437
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:08,120
Speaker 1: It was a short time later when they actually created

438
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: a character that seemed to breathe with skin, muscles and texture.

439
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: This is a Jurassic Park. Now. Jurassic Park was one

440
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 1: of those movies again that when it first came out,

441
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 1: I remember that people were just completely stunned with the

442
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 1: quality of the of the digital dinosaurs, and that those

443
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 1: movies you would watch scenes and you'd think, Okay, that

444
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: had to be practical. They must have built a giant

445
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 1: robot dinosaur for this scene. And then most times that

446
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 1: was not the case. It was all computer generated from

447
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 1: today's standards. If you were to go back and watch

448
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park, I say, it largely holds up, but there

449
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: are definitely bits where you'll think, Okay, I can kind

450
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,680
Speaker 1: of tell that's computer generated. Apart from the fact that, yes,

451
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 1: we know that dinosaurs aren't walking around right now. Beyond that,

452
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 1: I can tell its computer generated. Uh, And there are

453
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 1: a couple of scenes that are more obvious than others.

454
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:07,879
Speaker 1: But you gotta thank you know, for for nine it

455
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 1: was a pretty phenomenal achievement. And like I said, it

456
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 1: more it holds up more than it doesn't right now. Again,

457
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:20,160
Speaker 1: another short jump to a film where they did their

458
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 1: first computer graphic photo realistic hair and fur. Yeah, and uh,

459
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,560
Speaker 1: it's interesting because they had a great model to work

460
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 1: from with Robin Williams, who is probably the haryest, furiest

461
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 1: man on the planet. You're looking at me, funny, that

462
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 1: was a that was a joke. That was a joke.

463
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 1: He's a hairy man. But that's a joke. Make jokes

464
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 1: about that. They created the effects for all these computer

465
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: generated animals, and these animals were supposed to look not

466
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: They were supposed to like almost a slight fantasy version

467
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: of the real animal, because the idea was these were

468
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: all generated on this magical board game, and so it

469
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 1: wasn't They didn't need to look exactly like the real

470
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:08,960
Speaker 1: world version of those animals. They need to look a

471
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: little hyper realistic, but not so much as to be distracting.

472
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: So that was the goal they had for that film. Um.

473
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 1: They also created, uh, the first synthetic speaking character with

474
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: distinct personality, so how they word it on their timeline,

475
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: That would be Casper from Casper the Ghost which uh,

476
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 1: good ghosts. I did not watch, but now these were

477
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: This was a case where you're talking about a computer

478
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: generate character that not only appears on screen but has

479
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: a large, an important presence in the film and has

480
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: to be able to convey emotion and meeting and motive. Uh.

481
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 1: And so that's you know, that's more challenging than creating

482
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: something that looks real. You have to have something that's

483
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 1: behaving in a realistic way and a believable way so

484
00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: that the audience has an emotional connect with that character.

485
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: And then that's not easy to do. I mean, computer

486
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:08,719
Speaker 1: animators and animators in general will tell you, you know,

487
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: once you developed that kind of style where you can

488
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 1: create that on a reliable basis, it's an amazingly effective

489
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 1: and useful tool. And before you get there, it is

490
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 1: just a painstaking process thinking, well, you know, I created

491
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: this character and the sad thing happens to this character,

492
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 1: but no one seems to care. It's I mean, it's

493
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: a tricky thing to to be able to invoke empathy

494
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: in your audience. Eight they were awarded to I l

495
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: M was awarded two patents for some techniques. One was

496
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 1: for hair, fur and feathers. Uh. In this case, it

497
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: was the hair, fur and feathers effects they made for

498
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: another movie, Mighty Joe Young, which was am I saw

499
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 1: the original Mighty Joe Young way back when I didn't

500
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 1: see the remake. Um, this one was hair raising, I'm sure.

501
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: And the other one was for facial animation, which was

502
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 1: again created originally for the film Casper, but was also

503
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 1: used on other movies like Men in Black ninety nine.

504
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 1: They created the most realistic digital human character ever seen

505
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: in film, which was not the Daddy. It was the Mummy.

506
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 1: Chris is not having a great morning right now. Hey,

507
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 1: I just listened by the way slight tangent. I just

508
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: listened to one of our older episodes, and uh, and

509
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: you ground my my will to live into the dirt

510
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: with your puns. So you're gonna sit here and you're gonna,

511
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: you're gonna, you're gonna endure this, all right? Two thousand Um.

512
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 1: That was with the real time on character motion capture

513
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 1: system developed for Star Wars episode one. So this is

514
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: this is where they have someone's favorite movie ball thank you. Yeah.

