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