8111

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...

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...

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...

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 returne...

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 an...

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 ba...

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, fol...

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&a...

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 fo...

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 a...

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 te...

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...

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...

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...

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 share...

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 Bung...

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,...

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, Pr...

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...

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, Ava...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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, an...