Page 1 of [VIDEO] Light & Magic - Disney+

Really excellent documentary series on the early history of the giant collection of nerds who started Industrial Light & Magic through necessity.

You really get a sense of the pioneering love of the special effects craft by these (mainly) guys under the guidance of George Lucas. Great characters, great camaraderie, it's highly enjoyable.

meant to post about this, started it last night, just watched the first episode, interesting to see/hear the background of these guys as you say that some how got together through necessity.

Nice that's it not retreading old ground, not just showing us blue screens, how they used that, but how they actually made the kit "frankensteined" it as one of them says at one point :)

Amazing how nowadays, you have "kids" on their phones, posting tik tok videos where they change clothes etc, and anyone can do it, but these guys were outcast geeks working it out for themselves :) Loved seeing their home movies they made, reminded me of Bad Taste, and the documentary with that where Peter Jackson shows his cine stuff :)


The gallery documentaries with Mandalorian are brilliant as well, showing how things have moved on from blue/green screen, and now they work in a dome of LCD screens showing the background etc

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This item was edited on Monday, 22nd August 2022, 14:14

I love to see how these guys were never really destined to be successful in life, but just followed their passions which happened to fit in perfectly with the rise of the effects movies. As you say, I loved seeing their home movies made with cinecams and endless enthusiasm for their own pleasure - can really relate to that.

One little story that really resonated was the guy when asked about the endless monotony of creating stop-motion animation said that he was happy to do it for days on end. He had the realisation that he probably had anxiety/depression, and it was the 'mindless' repetition of the exacting work that literally kept him sane and (in his words) probably stopped him from committing suicide.

Quote:
admars says...
"The gallery documentaries with Mandalorian are brilliant as well,"
I should imagine that it's better than the actual series...

My nephew works for a big effects company (he actually recommended this series). He said that films now tender out each cgi sequence - not even the whole film - to the lowest bidder and they have to fight to earn anything from it. The magic and romance has rather gone out of effects now esp. as so much is 'just' cgi.

This item was edited on Monday, 22nd August 2022, 16:28

Back at around the time of jedi & Temple (must have been 84), our secondary school science teacher filled out a lesson by showing a programme that featured some behind the scenes stuff from those films, and I recall the space baby from 2001, and I found it immensely fascinating. It probably led to my ongoing interest with BTS stuff, and on many occasions when I haven't been able to decide between a few DVD  purchases, it's the amount of special features that usually tip the balance in one way or the other.

Looks like I may have to give this a look-see

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