8111

This week on 8111, Eric Brevig. Eric grew up as an only child in West Los Angeles. He loved going to the movies growing up and he made his own short films with kids from the neighborhood. His mom worked at a bank near 20th Century Fox and one of her clients got Eric a set visit to The Towering Inferno on the day they blew up the building. It was an eye opening experience. He went on to attend UCLA for film school and earned a Master’s degree where he made a complicated short film involving stop-motion monsters and live action. 

After school Eric worked as an intern for the camera union. The internship exposed him to all kinds of opportunities working for a short stint at Apogee and Universal Heartland which was doing work on the TV series Buck Rogers. He worked for a time at Doug Trumball’s while they were working on Blade Runner. While there he met Rocco Gioffre who went off and started Dream Quest Images (with Scott Squires, Hoyt Yeatman, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and Bob Hollister). They needed a matte cameraperson and Eric was the right fit for the job. He worked on Lost Boys, Scrooged and other films as VFX Supervisor. 

After working on Total Recall for Dream Quest, Eric was hired by ILM to come work as Supervisor on Hook for Steven Spielberg. Eric worked at ILM for fifteen years on some massive projects. Over the years he's worked  with filmmakers like Spielberg, Michael Bay, Roland Emerich, Barry Sonnenfeld, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, James Cameron, and Frank Oz (to name a few).  

Eric’s visual effects credits include; The Abyss, Total Recall, Hook, Disclosure, The Indian in the Cupboard, Men in Black, Wild Wild West, Pearl Harbor, The Island, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and many others. As Director he’s made the films; Journey to the Center of the Earth and Yogi Bear. Eric’s enthusiasm for filmmaking and visual effects is infectious. Along the way he’s been helped by others and he’s payed it forward helping people he’s worked with, promoting colleagues on films where he’s been a key decision maker. It was great fun to talk to Eric and hear about his amazing career.

Alex was raised by his mom in San Francisco. She was a fine art painter and art has always been a part of his family. So he’s always drawn since his was a little kid. He watched late night monster movies and scoured the local news stand for every magazine on movies he could find. In school he and a friend made stop motion animated films of their own inspired by Ray Harryhausen. He saw a presentation by Linwood Dunn at the SFMOMA and it set his trajectory for the future. 

Alex attended CCAC in Oakland for college and focused on illustration and graphic design. He freelanced for several years after school working as a graphic designer just as things were moving from analog techniques to digital. A gig working for a company in the South Bay doing multimedia presentations led to work doing a kind of story boarding and animation combining several of his skills and connecting him to working in the digital space. 

Alex moved onto another company and became and art director and eventually a manager/team leader working on multi-media “edu-tainment” projects. He was leaning new things everyday and building a set of skills that he’d use for years to come. A chance meeting at an art supply store with another art director Michael Brumsfeld from Colossal Pictures eventually led to a job at ILM. 

Alex worked as designer and visual effects art director on multiple films at ILM including; Star Wars: Special Editions, Saving Private Ryan, The Mummy, Mission to Mars, Minority Report, among others. After eight years Alex left in 2004 to work in games at Electronic Arts in London. 

Today he continues to work in games. Alex is a great artist, a kind human, and thoughtfully shares his journey. It was great fun to catch up with him and hear his story. 

David Tanaka grew up in the Bay Area. As a kid he was fascinated with a small hand cranked toy you could look into and watch Super 8mm film. He later took that toy apart and began making his own short films with friends. He wound up earning a degree in film from UC Berkeley. A visiting artist lecture with Ease Owyeung inspired David to begin looking for ways to get a job at ILM. After several tries he landed an internship at ILM working in the group that did amusement park rides (now defunct). He later moved over to the Art Department and eventually landed a full-time position as an assistant VFX Editor. 

While at ILM David helped create a program that allowed employees to propose and make small independent projects. David went on to make a number of PSA for organizations like Swords to Plowshares. Others in the company made music videos, short films, spec commercials, and experimental art films. David worked at ILM for fifteen years.

His next job was working at Pixar for the next decade or so cutting trailers and marketing material for the company. David has continued to work as a freelance editor and creative for numerous clients. He also has been giving back through teaching and his work with the VES (Visual Effects Society). 

David is an incredibly talented, kind, and thoughtful human. While he mentions others who helped him along the way, so many of the people I’ve talked to for this podcast mentioned David as having been critical to their successes. It was a pleasure to catch up with David and hear his inspiring story of creativity, tenacity, and generosity.  

