8111

On the latest 8111 I catch up with Stephen Rosenbaum!!! Stephen grew up in Los Angeles and always loved building things. As the youngest of three he thought he'd likely follow in his father's footsteps and become a doctor. But in 1977 he saw Star Wars and the seed was planted. While attending Berkeley he enrolled in the College of Environmental Design and began working in the nascent field of computer graphics. Stephen decided to stay in Northern California after college and landed a dre...

On the latest 8111 I catch up with Judith Weaver!!! Judith grew up as a self-described “Airforce brat” moving around with her parents from post to post. She spent several formative years in, Colorado, the Philippines, some time on the East coast, and settled for a time in Ohio. Judith was the oldest kid with two younger brothers. In middle school she discovered a love for drama and acting in the theatre. After high school Judith was determined to live in a bigger city and headed off to Americ...

This week on 8111, Don Bies! Don grew up in Chicago and discovered a love for movies at an early age when he first saw Frankenstein. He became fascinated with movie monsters, monster make up, special effects, and filmmaking. He loved pouring over the latest issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland. After high school, Don considered college but eventually decided against it and worked in the local community theater doing set design, prop design, directing and even some acting. A family ...

This week on 8111, Alia Agha!!! Alia was born in Damascus, Syria. Just before the age of 2, her family fled Syria and moved to Lebanon. After a time there, they boarded a ship and travelled to Brazil where they lived with Alia's mother's family. A few years later they emigrated to the United States and moved to Anaheim, California. Growing up Alia loved art and spent hours making models, drawing, sculpting, and watching movies. She attended an all girls school and continued making a...

This week on 8111, Michaela Calanchini Carter! Michaela was born in San Francisco and grew up in the Bay Area. She is the second youngest member of a huge family with seven brothers and sisters. Incredibly shy growing up, she found community playing soccer and a creative outlet in photography, which had been a hobby of her father’s.She attended UC Santa Cruz where she studied fine art photography. She took a semester leave, travelling with a friend to Africa. It was a journey that wound up ha...

This week on 8111, Bruce Buckley. Bruce grew up in Toronto. As a kid, he loved going to the drive-in movies with his family. Art was a clear area of interest in childhood as he enjoyed drawing and making things out of plasticine.Bruce attended Sheridan for college where he studied art fundamentals. His primary focus was photography, shooting both 35mm and 4x5. Commercial photography was exciting and he wound up doing lots of studio work and architectural photography.After earning his de...

On the latest episode of 8111, Juan Luis Sanchez!! Juan-Luis worked at Industrial Light & Magic from 2001 to 2006. Just a few of his film credits include: Wonder Park, Paddington, Gravity (VES Award for Outstanding FX and Simulation), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, How the Grinch Stole...

This week on 8111, Nelson Hall. Nelson is that rare breed…a Marin native. Oh, and his birthday is on Halloween! Growing up he loved watching old movies on TV. He was captivated by the films of Ray Harryhausen and the Wizard of Oz. He always liked drawing and making things including several Rube Goldberg contraptions in his family’s living room.He attended Sonoma State for a time and studied art. Still searching for a way to get into a creative job, he landed a job at the Printing Factory on K...

Pat Sweeney, or is it Mike Sweeney? There's really no way to be sure. Pat grew up in Manhattan Beach, California. He is an identical twin. Pat went with his brothers and sisters to the local catholic school and loved watching old movies on tv growing up. He saw all the Harryhausen films, King Kong, and was a fan of the original Star Trek. For college Pat knew he wanted to study film. He enrolled with his brother Mike at Loyola Marymount University in their film and tv program. While in s...

On this episode of 8111, Maggie Oh. Maggie was an only child and grew up in Chicago. She was always interested in animation from an early age, thanks in part to Batman: The Animated Series. She attended MIT and studied computer science and electrical engineering as an undergrad. But she also took illustration, drawing and painting courses at MassArt. Maggie went to SIGGRAPH for the first time though a co-op project for the MIT Media Lab. After school she worked as an interactive programm...

This week on 8111 the tables are turned and my hero/mentor Kim Bromley interviews me about my career and background. I grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs in the 70’s and 80’s skateboarding and going to the movies. In 1992 I earned my degree in Cinema from San Francisco State University.That same year, I began my career at George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic where I worked for nearly a decade in the company’s computer graphics division. For over 25 years I have worked around the world at ...

