Sorry I've been away for awhile (though I did mention it would be a "sporadic journey" in my title). Side projects and other commitments kept my free time to a minimum. I haven't had an entry since the news of the sale of the ILM Model Shop.

Since the advent of digital effects, our involvement in a production has not always been the subject of ILM press releases. I'd get frustrated hearing news such as the "all digital world of Theed" created for Episode 1...even though we worked for three months creating buildings and environments for the city, and spent the entire summer of 1998 shooting the models outside. As a matter of fact, each prequel contained more miniatures then the entire set of original films. During Episode 2, we reached over 100 model makers working on the film. I do, however, understand the idea behind the marketing and I am comfortable with that.

ILM and Lucasfilm's decision to sell the model shop is, on the whole, great news for those of us at the shop. By becoming our own company, we're free to dive into other venues and services previously restricted by our ILM involvement. Additionally, it allows us to pursue smaller film projects that would not be worth ILM's effort. The only downside, if there is one, is that I'll be 8 months short of my 20th anniversary with the company...

We're excited about the new prospects, and I find it ironic that the department (soon to be company) exists now in almost exactly form it did when the effects for "Star Wars" were created starting in 1975. The only two facets we lack from those days is a Matte painting department and an Optical department, two arts that went completely digital years ago.

The model shop is made up of the most amazing, creative group of individuals I've ever had the honor of working with. In the article about the work we did for the Every 15 Minutes program, Carol Bauman elegantly stated: "The ILM model shop is such an incredible group of people. They should be studied and the findings put out to companies as the perfect working model of how creativity and teamwork steeped together for dozens of years yields something that cannot be quantized; something that can move mountains when properly utilized. I know of no other group of employees like it in the world."

The work produced there is through true teamwork...which leads me to the real subject of this blog.

A few years back, an ILM employee from the digital world named Tom Martinek had an idea to instill some creativity and moral boosting into the drudgery of day to day digital effects production. One idea was "Flecks", where they would screen bad movies-preferably ones current employees did prior to their ILM involvement. The group would gather in one of the screening rooms after hours and watch the movie...commenting on it when the need would arise. If you've seen "Mystery Science Theatre 3000", you'll get the idea.

Another idea he had was to create a film festival, but unlike any other. He called it the "ILM Backyard Film Contest", and the rules were simple: Make a short film without any digital effects, as if you and your friends were making a film with a Super 8 film camera in your backyard. In other words, the only effects allowed were those done in camera. One concession allowed was the ability to shoot and edit digitally, since Super 8 film and cameras were hard to come by. The Festival had a theme-The Aliens Attack-and everyone had to include that in their storylines.

At the model shop, we felt especially at ease with this challenge, seeing that we specialized in non-digital effects anyway. It also helped that we had an entire physical effects film studio as our backyard. Nelson Hall came up with a great idea, and through the teamwork of him, Preston Donavan, Grant Imahara, Fon Davis, Carol Bauman and myself, we fleshed it out further, taking advantage of the situations and personalities we'd known over the years.

There are many inside jokes within the film that would be lost on the general public; Robbie Edwards and Dave Murphy, two of our British born colleagues, play "Al" & "Ian", the aliens-a double entendre, since they're real alien residents (you''ll also recognize Robbie as R2-D2's brother from "Beneath the Dome" ); Lorne Peterson, who for years has been our Guru to whom we could go to draw upon his vast knowledge and experience, was a natural to play our "Gandalf/Obi-Wan" mentor figure; locations discussed, such as Circuit City and "D" Building; and Danny Wagner, our resident high strung personality-though he's not as anxious in real life. There are a few references to film making terms, not to mention a few films we ripped off--err, paid homage to...Keep an eye out for two"Mythbusters" cast members...Grant Imahara will be easy to see, but I don't think you'll be able to spot Tory Belleci.

What makes this film all the more appropriate given the recent turn of events is the role of Mark Anderson, who is purchasing the model shop...I think Nelson had a crystal ball when he came up with that casting. Bear in mind that this film (and the prologue) was created in April 2004. Though we knew we were not moving to the Presidio facility with the rest of the company, we didn't see the sale as a possibility. As a matter of fact, Mark Anderson was laid off from the company a few months after we completed the film.

The film was just uploaded to Google Video, and should be online shortly. I'll update this page when it goes live.


EPILOGUE: At the BFC Awards, the film was nominated for Best Picture and won Best Visual Effects. As a matter of fact, there were three awards: Best Picture, Best Visual Effects, and Best Interpretation of Theme. Out of 17 entries, only four films were consistently nominated for those categories...and three of them were from model shop personnel. Besides our group effort, Grant Imahara and Fon Davis each had separate entries. Grant won Best Picture and Fon won a special achievment prize, awarded at the discretion of the judges.