Paula Karsh grew up in Pittsburg and earned a Master's degree in Education. She later moved to California with her husband, who was enrolled at Stanford in their film program. She spent some time teaching and later found a job working at a film production company where Lucasfilm was one of her first clients. This later led to an opportunity to come to ILM and work on their Production Services team. 

Paula worked as the Head of Production Services for 27 years. She has an amazing story and insight into the needs of a visual effects and film production company. When Dennis Muren calls you in the morning and wants a dead turkey vulture to study the way the wing moves for Dragonslayer, and he needs it by that afternoon, Paula is the one who can get you what you need. Her work, and the work of countless others behind the scenes helped make possible so many of the films you love. While she never won and Oscar, her and her team's work at ILM made it all possible with their critically important work. 

Post ILM, Paula worked doing hospice care, and also as a volunteer firefighter. Paula is an amazing human being and it was amazing to catch up with her and hear her story.

Scott Squires grew up in Indiana. As a kid he built his own microscope and was fascinated with bugs and ants. He worked for the local paper as a photographer in high school and was always interested in filmmaking. He travelled out to California shortly after high school and would up with a job opportunity working on Close Encounters of the Third Kind where he helped develop the “cloud tank”.

Scott worked at ILM for 20 years where he served as Visual Effects Supervisor and directed multiple commercials and ride films. Scott was also the ILM CTO during the transition to digital.

He has had 3 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nominations for Visual Effects - The Mask, Dragonheart, & The Phantom Menace. He also received an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Scientific and Engineering Award for Pioneering Work in Film Input Scanning. 

For the last 4 years, he Co-Founded and was CTO as well as Creative Director at Pixvana, a company specializing in making cloud tools to create the highest quality 360-degree videos for interactive VR use. Scott directed several special VR projects including The Play for the Holodome at the Seattle MPOP.

He has co-founded and helped run 3 companies: a visual effects company (Dream Quest– later sold to Disney), a software company based on the Commotion roto and paint software Scott wrote in C++ (Puffin Designs – later sold to Avid), and a virtual reality company (Pixvana) with complete cloud processing and streaming.

Squires is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and is a Visual Effects Society Fellow. He is a Director of Photography in the International Cinematographers Guild. He was a co-editor and writer on the Visual Effects Handbook and holds 3 patents for special video processes.

Scott’s boundless curiosity and enthusiasm for creative problem solving has propelled him forward throughout his life and made him an industry pioneer of the highest order. His kind and quiet unflappable demeanor, his willingness to share, and his overall good nature make him unique among luminaries of visual effects. It was a real honor and pleasure to chat with Scott about his career, past, present, and future. 

Barbara Townsend was born in Florida, spent some time in Arizona, Texas, St. Louis, and lived her formative years in Memphis. As a young person in high school, she had her own radio show. She attended Arkansas State earning a BS degree in Radio/TV. 

After school, Barbara moved back to St. Louis and worked at a local access station running cameras for college football, taping interviews with fans, and doing general production work. She continued a successful career in broadcasting working on the Today Show in NY, Saturday Night Live, and Meet the Press in Washington. She was fascinated by Chyron and took the training course in Long Island which opened doors throughout the industry. Her skillset and interests grew leading to opportunites doing broadcast graphics with Paintbox and Harry systems. At a career crossroads, Barbara approached her boss and asked to go out to Santa Barbara to train on Wavefront. It changed her trajectory for the next decade. 

A connection with Henry LaBounta led to an interview with John Berton in the computer graphics division of ILM. Barbara was hired and worked at the company as a technical director for the next 11 years. Her credits include, Baby’s Day Out, Star Trek, The Mask, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Men in Black 2, Magnolia, Pearl Harbor, Hulk, and many others. 

She later spent a number of years working full-time as a mother. As her kids got a little older, she pursued a master’s degree in counseling and today works as a full-time therapist engaging with clients in her private practice. She is engaged in psychedelic assisted therapy and using her systems knowledge, education, and life experience to help people with severe depression. 

Barbara is an amazing person and it was truly great to catch up with her and hear about her incredible journey.  

Stu Maschwitz grew up in Minnesota. As a kid he loved movies. His dad was an entomologist and his mother was an artist working with textiles. He made short animated movies as a young kid and later shot numerous skateboarding videos with friends. He eventually made his way to CalArts and made every opportunity at the school count.

After graduation he landed a job at ILM where he’d work for the next 4 years. He was a founding member of the Rebel Mac group at the company and eventually left to branch out on his own. He co-founded and ran The Orphanage with former ILM colleagues Scott Stewart and Jonathan Rothbart for the next 10 years.