This week on 8111, Amy Young!! Amy grew up in Manhattan where her dad was a stage manager on Broadway. She spent a lot of time behind the scenes watching her father work and when he was busy, she was able to go see plays and musicals for free. At sixteen her dad landed a job as the manager of the Curran theatre in San Francisco. Amy’s mom was an emergency room nurse. They moved out to Marin and Amy finished high school at Redwood High in Larkspur. After high school she enrolled at Colleg...

This week on 8111, John Berton!! John was born in the midwest. His dad was a mathematics professor and his mother was a musician. John loved movies as a kid and, through his dad, had early access to computers. He learned Fortran in high school and was fascinated by the logic of programming. John attended Denison University and studied communications and even had his own radio program. For grad school he attended Ohio State and studied computer graphics with American artist and computer a...

This week on 8111, Scott Leberecht! Scott grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio the middle of three bothers. His dad was an optician and his mom was an elementary school teacher. Drawing was always something that he was interested in, and good at. He studied industrial design at University of Cincinnati with a goal of may be making toys for Kenner where he'd worked part-time as part of a co-op program. In school he met fellow ILM alum George Hull. And he discovered that ILM model maker Charlie Bailey h...

This week on 8111, the "not shy" Dawn Martin Mirkin! Dawn grew up in Florida and left for California the second she could after high school. In San Francisco she quickly found a place to live and started working as a hostess at Perry's restaurant on Union Street. She quickly became invaluable instinctively sorting through complicated scenarios with well known guests. A TV production class at the College of Marin connected all the dots and Dawn knew she wanted to work in the field. She go...

This week on 8111, Ellen Pasternack! Ellen grew up in Long Island. As a kid she was an avid reader. She was the youngest person in her town to get a library card. As a young adult she earned a degree in anthropology from SUNY Buffalo in three years time and thought seriously about going to law school. But in 1975, a good friend was traveling to California and Ellen decided join the adventure. In sunny Los Angeles, Ellen quickly landed a job working as a temp secretary at Burbank Studios (now ...

This week on 8111, Euan Macdonald! Euan grew up near Edinburgh, Scotland the middle brother of three. His father was an architect and also loved cartooning. His mother taught yoga and wrangled the three boys. They had a ZX Spectrum computer in the house growing up and Euan played games and did some rudimentary programming. He worked to help his dad on projects mapping structured space and experimented with making videos from image sequences generated on the computer.In school he was excited t...

This week on 8111, Dan Goldman. Dan grew up in Colorado where his mom worked as a teacher and his dad, a physicist. He enjoyed drama as a young person and acted in plays in both jr. high and high school. When it came time to head off to college he chose Brown for a degree in Theatre. Fate intervened his freshman year when he was assigned an academic advisor who was a well known computer science professor from the School of Engineering. By the time his sophomore year rolled around, Dan ha...

8111 is back from hiatus this week with Fon Davis! Fon was born in Vietnam. His dad was in the Air Force and in 1975 his family moved to California. As a kid he was always interested in working with his hands and making things. He loved science fiction films and making models. One of his first jobs was at (Colossal) Pictures where he worked with Henry Selick. When Selick left to make Nightmare Before Christmas Fon joined the team at Skellington and stayed on through James and the Giant Peach....

This week, just a brief announcement about going on hiatus. I'm undergoing treatment for leukemia and its taken me outta the normal daily world for a while. I plan to be back sometime in early Spring. I've got lots of great interviews lined up for the future. Thanks for all your support and please stay tuned.

This week on 8111 David Dozoretz. David grew up in Arizona. He is the creator of ZAFARI, a children's animated TV show on NBCUniversal/Dreamworks TV and the first TV show rendered exclusively in Epic's Unreal game engine. An ILM and Lucasfilm alum, David also founded Persistence of Vision, a leading feature film pre-visualization company that produced work on films such as Star Wars, JJ Abrams' Star Trek and Mission: Impossible series, X-Men and more..David and I were interns at ILM at t...

This week on 8111, Josh Pines!! Josh grew up in Long Island, NY. His father was a celestial mechanic (aerospace engineer) and his mother worked as a probability and statistics professor at Hofstra. He was the youngest of three with two older sisters. As a kid, he spent weekends going with his parents to Manhattan exploring the museums, attending operas, movies, and music venues. He played classical piano growing up and set his sites on a music degree at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Whe...

