My Thoughts on “40 Years of Movie Magic: The Past, Present and Future of Industrial Light & Magic”

Last night I was cordially invited by Viral Hyde to attend the ILM panel at the 92nd Street Y. It was a mild evening in NYC and it only got hotter once I stepped inside the Y, as a throng of Star Wars fans were already waiting in the lobby. I overheard a film student chat up a woman who had no idea what she was on line for. That was fun!

Once they let us inside the auditorium, we were met with the sounds of the soundtrack to The Force Awakens by John Williams. March of the Resistance never fails to get everyone super excited. Since I arrived early, I had a few minutes to study the crowd. The audience consisted of a healthy mix of film students, fanboys and girls, parents with young-ish children, and several seniors.

The screen displayed ILM’s 40-year Anniversary logo, while on stage a podium was set up on the far left while three chairs took center stage. Before long a fellow StarWarsNewsNet giveaway winner named Will – you can’t fake this stuff – sat next to me. We struck up a great conversation and he assured me he will be joining The Cantina soon… then the lights dimmed and a representative from the Y addressed the audience.

The woman spoke very fast, and I didn’t quite catch her name. In any event, she introduced the 92Y.org’s 7 Days of Genius series then segued into a few words about the evening’s guest speakers: Dave Folger, Jason Smith, and Michael Koperwas. Without further ado, the trio of ILM creatives came onstage to great applause.

Folger took the podium first and teed up an ILM sizzle reel featuring some of the most iconic effect they’ve ever created. Afterwards, he discussed “The Past” portion of ILM’s body of work. It was fascinating to hear about the evolution of the FX industry from someone who started in practical FX and successfully transitioned over to digital FX. Folger explained how the tools have changed, but at the end of the day, it’s still about solving problems efficiently… lots of problems broken down into several smaller problems. (A slide show displayed some of ILM’s most memorable work over the last 40 years throughout Folger’s talk.)

As the Model and Texture Supervisor on The Force Awakens, Folger explained how creating the Millennium Falcon was much harder than it might seem. Apparently, there were several models built over the years – one for Episode IV, another for Episode V, but none of them were created at the same scale. Folger and his team went through several rounds of focus group testing several Falcons – some were too white, some were too beige. It seemed everyone at ILM remembered the Falcon differently! Fortunately they “landed” on one that looks right to me.

Next up was Jason Smith, a Visual Effects Supervisor at ILM. Smith was a bit looser than his colleague with some well-placed jokes lightening the mood in the auditorium. His “ILM in the Present” portion of the panel focused on four of the biggest non-Star Wars projects the company has tackled in recent years.

Smith revealed how ILM was able to actually transform the Transformers for Michael Bay – lots and lots of arcs made over wireframes to control the movements of lots and lots of small parts. That’s me oversimplifying things, but the screens he showed of the pre-build motion tests with the arcs in place were frighteningly complicated and beautiful at the same time.

To create the Hulk for the Avengers, ILM captured Mark Ruffalo’s physical likeness down to the pores. Even more amazing still was the work put into Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. Bill Nighy’s physical performance was motion captured, which helped inform the movements of his tentacle beard. That said, once triggered the beard was seemingly sentient, able to move and curl however ILM artists saw fit.

Smith ended with the Oscar-nominated effects from The Revenant. While the bear from the film was not entirely dissimilar to how the Hulk was brought to life, the creature had a few more systems in place: fur, muscle, a layer between the two, and its skeleton had to be designed from the ground up, and work seamlessly together.

The evening’s third speaker, Michael Koperwas – Computer Graphics Supervisor at ILM x Lab – was the most reserved. His portion dealt with the “Future of ILM” as the company seeks to break new ground in the realms of virtual reality, augmented reality, and 360 video.

Koperwas explained how smart phones have become more ubiquitous over the last 20 years. As a result, screen resolution has become sharper and sharper since our viewing angle is increased when we hold phones close to our faces.

The combination of smart phone proliferation and higher processing power in said devices has opened up all-new ways to tell stories. Koperwas then demonstrated the possibilities with a clip from a streaming interactive experience set on Tatooine. Viewers can pinch to zoom into the scenes and even follow three separate characters – think interactive Roshoman – as one story plays out from multiple POVs.

Once Koperwas delivered his portion, the three ILM creative introduced Marvel’s latest Civil War trailer, which was met with thunderous applause for you-know-who.

Overall, the evening was insightful and certainly educational but I wish the speakers had allowed for a Q&A session.

Side note: I stuck around and overheard the ILM creatives had a flight super early the next morning. Despite their packed schedule, they were nice enough to get together for a picture upon request… but my phone died! What a lo-fi moment to end an otherwise awesome evening among the movie industry’s leading provider of special effects.

Special thanks to @Viral Hide for the ticket, Will for the conversation, and ILM for 40 years of Movie Magic.

P.S. While no photo or video capturing was allowed during the presentation, I did manage to record the audio. It should be listenable… and hey, you may even get to hear my sexy laughter now and again. I shall upload it once I convert it to an acceptable file format.)