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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 tech issues, to enterprise system architecture, to sales, he's added new skills with each career move. It was a blast catching up with Scott and hearing about his journey. 

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 travelled to New Zealand to work at Weta Digital. Just before the pandemic, she retired from visual effects and is now developing stories connected to her family experience and background. Terry is one of my all time favorite ILMrs and we have a great conversation about her background, old friends, growing up an LA kid, and the state of the world.

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 worked on numerous feature films including; Men in Black, Flubber, a couple of the Star Wars prequels, AI, Galaxy Quest, and some of the Harry Potter films. Today she lives in Marin with her family and runs her own business. https://kimthompsonsteel.com

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 up for the Erasmus Programme in the EU came up she signed on and learned a host of skills in the world of computer graphics. She worked for a time with SoftImage doing demos and training and eventually landed a job at ILM on Casper as a Technical Director. Her career has taken her all over the world on all kinds of commercial, film, and special venue projects. Today she lives in California and works remotely with a team in New Zealand. 

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 shares her story of working in the industry from a young age. Her many credits include; Casper, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Contact, Deep Impact, The Mummy, The Frightners (at Weta Digital), Men in Black 2, the Pixar short Lifted, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Super 8, Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Black Panther. 

She's been a great friend for 25 years and it was an absolute blast catching up with her. 

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 Bungie in Washington state. We discuss the state of the industry and the exciting fusion of visual effects and games. 

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, and Titanic (to name just a few...). In the mid 1990's Dave served as Visual Effects Supervisor on the Special Editions of Empire and Jedi. He eventually left ILM and went to work at Electronic Arts where he spearheaded groundbreaking work bringing a visual effects and cinematic sensibility to multiple game projects. 

Dave's career is a master class in the history of visual effects and the development of new techniques and tools. He approaches all his work with the eye of an artist and shares some great memories from his incredible career. 

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, Prometheus, Black Panther, and many others. Most recently Mike was hired by DNEG as Global Workflow Architect (Creatures). Mike and I have a bourbon infused chat about the old days, old friends, classic cars, music, and the often wild journey of an accidental career in visual effects. 

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 diving in head first and learning new skills at every step. 

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, Avatar, Kong: Skull Island, Pacific Rim: Uprising, The Tragedy of MacBeth, & Pinocchio (to name just a few). 

Talking with Stefan was a blast. His affable personality and enthusiasm for his work comes through in this fun and informative conversation.