Frank Gravatt was born in the San Francisco Bay Area. He began sculpting clay models at a young age and excelled in his craft. Horror movies, both old and new, have always been a fascination of his and Frank started sculpting monsters, and working with makeup to create the faces he saw in the movies. In his early career he began working at various retail chains until he landed a job in maintenance at Industrial Light & Magic. While working at ILM he brought his clay models in to the ...

Scott Ross joins me this week to talk candidly about his time at ILM and Lucasfilm and his four decade career in entertainment and technology. A native of New York City, Scott began his career in Media Studies at Hofstra University where he graduated with a BS in Communication Arts in 1974. During the 70’s Ross toured with numerous bands such as the Miles Davis group and The Allman Brothers Band. In the 80’s Ross was General Manager of Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and M...

This week on 8111, Jeff Light! Jeff grew up in Lima, Ohio. His dad was an attorney and his mom kept Jeff and his three sisters mostly out of trouble. He loved theatre and movies as a kid and was inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey which he saw the Summer before Jr. High. He bought a Yashika LD6 Super 8 movie camera and began playing with filmmaking and visual effects. He was pre-med at University of Cincinnati for his first year but it just didn’t make his heart sing. He changed schools to...

This week on 8111, Leah Anton. Leah was born on a dairy farm in Northern Minnesota and moved to the Twin Cities shortly thereafter where she grew up. Her mother worked as a nurse and also took art classes. At the age of five Leah’s mom took her to a life drawing class and it sparked a lifelong love for art and drawing. Throughout middle school and high school Leah was a self described “art kid”. She experimented with painting on a large scale, doing murals, working with airbrush, and ex...

This week on 8111, Endla Burrows. Endla (whose first name is Estonian) was born and grew up in the Bronx. Her mother worked as a nurse and her dad worked in multiple jobs in the city including working as an elevator operator in a high rise. Endla loved watching tv as a kid and would often sit with an encyclopedia by her side so she could look up anything that she saw or heard and didn’t understand. Endla’s boundless curiosity and thirst for knowledge served her well in school. She was of...

This week on 8111, Daniel Jeannette. Daniel grew up near Normandy. His parents both worked for the Dutch company Philips, where Daniel worked during the Summer to save money to buy a Super 8 camera. As a kid he was always interested in drawing, in part from his love of comics. While at the same time, he had a natural mechanical inclination born from his interest in motorcycles that he would both ride as well maintain. He attended the Gobelins school and studied animation. During his Fren...

This week on 8111, Corey Rosen. Corey answers the question of “what would an 8111 theme song sound like”. Corey grew up in Rochester, NY. His dad is a children’s dentist and his mom is a teacher. He’s the middle child of three brothers. As a kid he went to sleep away camp in the Catskill mountains where they put on plays. Theatre became a permanent fixture in his life. Corey gravitated towards filmmaking as a kid, remaking some of his favorite character driven films with friends from the nei...

This week on 8111, the Droid himself, Marty Brenneis! Marty’s nickname, “Droid” comes from the following axiom; An engineer builds one and then you get a droid to build 99 more. Marty grew up in Berkeley attending Berkeley High School. He was part of the student stage crew helping put on full blown productions. He basically grew up in the business with his mom working doing hair and makeup, and his dad working as a still photographer. Marty saw Star Wars at the Coronet theater in 19...

Jeff was born in Southern California. As a kid he took apart the family lawn mower to build himself a go-kart. He loved the hotrod culture and grew up in a very “American Graffiti” way. He always liked drawing and started surfing around age fifteen. After high school he worked for about 18 months at Lockheed Aircraft working on C5A Delta planes. In 1968 Jeff packed all his belongings into his VW bus and shipped it all to Hawaii where he spent the next year until he ran out of money. He then s...

Julija grew up in Canada. As the oldest sister she often helped take care of her siblings. Her mother, who worked as a travel agent, instilled a deep sense of creativity and “making”. As a family they wouldn’t buy Christmas presents for one another but would make presents. She attended a preforming arts high school where people were literally dancing in the halls. Julija was more interested in the visual arts and after high school followed in her aunt’s footsteps pursuing a degree in graphic ...