Stu has worked as a Visual Effects Supervisor, commercial and music video director, and software developer. Today he works with Red Giant Software developing tools for artists and creating his own projects. Most notably with his 2018 animated short film “Tank”.

Stu is a true raconteur in the world of filmmaking and visual effects. With his blog, Prolost, and his ongoing work with industry partners he shares his knowledge and skills with great generosity and humor. There’s no doubt he’d make a world class teacher. But in most every way, he already is. It was so fun to catch up with Stu and hear about his amazing journey.

John Goodson grew up in North Carolina, Alaska, and Northern California. His dad was a surgeon in the Air Force and John loved airplanes and science fiction. Space 1999, Star Trek, and later Star Wars captured his imagination as a young person and he began building models. 

He earned a degree in Product Design from North Carolina State. He loved to draw hard surface models and objects and he's always made his own models and props. He got a 1966 Ford Mustang as his first car and it needed some body work. So he went to a bodyshop that was run by a patient of his dad's and learned how to work with all kinds of materials and developed a sense of precision in "making". 

He and his pal Tony Hudson made their own Empire Strikes Back snowscape with working miniatures in a spare bedroom in his parents house. Some time later, Tony wound up working at ILM and he and John talked on the phone frequently while John was in Design School. He continued to build and develop his skillset making all kinds of models from the starship Enterprise to the EVA pod from 2001. He came out to stay with Tony for a few weeks in California and wound up with a full-time job in the ILM model shop where he worked for the next 31 years. 

John's credits are beyond impressive and include; Back to the Future 2, Die Hard 2, Star Trek VI, The Rocketeer, Alive, Mission Impossible, Deep Impact, Mission to Mars, Planet of the Apes, Harry Potter, Terminator 3, Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, & 3, Rogue One, and The Mandalorian. Just to name a few... 

John's enthusiasm, passion for making, and love of problem solving are inspiring. He shares some amazing stories of his experiences, the techniques developed, and solutions found to complex problems on numerous projects. It was an absolute blast talking to John and we could have easily gone on for another couple hours. May be this one will someday get a part 2...

Mark Moore grew up in the Pacific Northwest. As a kid he loved art, movies, cars, and airplanes. He attended University of Washington as an undergrad where he studied industrial design. He moved to San Francisco after graduation to be closer to ILM and found work in the city building architectural models and toys.  

A mutual colleague led to a friendship with John Bell, who was working as an art director at ILM, and they shared a laugh corresponding for a time via FAX machine. Mark soon landed a gig at ILM where he worked for the next 13 years as a storyboard/concept artist, visual effects art director -- and eventually  in 1996 as the ILM Art Department Creative Director -- Mark has worked with many top Hollywood filmmakers including: John Carpenter, Nicholas Meyer, Frank Oz, Tim Burton, Stephen Sommers, Rob Cohen, Brian De Palma, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Ang Lee.

In 2002, Mark went freelance, moved to Texas, and has since worked on films with directors Robert Rodriguez, Mike Judge (on Idiocracy!), Jonathan Liebesman, Jon Favreau (on Ironman), and Jeff Nichols (on his incredible indie film Mud). In 2012, Mark began consulting with 900 lbs of Creative in Dallas on a variety of projects for feature films and interactive museum exhibits.

Mark is one of the funniest and most positive people I've ever worked with. His boundless energy and enthusiasm is infectious and he always makes me laugh. Thanks to Mark for an inspiring conversation. By the end of this interview you have to ask yourself one question, "are you pushin' it...or are you milking it?"

Ellen Poon grew up in Hong Kong in the 1960s. She was a middle child out of five and her mom loved going to the movies.  From a very young age she was motivated to excel, and was always an independent thinker. A great teacher at university got her interested in graphics by challenging students to make images and patterns using Pascal. She realized that computer science was an area where she could be super creative. She went on to earn a PhD in computer science from the University of London. 

Ellen is a founding member of MPC's Computer Graphics department. During her tenure at ILM, she was the first woman to be made Visual Effects Supervisor. Ellen has won two Hong Kong Film Awards for her work on Hero and Monster Hunt. Her film credits include: Jurassic Park, Star Wars: Episode 1, Jumanji, Frozen, and Raya and the Last Dragon. 

Within minutes of meeting Ellen you know you are talking to one of the kindest, coolest, and smartest people you’ll ever meet. It was great to reconnect and  hear her story.