515
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 1: Star Wars episode one the phenominas, which I'll say this,

516
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: I think it's the best of the prequels. Alright, that's

517
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: as much praise as I can give it. But anyway,

518
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 1: Also it has jar Jar, so do the other two prequels.

519
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 1: It also has Darth Vader saying yippie, and I still

520
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: say it's better than the other two. Um, but that's

521
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: neither here nor there. What they developed was this motion

522
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: capture system that worked in real time. Now, this is

523
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: really useful, and that you could get an actor wearing

524
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 1: a special suit that would have sensors on our or

525
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: really it's not even sensors, it's just points of reference

526
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 1: for a camera to pick up UM and then the

527
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: actor could physically portray a performance within a space. And

528
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: then they take that information that the actor has created

529
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 1: by moving through the space and the camera picks up,

530
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: they feed it through software and that becomes the guideline

531
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: for the computer generated character that will replace the physical

532
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: actor who was moving through there. Jar Jar is an

533
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: example of that. That was one of the characters that

534
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:15,479
Speaker 1: that used this UM this technology to create the performance. Now,

535
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: while I do not much care for the character of

536
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 1: jar Jar, I do admit that it was an interesting

537
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 1: use of technology to be able to give a computer

538
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 1: generated character more of a physical performance by actually mapping

539
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 1: it to someone's real movements, because otherwise you've got animators

540
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 1: trying to simulate real movements as best they can, and

541
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: sometimes it works great, and you watch and you're think, oh,

542
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: well that looks real, and sometimes you're like, huh, that

543
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: doesn't look right at all. Yeah, they're going to use

544
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: this technique again in some of the movies that are

545
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 1: coming up to to pardon my pun, great effect, um,

546
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 1: some of my my favorite recent more recent movies. Yep.

547
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: They also began to develop other stuff. In two thousand

548
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: and one, they developed ambient occlusion. Yeah that's uh what,

549
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 1: it's just what it sounds like. Which, there you go.

550
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: They actually used this in the movie Pearl Harbor. Like

551
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: it's just what it sounds like. I have no idea

552
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: what you mean. Basically, they were using a combination of

553
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: light and shadows that made the lighting appear realistic through

554
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:26,240
Speaker 1: the use of computer graphics. And they really it really

555
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: showed uh showed up for the first time in Pearl Harbor,

556
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: the movie. Not not the actual actual Pearl Harbor, not

557
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,399
Speaker 1: the place nor the historical event. Yes, but they Yeah,

558
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: I mean with the the planes in the attack on

559
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: the the American fleet and that you know, in the

560
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 1: early morning hours. Um, you know, it required a lot

561
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: of clever lighting. Yeah, and shadows. Yeah, you're talking about explosions,

562
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: you're talking about shadows being cast by lots of different objects.

563
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:53,880
Speaker 1: You're talking about smoke. I mean, there's there are a

564
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 1: lot of effects here that we kind of you know,

565
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 1: you take for granted when you watch it on a film,

566
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: but to be able to recreate it realistically in a

567
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 1: computer environment is not easy, and that that's why a

568
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: lot of this technology went toward. That same year, they

569
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: also created onset visualization processes that would allow a filmmaker

570
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: to put actors into an environment, let's say, like a

571
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 1: big green screen environment, and look at the virtual sets

572
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 1: around the real actors, complete with the actual camera motions. Um.

573
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: This was This is useful when you're making a movie

574
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: where a lot of the backgrounds you create are digitally inserted.

575
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:39,279
Speaker 1: It's not it's not a computer animated film. It's still

576
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:44,239
Speaker 1: a live action film, but the the the sets might

577
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 1: be virtual. And we saw this in a lot of

578
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 1: the movies, like a lot of the Star Wars prequels

579
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: had it. The example they give specifically within the Island

580
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: timeline is with Steven Spielberg's movie AI Artificial Intelligence. Uh,

581
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 1: it's another let down. There's a lot of movies here

582
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: that I didn't really care for so much. Yeah, but

583
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 1: back to the future I loved So there's there's that

584
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:09,760
Speaker 1: address a park. I love that too. So it's okay,

585
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 1: I'll just keep going, all right, two thousand three, or

586
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 1: do we You were about to say something, I'm sorry, Well,

587
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 1: I was going to point out that the U for

588
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:22,240
Speaker 1: the ambient occlusion thing. They do point out that. UM

589
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 1: a few years later in the Academy of Motion Picture

590
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:29,320
Speaker 1: Arts and Sciences gave them a cry Tech Award for

591
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:34,280
Speaker 1: the ways in which ambient inclusion helped advance computer graphics