John Stillman is a Bay Area native. As a kid, he played baseball, soccer, and football. He earned a bachelor's degree at UCLA in Design. Shortly after graduation John travelled around Europe landing a job in Prague where he worked as a Production Manager and Associate Art Director for Prognosis, an English language newspaper. After a year or so abroad John came back to California and applied for a job at Industrial Light & Magic working as a production assistant. He wound up working ...

Kim Smith is an artist in the truest sense of the word. She was born in NYC and grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Her father was a very successful illustrator. At an early age, Kim was very interested in archeology. She combined her interest in science with a natural affinity for art and creativity. She attended Syracuse University and studied art. Her initial interest was working as a studio artist. Kim was also interested in cartography and the way in which maps developed so diffe...

Trish grew up in Montreal, Quebec. Many ILMrs may remember her as Trish Schutz. She grew up the youngest in her family with two older sisters. Her mother was a creative influence with painting, drawing, and sewing throughout Trish’s childhood. Her dad was a dentist. Trish attended Catholic school and after high school she took her first animation and art classes. She later graduated from Sheridan College in Ontario for computer animation. In 1986 Trish went to SIGGRAPH in Boston at the r...

Chris grew up in the UK. As a young man he travelled to China and worked numerous odd jobs while exploring. His background in graphic design helped him land opportunities to work in creative ways doing motion graphics for television news. His boundless curiosity and wanderlust took him all over China, Singapore, Thailand, and even Australia. With passion, enthusiasm and dedication he eventually landed a job at Industrial Light & Magic where he worked for more than a decade as an artist an...

This week on 8111, Eric Brevig. Eric grew up as an only child in West Los Angeles. He loved going to the movies growing up and he made his own short films with kids from the neighborhood. His mom worked at a bank near 20th Century Fox and one of her clients got Eric a set visit to The Towering Inferno on the day they blew up the building. It was an eye opening experience. He went on to attend UCLA for film school and earned a Master’s degree where he made a complicated short film involving st...

Alex was raised by his mom in San Francisco. She was a fine art painter and art has always been a part of his family. So he’s always drawn since his was a little kid. He watched late night monster movies and scoured the local news stand for every magazine on movies he could find. In school he and a friend made stop motion animated films of their own inspired by Ray Harryhausen. He saw a presentation by Linwood Dunn at the SFMOMA and it set his trajectory for the future. Alex attended CCA...

David Tanaka grew up in the Bay Area. As a kid he was fascinated with a small hand cranked toy you could look into and watch Super 8mm film. He later took that toy apart and began making his own short films with friends. He wound up earning a degree in film from UC Berkeley. A visiting artist lecture with Ease Owyeung inspired David to begin looking for ways to get a job at ILM. After several tries he landed an internship at ILM working in the group that did amusement park rides (now defunct)...

Paula Karsh grew up in Pittsburg and earned a Master's degree in Education. She later moved to California with her husband, who was enrolled at Stanford in their film program. She spent some time teaching and later found a job working at a film production company where Lucasfilm was one of her first clients. This later led to an opportunity to come to ILM and work on their Production Services team. Paula worked as the Head of Production Services for 27 years. She has an amazing story and...

Scott Squires grew up in Indiana. As a kid he built his own microscope and was fascinated with bugs and ants. He worked for the local paper as a photographer in high school and was always interested in filmmaking. He travelled out to California shortly after high school and would up with a job opportunity working on Close Encounters of the Third Kind where he helped develop the “cloud tank”.Scott worked at ILM for 20 years where he served as Visual Effects Supervisor and directed multiple com...

Barbara Townsend was born in Florida, spent some time in Arizona, Texas, St. Louis, and lived her formative years in Memphis. As a young person in high school, she had her own radio show. She attended Arkansas State earning a BS degree in Radio/TV. After school, Barbara moved back to St. Louis and worked at a local access station running cameras for college football, taping interviews with fans, and doing general production work. She continued a successful career in broadcasting working ...

Stu Maschwitz grew up in Minnesota. As a kid he loved movies. His dad was an entomologist and his mother was an artist working with textiles. He made short animated movies as a young kid and later shot numerous skateboarding videos with friends. He eventually made his way to CalArts and made every opportunity at the school count. After graduation he landed a job at ILM where he’d work for the next 4 years. He was a founding member of the Rebel Mac group at the company and eventually left to b...

