'Phantom Menace' was a huge project. It was the biggest visual effects production ever done at that point, and it was a little scary how big it was and how many unknown technologies had to be developed to do that work.
I have three daughters who grew up while I was working on the special editions and the prequels. They got to be big 'Star Wars' fans. And, you know, I would see them identifying with a lot of the male characters, and I just thought, 'Star Wars' could use more good strong female leads.'
There was a 3-foot-long model that was built for 'New Hope,' and then there was an 8-foot model that was built for 'Empire Strikes Back.' The 8-foot model and the 3-foot model are kind of different. A lot of the details are different between the two of them.
I've been lucky enough in my career to have opportunities to revisit things that meant a lot to me in childhood.
I've always lived by the principle of find what you really enjoy doing and make it your career.
Life's too short to be spending all your waking hours doing something you're not excited about. And when people are that excited, you can see it in the work.
Almost everything I've been paid to do was something that was largely self-taught.
It's harder to get your second picture than it is to get your first one.
When you are shooting traditional motion capture, it's a big footprint on set. There are, like, 16 cameras that are needed and constraints over the lighting.
Ideally, you will never know that you're seeing a computer-generated car.
It's part of the culture at ILM and at Lucasfilm that the work is better when you collaborate, you know. There's this culture of open exchange, a wonderful ego-free sharing of ideas and talent.
I read a magazine called 'Cinefantastique' that had just come out with a making of 'Star Wars' issue. They had some very long and detailed interviews with a whole bunch of people at ILM. I think I memorized that whole magazine.
There's things that you just couldn't do with an optical printer. Now, with digital compositing, most of the energy that goes into a shot goes into the aesthetic issues of, 'Is it a good shot or not?'
The way that Lucasfilm used ILM was George never restricted his thinking to things that he knew could be executed with the tools at the time. He would write what he thought would be cool and what he wanted from a storytelling standpoint with the assumption that, 'Well, they'll figure it out!'
I don't have any particular loyalties to one technique or another. I'm just trying to use the best for the job.
I certainly have opinions about things, but we're a service organization. Our job is to try and realize the director's vision.
