Light & Magic

Movies are special effects.

They've always been special effects.

From Méliès, to Harryhausen...

...to 2001...

...visual effects create the magic

that makes people want to go to the movies.

Because they can see things they can't see

any other way.

Take a look.

We all start with an empty frame

and anything is possible.

But how can we create the thing the audience sees that wasn't actually there?

As audiences get smarter, wiser, sort of see through the illusion,

that bar just raises.

So how do we do this now? How do we make this look great?

I leave it to the geniuses at ILM.

Most places are a little bit like The Wizard of Oz,

where you pull back the curtain, you're like, "Oh!"

But Industrial Light & Magic is that rare magic trick

where the technique is as good as the illusion.

It is this hive of creativity and brilliance

and also incredible groundbreaking technical wizardry.

They're pushing technology forward and exploring it.

They keep making it even more exciting, more realistic, more magical.

It's right there in the name of the company.

Industrial

Light

& Magic.

Conrad.

Pick up 601, please.

Conrad, pick up 601.

Pull in your seat a little bit? -This way?

Like that?

Yeah, there was a reflection on your glasses. So we might actually...

Right. Um...

Well, the history of ILM goes way back.

And when we started the first film,

I investigated all of the optical houses and special effects people,

and realized there was nobody around and no company around that could really do

the things that I wanted to do on that picture.

So, I realized that I was gonna have to start a company

and put together a whole group of people

that would just be specifically for making Star Wars.

Luke Skywalker was just a farm boy,

until he received a mysterious message from a princess.

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

-She's beautiful. -Here's where the fun begins.

Twentieth Century Fox presents

the most extraordinary motion picture of all time...

Got him!

...Star Wars.

Here they come.

May the force be with you in Star Wars.

When I was writing Star Wars,

I spent two years

trying to find the story, trying to find the script.

I thought spaceships, dogfights in space, that's a great idea.

I said, I want to do that. Only I want to do it like a space opera.

Like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.

But it will really have movement, it will be kinetic.

I'm an energetic filmmaker.

I like speed.

At the time, the last real science fiction film was 2001.

Which is brilliant, and the way it was made was brilliant.

But the shots were all long takes and very slow.

So I looked around for special effects houses, visual effects houses,

and nobody could do what I wanted to do for Star Wars.

So the big question was, "How are we going to do the effects?"

I met John Dykstra.

He was working with visual effects, mostly on commercials.

And I realized that there was a little cabal of secret special effects people.

Some of them worked in commercials,

some of them were just wishing, some of them were making home movies,

but they all knew each other.

So and so can do that, and I know somebody can do this.

And it really was this kind of gang of outsiders.

And so through John Dykstra we tapped into that world.

Good morning, America.

In the world of film and television, even our fantasies have been modernized.

Instead of wizards and magicians, the people who make our dreams come true

are now called special effects designers.

These new wizards use computers, calculators, and special cameras.

With these tools and a generous supply of good, old-fashioned imagination,

John Dykstra created the fantastic effects scenes for Star Wars.

John. No one says "One day I'm going to be a special effects designer."

What led up to this?

Oh, a lot of fooling around.

I am definitely involved with machines. I like machines a lot.

I always played with cars and things like that.

I like physics.

Always liked photography.

So it was sort of a situation where I just brought

all of my favorite things together, all of my hobbies,

and made one big hobby out of it.

Explain to me how you take a scene from your mind to the screen.

I'm basically a lucky guy.

When I signed up for college, I didn't have a major.

I just was going to school because they had accepted me.

The counselor who I was assigned based on my last name

turned out to be the head of the industrial design department.

So I went to school in industrial design, truly a fluke.

From school I had a friend who was working with Doug Trumbull,

who had done visual effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

And Doug was looking for model makers

and people who could do design work.

So I segued from school to going to work at Trumbull Film Effects.

I started on Silent Running.

I drew designs for the ships,

then built the models for the ships

and then photographed the models for the ships.

It was an intense, immersive education.

Coming to work was fun.

Then I was approached by Gary Kurtz, who was a producer for George Lucas,

and he wanted to talk about the visual effects for a movie.

I was given the script,

and I go, "How bad can this be? It's a dogfight in space, right?"

So I came to their offices,

did a lot of hand flying, did a lot of talking about moving camera

because I'm a pilot and I love speed and I've been strapping cameras

onto airplanes and stuff like that for a long time.

So it was like all these things fell into place.

George had the vision.

George knew what the images had to convey.

And I understood the movie.

But at the time George was involved with all of the pre-production work

he was doing for the photography they were going to do in Britain.

I was going back and forth all the time.

We had one foot in the door with John, and he said he needed

to build the equipment in order to get the shots.

So they basically said, "Okay, you go do this."

I went and found an empty warehouse in Van Nuys, near the Van Nuys Airport.

And I walked into the place,

they installed the phone, didn't even have furniture.

I sat on the carpet on the floor in the office that I was going to use,

and I started calling people that I wanted to bring in to work on the project.

One day I got this call from John,

"Richard, I'd like to talk to you about maybe the photography

"of this sci-fi movie for Twentieth Century Fox."

I said, "I'll be right there."

I had finished the program in the industrial design department

from Cal State Long Beach,

where Dykstra had graduated a couple years before.

I didn't graduate because I got a job in Malibu,

and the commute was killing me.

I went back to school on a Saturday.

And I see this flyer taped to the door of the industrial design department,

and it said, "We are looking for artists, model builders,

"painters, draftsmen for a..."

I think they said it was a space movie.

And there was a phone number and address there, so...

I got out the Thomas Guide,

which at the time was the only way you could find your way around LA.

I took my ruler and I figured out I could save an hour off my commute.

So I jumped in my Volkswagen, zipped out to Belgian Avenue

and met with John and Gary Kurtz.

John had this big desk. It was like the size of a pool table,

and we were sitting across.

Both had beards, you know,

and Gary Kurtz had his Quaker beard, you know.

The original job offer was for six weeks doing storyboards.

John asked me if I could do storyboards, and I said, "Yeah, of course I can."

I had no idea what a storyboard was.

I came across a guy who I went to college with and lived in Seal Beach

and he said, "Oh, Lorne, you'd be perfect for the job.

"We're working on this science fiction movie out in the valley,

"and we need model makers."

We all came from different schools,

and a lot of people were friends of friends.

This guy that I was working with was was older, and he said,

"Well, I got a buddy that I was in the Navy with,

"who's doing some kind of a science fiction show,

"and I know you're interested in that.

"He's looking for people. So here's his number.

"Give him a call. His name is Richard Edlund."

And it turns out he's looking for camera people,

which I'm not, and so I gave them Dennis' number.

Until Star Wars came along,

I've never felt that there was going to be any place for me in the business

or there was any way to make any money doing visual effects.

But it was maybe the only thing I was interested in.

It's in my DNA.

And I had a group of friends my own age,

that were also effects fans.

I've always wondered why I locked into wanting to do this so early.

I was watching movies like King Kong.

The films of my hero, Ray Harryhausen, and something just clicked.

When I was about five years old, King Kong came on television,

and that just kind of changed my life.

-(KING KONG GROWLING) -(ANN SCREAMING)

And then in 1958, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad came out, Ray Harryhausen.

To the boat!

I saw Ray Harryhausen's The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

like eight times the first week it came out.

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad just melted my brain.

That kind of sealed the deal.

It was like struck by lightning.

I went nuts.

I was just mystified by how it was done.

I didn't even understand, of course, as a kid, how movies were made.

But my mom liked films, and she took me to see