John Goodson grew up in North Carolina, Alaska, and Northern California. His dad was a surgeon in the Air Force and John loved airplanes and science fiction. Space 1999, Star Trek, and later Star Wars captured his imagination as a young person and he began building models. He earned a degree in Product Design from North Carolina State. He loved to draw hard surface models and objects and he's always made his own models and props. He got a 1966 Ford Mustang as his first car and it needed ...

Mark Moore grew up in the Pacific Northwest. As a kid he loved art, movies, cars, and airplanes. He attended University of Washington as an undergrad where he studied industrial design. He moved to San Francisco after graduation to be closer to ILM and found work in the city building architectural models and toys. A mutual colleague led to a friendship with John Bell, who was working as an art director at ILM, and they shared a laugh corresponding for a time via FAX machine. Mark soon l...

Ellen Poon grew up in Hong Kong in the 1960s. She was a middle child out of five and her mom loved going to the movies. From a very young age she was motivated to excel, and was always an independent thinker. A great teacher at university got her interested in graphics by challenging students to make images and patterns using Pascal. She realized that computer science was an area where she could be super creative. She went on to earn a PhD in computer science from the University of Lond...

Neil Lim Sang was born in Jamaica. His family emigrated to Canada when he was six. His dad was diagnosed with ALS and passed when Neil was only fifteen. He was partnered with a Big Brother who had a strong influence on his interest in making art. He attended art college and worked with all kinds of traditional media. After finishing there he continued on at Sheridan where he studied both computer graphics and animation. His first jobs were in New York City and Mexico City doing animated ...

Habib Zargarpour was born in Iran. He moved to Belgium at an early age (4th grade), moved to the south of France for high school, and Vancouver for university. For a time Habib was interested in airplane design but later gravitated towards architecture. Attending Art Center to study industrial design he honed his skills and interests. One of those interests took the form of doing a 3D design for a lawnmower on the computer. His work in the digital space continued to grow. After school he...

John Schlag grew up in Baltimore and became the church organ player from the ages of 13 to 17. Everyone thought he'd grow up to become a music major but instead he studied electrical engineering at University of Delaware and later attended Carnegie Melon for his Master's degree. He spent a few years at NYIT and then drove across the country on his motorcycle. He later landed at MacroMind (later to become Macromedia) where he worked with Alex Seiden developing a 3D program that never launched ...

Robert Bruce, "brucer" was his ILM email nickname, grew up in California. He attended a number of schools and flirted briefly with the idea of becoming a classical guitarist. He eventually landed in Sonoma where he earned an undergraduate degree in Computer Science. Rob later came to work at ILM, but wound up leaving after an unexpected health issue forced him to change gears. He returned to school earning a master's degree in Library Science and began his own career in academia. Rob is ...

Paul Hill grew up in Arlington, Virginia. He is the youngest of three children and attended catholic school in his youth. He earned a degree in english from the University of Virginia with an emphasis in creative writing. After college he went to work for the US government helping coordinate resettlement of Vietnamese refugees from South Vietnam to the United States. Paul moved to San Francisco and got a job working for Dolby Laboratories as their Creative Director. From there he did a stint ...

Rod Bogart, aka RGB, (the best initials in the biz) grew up in Colorado. His dad worked at IBM and occasionally brought computers home. Computer Science was a natural pursuit and Rod went on to earn his BS and MS degrees. After graduating he spent some time running a visualization lab on the University of Michigan campus. He later worked at PDI in Hollywood where he helped develop procedurally based image processing tools to automate wire removal and the removal of most anything from any shot...

Gonzalo Escudero grew up in Madrid. He went to school for architecture and later landed a job doing motion graphics at a small local firm. He attended SIGGRAPH and wound up with a job offer to come work at ILM. After working as a Technical Director on a number of high profile projects Gonzalo left ILM to pursue a career as an actor in New York City. Gonzalo shares his story about taking risks, following your dreams, and giving yourself space to grow as a person. You might even say, “Change in...

Natasha Devaud was born and raised in Switzerland. As a little girl she learned how to knit before she knew how to write her own name. She earned a degree in Education and moved to Palo Alto in the US to work as a nanny and learn english. She returned to Switzerland to enroll in an accelerated program in fashion design. An intriguing and fateful visit to a lab at ECAL in Lausanne led to a Master's Degree in computer graphics. Natasha travelled to SIGGRAPH in Chicago to serve as a volunteer an...