592
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:37,000
Speaker 1: in the motion picture industry. Yeah so, I mean, you know,

593
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: looking at it in retrospect, it may not have seemed

594
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 1: like a big deal at the time. It may have

595
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 1: seemed all that that movie is lit and you know,

596
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 1: shadowed very well. But it has played a significant role

597
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 1: in many many other films since then. So yeah, yeah,

598
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 1: I mean that's went before we went too far. Sure,

599
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 1: these these developments they're making are things that are are

600
00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 1: pushing forward the filmmaking industry across the entire industry, not

601
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 1: just for a single movie. Uh it really I l

602
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,800
Speaker 1: M has done a lot to shape the way movies

603
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: are today. Uh. Without their influence, I would say that

604
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 1: we'd be we'd have very different films right now if

605
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:19,240
Speaker 1: it were not for industrial light and magic. Doesn't necessarily

606
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 1: mean that they would be better or worse, but they

607
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: would certainly be different. They would So, yeah, you mentioned

608
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: the two thousand three or you mentioned the awards. They

609
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:30,720
Speaker 1: also got an award for the way that they found

610
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 1: to render skin or translucent materials, uh from the the

611
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:39,320
Speaker 1: good Old cy Tech Award. They also in two thousand

612
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:45,319
Speaker 1: four created a digital baby for a lemony snicket. It's

613
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: a series of unfortunate events and it was this marked,

614
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: according to I l M, the first time that you

615
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:56,720
Speaker 1: had a computer generated human character shown an extreme close

616
00:37:56,840 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: up y. So we're getting to the point now where

617
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:06,360
Speaker 1: photo realistic computer generated characters are within the realm of

618
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 1: possibility for a serious filmmaker, um to the to the

619
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 1: point where it's not necessarily going to be distracting when

620
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: you watch it and you think, wow, that does not

621
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: look real. Doesn't mean that everyone pulls it off successfully

622
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:22,239
Speaker 1: these days, but at least it's much more possible. Two

623
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 1: thousand six, they developed imo CAP, which was an image

624
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 1: based performance capture system, and this was for one of

625
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,799
Speaker 1: the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. And that same year,

626
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: two thousand six, was when Disney made an acquisition. Disney

627
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: purchased Pixar. So you remember back in that's when Pixar

628
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 1: struck out on its own, not not struck out in

629
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: the baseball sense, but set out as its own company

630
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 1: under the the the financial support of Steve Jobs. Well,

631
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:58,720
Speaker 1: two thousand six, Disney makes a move to acquire that company, Pixar.

632
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:02,800
Speaker 1: Disney and Pixar had already been making several movies together

633
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: for several years, and uh, it was it was a

634
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: strategic move to guarantee that Pixar would remain under the

635
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: Disney family. And that also it was kind of a

636
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 1: talent grab because John Lasseter, who was the head of

637
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 1: Pixar at the time, would become the creative head of

638
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:27,160
Speaker 1: Walt Disney Animation as well as a imagineering. So um

639
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: that that little acquisition was made for seven point four

640
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 1: billion dollars in stocks and other assets. So that made

641
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs the largest shareholder in Disney at that time

642
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: and put him on the border directors to seven point

643
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: four billion. Now that to me is interesting because we

644
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:50,239
Speaker 1: already mentioned, you know, Disney's buying or trying to buy Lucasfilm.

645
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 1: As of the recording of this podcast, the deal has

646
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,799
Speaker 1: not been approved, but a Disney would be purchasing them

647
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 1: for four point oh five billions. So you've got a division,

648
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: a former division of Lucasfilm sold for uh, not quite

649
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 1: twice as much as what the parent company sold for.

650
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 1: That's interesting. So two thousand seven, Uh, at this point,

651
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 1: I LM is working on creating a system to simulate

652
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 1: fluid motion. And this again is tricky. You know, we

653
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:30,280
Speaker 1: talked about getting a water effect is challenging, and that's true.

654
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: It's also challenging to simulate fluid mechanics, especially you're talking

655
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: about huge quantities, you know, with with the Pirates of

656
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 1: the Caribbean movies, you're talking about ships on the ocean.