R. Christopher White grew up in Dale City, Virginia and always had an interest in computers. After seeing some rigid body dynamics during a Summer program at George Washington University he was hooked. Chris earned his BFA in Computer Arts at Syracuse University. He went on to graduate school at University of Illinois’ Electronic Visualization Lab in Chicago and applied for the ILM internship for the fourth time and got in developing tools for Twister. He would up working at ILM for the ...

Mark Siegel grew up in Minneapolis loving science fiction and monster movies. He was an avid reader of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and the articles sparked his imagination. He earned a degree in Theatre from the University of Minnesota and attended the Ringing Bros. Clown College. His stage and circus experience taught him skills for working with prosthetics and make up. He landed a job at Universal Studios as part of a Verne Langdon monster makeup show for tourists. This eventually ...

Scott Grenier grew up in Southern California. After high school and community college he got a job working at a computer repair shop. That job opened doors to other opportunities working in IT. With the help of a great mentor, Scott eventually found his way to ILM in the mid 1990's. Scott shares his awesome story of skill building on the job. From the soft skills of helping co-workers with tech issues, to enterprise system architecture, to sales, he's added new skills with each career move. I...

Terry Molatore grew up in Los Angeles, the youngest of six children. In the 1970's she attended UC Santa Cruz and later worked at the Nuart movie theater on Santa Monica Blvd. She landed a job doing traditional rotoscoping on The Empire Strikes Back for an LA company called VCE which eventually led to a gig at ILM that wound up lasting 22 years. Terry left ILM to work at Imagemovers and later travelled to New Zealand to work at Weta Digital. Just before the pandemic, she retired from visual e...

Kim Thompson Steel grew up in the suburbs of Toronto. As a kid she loved drawing and Saturday morning cartoons. She studied traditional hand drawn animation at Sheridan College. A fortuetous studio visit from Steve "Spaz" Williams led to a Summer internship at ILM in 1992 just as Jurassic Park was gearing up. She later returned to ILM as an employee in the commercials division. She also worked on numerous feature films including; Men in Black, Flubber, a couple of the Star Wars prequels, AI, ...

Indira Guerrieri was born in Rome. Her parents were both deeply involved in the arts, her father even worked on the script for the classic Italian Neo-Realist film "Bicycle Thieves". She attended university in the US, eventually earning an undergraduate degree in Art History. She returned to Europe and worked for a time on a PaintBox system at a local company. When an opportunity to sign up for the Erasmus Programme in the EU came up she signed on and learned a host of skills in the world of ...

Amelia Chenoweth grew up in the East Bay. After high school she attended Brown, graduated from RISD, and had a very brief stint in grad school at Art Center. She began her career at Chaos in San Francisco where she was hired to work as a technical director. She was later hired at ILM to work on Casper. She's also worked for Weta Digital in New Zealand, Sony Imageworks, and Pixar. Amelia shares her story of working in the industry from a young age. Her many credits include; Casper, Twister, Ma...

Kurt Nellis joins me this week to talk about his career in visual effects and games. Kurt's credits include; Matrix: Revolutions, xXx: State of the Union, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and King Kong. Kurt shares his story and how he broke into the industry. He's worked at ESC Entertainment, ILM, and Weta Digital. A few years back, he transitioned to working in games at Bungie in Washington state. We discuss the state of the industry and the exciting fusion of visual effects and ...

Dave Carson joined ILM in the late 1970's to work on the original Empire Strikes Back as a model maker and storyboard artist. That initial job opportunity developed into a full-time position where Dave went on to work on numerous films including; Dragonslayer, Return of the Jedi, Star Trek 3, Goonies, Enemy Mine, Young Sherlock Holmes, Willow, Witches of Eastwick, Hook, Jurassic Park, Casper, and Titanic (to name just a few...). In the mid 1990's Dave served as Visual Effects Supervisor on th...

Mike Corcoran is one of the funniest people I know. He and I started at ILM around the same time in the early 1990's. Mike shares his story of becoming a creature TD and how he worked hard to maximize every opportunity. With great managers and mentors he's travelled all over the world working on some amazing projects including: Mission Impossible, Mighty Joe Young, King Kong, Tin Tin, Prometheus, Black Panther, and many others. Most recently Mike was hired by DNEG as Global Workflow Architect...