657
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: So you need to be able to simulate the way

658
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:46,320
Speaker 1: the ocean really moves and the way that objects floating

659
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: or otherwise you know, somehow in the water, how they

660
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 1: would move as well. So they did a lot of

661
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:57,799
Speaker 1: work in two thousand seven to perfect that technique. Yeah,

662
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:01,720
Speaker 1: they actually used a particular system that they called Zeno

663
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 1: and UH an engine, a graphics engine called fiz bam

664
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 1: um and this uh, this was the series I was

665
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 1: mentioning a few minutes ago, because they modeled these effects

666
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 1: within what they were calling a virtual water tank. But

667
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: of course in the in the last in the second

668
00:41:20,760 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 1: and third movies, in the installment UM, there were lots

669
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:29,440
Speaker 1: of appearances by Davy Jones and his UH daydream Believers,

670
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 1: his crew, which were who had taken on aspects of

671
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:42,000
Speaker 1: sea life. They lived underwater UM and they there's a

672
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,919
Speaker 1: really cool picture out there where they show the UH

673
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 1: motion capture UM sticker things that they put on the

674
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:54,640
Speaker 1: actors to UH while they are you know, pretending to

675
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 1: be or they're acting as the crew, and it's it's

676
00:41:57,120 --> 00:41:58,840
Speaker 1: kind of cool because they can't get weight. They don't

677
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: have alliant fish heads on UM. But that's you know,

678
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,640
Speaker 1: how they did that, and the amazing sea battle effects

679
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:12,800
Speaker 1: and all the things, the giant maelstrom UM just amazing stuff.

680
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: And then of course you know the YEP. And in

681
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight they began to work on FEZ

682
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: because fezes are cool. They are according to a doctor

683
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 1: I know, yes, but no. FEZ was the name of

684
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 1: a facial animation system that they had been working on.

685
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:36,799
Speaker 1: And again this is to refine that that ability to

686
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,280
Speaker 1: capture an actor's performance to translate it to a computer

687
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,720
Speaker 1: generated character. This is one of those things that really

688
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 1: is problematic. It's interest. It's an interesting question to ask

689
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 1: who is ultimately responsible for a computer generated character's performance? Um,

690
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 1: because if you have a performance within a film that

691
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 1: is award worthy, but it's a computer generated character, who

692
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 1: do you give the award to? Do you give it

693
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: to the animator who built or the people who built

694
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: the textures and rendered everything and made it now that

695
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 1: made sure they made all the tweaks to make the

696
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: character look exactly the way the character looks. Do you

697
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:21,800
Speaker 1: give it to the actor who physically portrayed that character

698
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:25,399
Speaker 1: and it's that actor's movements that you are watching, even

699
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: though it's a different, uh computer generated body that's doing

700
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: the motions. Ultimately it was an actor who went through

701
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 1: those motions. Is it the voice actor who may or

702
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 1: may not be the same person who did the physical motions.

703
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:42,919
Speaker 1: It's a it's a complicated question because the performance comes

704
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: from so many different people working together to create this

705
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 1: thing you're watching. And I know that that was one

706
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 1: of those questions that came up during the Lord of

707
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:53,800
Speaker 1: the Rings movies because there were people who were saying

708
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 1: that Andy Serkis should be nominated for his performance as

709
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 1: Gollum in those movies. But how much of that performance

710
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:07,880
Speaker 1: would you say is his versus the animators who created

711
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: the uh I hesitate to use the word physical, but

712
00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 1: the the visual version of the character that you see

713
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: on the screen. And it's I don't think there's an

714
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: easy answer to that question. It may very well mean

715
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:22,280
Speaker 1: that one day we'll see a new category of award

716
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: come up where it's best performance of some sort as

717
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:32,800
Speaker 1: opposed to just best Actor or Best Supporting Actor or actress. Yes, wow,

718
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 1: you waited all that time just to do that, all right?

719
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:39,959
Speaker 1: Two thousand nine we had the very GPU engine which

720
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 1: was designed to create firestorms. So again you know, looking

721
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:47,719
Speaker 1: at the stuff that's hard to make look real on

722
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:51,399
Speaker 1: computer graphics. You know, fire and water, those are big

723
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:54,839
Speaker 1: and for those are the big ones. Well they they're

724
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 1: working on the Harry Potter series of movies and they

725
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:01,360
Speaker 1: for the sixth film, they needed to be able to

726
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:05,839
Speaker 1: have realistic fire effects. So you know, it's it's the

727
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 1: I L M way. When if you don't have a

728
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 1: system that already does it, go build one yep. Well

729
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: and they did, and so this kind of wraps up

730
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: where they are today. I mean, i l M is

731
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: not the only property outside of Lucasfilm that will be

732
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 1: acquired by Disney if this deal goes through. Skywalker's sound

733
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: is also in there. And you know, Lucas has, like

734
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,440
Speaker 1: we said, he's had a huge influence on the way

735
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 1: movies are shown today. I mean, th h X is

736
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:40,439
Speaker 1: another example, uh, which Disney I was also going to get.