Mary Payne started her career as an intern at Skywalker Sound working with Randy Thom. She later came to ILM and worked her way up from computer graphics production assistant to lighting technical director. Today she lives, most of the time, in mainland China working with BASE where she recently wrapped up work on their feature animated film, Wish Dragon. Mary shares how she worked her way up by diving in head first and learning new skills at every step.

Stefan Dechant started at ILM as an intern in the art department. His career trajectory is wild and takes him from ILM to a highly successful career working as a Production Designer. Stefan talks about working with Rick Carter and how networking and professional relationships have kept him gainfully empolyed on numerous film projects including; Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, Waterworld, Jarhead, Avatar, Kong: Skull Island, Pacific Rim: Uprising, The Tragedy of MacBeth, & Pinocchio (to name ...

Ed Kramer started his movie and television career using an analog video computer called Scanimate, and later worked as a sequence supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic. His film credits include: The Mummy, Galaxy Quest, The Mummy Returns, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Twister, and Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest. Today Ed lives in Colorado where he teaches computer graphics and is working ...

Miles Perkins grew up in Berkeley, California. He starting playing the bass in elementary school, later playing in various jazz combos and eventually with his own band, Mingus Amungus. He studied philosophy at UCLA and got a job working nights at Skywalker Sound. After college he began work at ILM in San Rafael and eventually became the Director of Marketing and Communications. When Lucasfilm was purchased by Disney, Miles took on the job of Head of Corporate Communications during the transit...

Patricia Rose Duignan (Rose) worked on the original Star Wars at ILM after having been introduced to George Lucas by John Dykstra back in 1975. She’s had an amazing career helping to bring some incredible projects to fruition. After graduating from Stanford she began a long and illustrious career. Her credits include: Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica (1978), and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. She co-authored the 1996 coffee table book, Industrial Light & Magic: Into the Digital Realm, ha...

Mo Husseini was born in Egypt, grew up in Jordan, attended boarding school in the UK, and moved to the San Francisco bay area in the late 1980’s. He attended classes at UC Berkeley, apprenticed with various filmmakers and artists, and eventually landed a job at ILM in the commercial editorial group. Mo shares his stories of luck, the generosity of others, the Dunning–Kruger effect (uh-oh), and his amazing post-ILM career. Plus, he’s a super smart and kind human and it was great to catch up wi...

Laurel Woods worked at ILM and Lucasfilm for 7 years in the 90’s. She is one of my dearest friends. Her epic story includes; a dad who was a former CHP officer, who later owned strip clubs in LA, UCSB, working as an office assistant at Playboy, ILM computer graphics, Lucasfilm, a murder for hire, visiting prison on holidays, MTV, stalking Carrie Fisher, SCUBA diving, Tunisia, writing a memoir, and working for CORE in LA doing COVID-19 testing. Laurel’s journey takes her across the U...

Terrence Masson has had an incredible career. He's worked on 20+ feature films as well as many “special venue" interactive, broadcast commercials and video game projects. Some highlights include three Star Wars movies, getting SouthPark started and the world's largest interactive digital Etch-A-Sketch. Terrence is a member of the Producers Guild of America, the Visual Effects Society and has been active in SIGGRAPH since 1988, including as the 2006 Computer Animation Festival Chair, the 2010 ...

This week I talk to Elle Chan. Elle worked in the commercials division at ILM for five years in the early 1990's. She talks about growing up in Rochester, NY, how she came to ILM, and the amazing success she's created since leaving and starting her own company, Trademark Event Productions, Inc.

On episode two, I chat with my good friend of 28 years, TyRuben Ellingson. Ty has worked as a visual effects art director, concept designer, director, producer, and now educator. His story is a fascinating one and his credits include, Jurassic Park, Avatar, Star Wars: Episode IV (The Special Edition), Casper, Disclosure, Hellboy, Blade 2, Mimic, Elysium, Pacific Rim, and Battle Los Angeles. Today Ty and I work together again in higher education at Virginia Commonwealth University in the Schoo...

The premiere episode of 8111 with Kim Bromley. Kim worked as a Visual Effects Producer at ILM for 14 years. Her credits include, Willow, Back to the Future 2 and 3, Hudson Hawk, Hook, The Nutcracker, Disclosure, Twister, Speed 2: Cruise Control, Small Soldiers, Saving Private Ryan, Cremaster 2, and Galaxy Quest. She has also worked in documentary film and as a highly successful theatre director. I've always looked up to Kim and learned so much from her. She is the first guest I wanted to talk...