737
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: So really, when it comes down to the the technology

738
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:50,919
Speaker 1: behind filmmaking and film projection, film screening, Disney is making

739
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 1: a huge move here and and some people are a

740
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:56,920
Speaker 1: little nervous about it. I've got friends who work in effects.

741
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 1: They work for for affect houses that often we'll get

742
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: contracted to work on companies UM. And some of these

743
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:07,840
Speaker 1: friends of mine are a little nervous because this is

744
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:12,759
Speaker 1: sort of showing a consolidation of effects houses and that

745
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: could mean less competition and fewer opportunities for these artists.

746
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:21,719
Speaker 1: So there are things to worry about, depending upon what

747
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,799
Speaker 1: field you are in. Yeah, But nonetheless, I still think

748
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: it will be interesting to see and if some of

749
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:33,239
Speaker 1: the people leave UM, you know, they may very well

750
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:37,320
Speaker 1: take the ability to Uh, do these complex the knowledge

751
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,520
Speaker 1: that it takes to to build these complex effects with them,

752
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 1: making the acquisition less valuable. There's always a chance that

753
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:49,120
Speaker 1: people could strike out and create their own uh companies

754
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: as well and start competing with their old company. I

755
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 1: mean that's happened several times in the past as well,

756
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: So it's too early to say. But some of the

757
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: movies ALM has worked on we've talked about, of course,

758
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 1: the Star Wars series all the way from episode four

759
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 1: through six and then one through three. Uh, the several

760
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 1: Star Trek films generations first contact Star Wars are Star

761
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: Trek Wrath of con which is my favorite of all

762
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:20,920
Speaker 1: of the Star Trek films because it's very cold. It's space. Yes,

763
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:25,600
Speaker 1: it is fine Corinthian leather. Yeah. The Jurassic Park movies. Uh,

764
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: you know had the mask Forrest Gump, Twister. Never had

765
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,320
Speaker 1: I felt that a cow really did fly past someone's

766
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: windshield until I saw Twister, Mission Impossible three. They they've

767
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:41,719
Speaker 1: worked on many, many, many movies. I mean, if you

768
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 1: if you watch any film that has a lot of

769
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:47,360
Speaker 1: special effects in it and you wait to the end, Uh,

770
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 1: it's amazing how many of them have industrial light magic

771
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 1: listed as at least part of the team that worked

772
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:57,319
Speaker 1: on the effects. Also, it's it's interesting to realize how

773
00:47:57,320 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: many films you may not have realized have a lot

774
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: of special effects in them because the special effects are

775
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:07,120
Speaker 1: to make the film look more like real life. Forrestcump

776
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:10,200
Speaker 1: is a good one, although you could argue that no, no,

777
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 1: that's clear because you know, Tom Hanks never actually shook

778
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:17,359
Speaker 1: hands with that many presidents still. But but even so,

779
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: that's that's one of those where the special effects are

780
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:22,279
Speaker 1: there to create the story, but they're not you know,

781
00:48:22,760 --> 00:48:25,400
Speaker 1: it's not spectacle the way it would be in a

782
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:29,359
Speaker 1: big science fiction film or something. Right, So, yeah, they

783
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,880
Speaker 1: have had a monumental effect on the movie industry, definitely,

784
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:35,399
Speaker 1: and uh, I'm sure they will continue to do so,

785
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 1: even whether whether Disney's deal goes through or not. I'm

786
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:42,800
Speaker 1: sure it will remain a big player in the the

787
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:47,280
Speaker 1: effects industry. And that's it. I hope you guys enjoyed

788
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: this classic episode of tech Stuff. If you have any

789
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes that I should cover, well, why

790
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:57,920
Speaker 1: not send me a message The email addresses tech Stuff

791
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or you can drop

792
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:03,360
Speaker 1: me a line on Facebook or Twitter. Don't know the

793
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 1: handle for those, well, pop on over to our website,

794
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:08,879
Speaker 1: tech stuff podcast dot com. That's where you're gonna find

795
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 1: links to where we are on social media. You'll also

796
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: find a link to every single episode we've ever published

797
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:18,200
Speaker 1: of this show. I was gonna say recorded, but that's

798
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 1: a lie, because we've recorded a couple of episodes that

799
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:24,680
Speaker 1: we've never published for good reason because they were bad

800
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:28,240
Speaker 1: and I feel ashamed of them. But all the published

801
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 1: ones are there. You also find a link to our

802
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 1: online store, where every purchase you make goes to help

803
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:36,879
Speaker 1: the show and be less bad, and we greatly appreciate it,

804
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff

805
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:47,040
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.

806
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:49,880
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i

807
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

808
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:54,200
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.