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Probably the only person at ILM to prefer Star Trek over Star Wars, Henry LaBounta shares his incredible visual effects career with Ed Kramer on CGI Fridays Episode 4.
SEASON 2 COMING SOON!
Industrial Light and Magic alum and CGI educator Ed Kramer (Star Wars, Stargate, The Mummy, Galaxy Quest) catches up with pioneers and innovators to learn about the coolest VFX in our favorite films and how they got started in the industry. Hilarious, informative, and surprising, CGI Fridays is a must for anyone starting a career in visual effects or computer animation, as well as fans of behind-the-scenes stories from some of the biggest science fiction films of all time.
Unknown: I'm Henry lamonta and I
killed James T Kirk.
Ed Kramer: Welcome to the first
episode of CGI Fridays a brand
new podcast from the companion
dot app. I'm Edie primer, and
I've been a professional CGI
artist for almost 40 years,
which culminated in 12 years
that Industrial Light and Magic
where I was very fortunate to be
asked to supervise the scarab
beetles from the mummy, the rock
monster from Galaxy Quest and
sequences from all three Star
Wars prequels. And of course, I
also worked on the companion fan
favourite film the original
Stargate. Since I got out of the
movie business, I've been
teaching CGI at the university
level for more than a decade.
And in the series on CGI
Fridays, I'm going to be
catching up with some old
friends from the industry to
talk about their careers and
their work and to give you a
damn good reason to sit alone
after everyone's left the
theatre watching the credits all
the way to the end. So for
Episode One, I'm really excited
to be catching up with my old
friend and colleague from
Industrial Light and Magic Henry
lamonta. Henry is going to talk
about his Oscar nomination for
Twister, how he parted the Red
Sea in the prince of Egypt. How
he killed off James T. Kirk, how
he unleashed mechanical spiders
on Tom Cruise and Minority
Report. And what it's like to
work with Steven Spielberg,
which he did on both Minority
Report and AI Artificial
Intelligence. So Henry, tell us
a little about yourself. Where
were you born? Where'd you grow
up? Where do you go to school?
Unknown: Oh, thanks, Ed. It's so
nice to be here. Thanks for
inviting me to do this. It's
always great to see you again.
So yes, I was born in Baltimore.
Although my family moved a lot.
So we lived in Europe and all
over the US. When I was a kid,
and I went to Minneapolis
College of Art and Design and
the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago. You know, right
about that time, people were
starting to do digital things
and image processing things that
was actually analogue computers
making crazy, crazy images. That
was a great start for me and
getting into this this industry.
Ed Kramer: So a little bit about
how you and I kind of Sure,
sure, sure. We met
Unknown: in New York City, maybe
I was at NBC New York at the
time, and I think you're at
Coffee graph, maybe a right I
got that, right. We were making
magic for television, mostly TV
opens and such and, and
commercials and things like
that, at the time, you know,
really some of the first people
to do things in video that
nobody had seen before, and
really became common music
videos and all sorts of other
formats.
Ed Kramer: We were both on the
Bosch FTS, 4000. You and NBC and
me at copy graph, and I remember
I saw a swaying palm tree. And
and I thought, How in the world
did they do that swaying palm
tree? How did he make something
bend like that? And CGI?
Unknown: Yeah, you're one of
three people in the world that
probably remember. But you know,
it's a weird story, because you
couldn't do it on the Bosch but
you could programme the Bosch
with this really kind of basic
command language type
programming. And you would have
to write in hundreds and
hundreds of lines of code to do
it. So what I did instead is I
wrote I think it was in Pascal,
I forget a programme on a Mac
that generated the data for that
through a wire that was kind of
soldered together to go into
where the keyboard was for the
Bosch I sent all those commands
to the Bosch back in the days
when you kind of did stuff just
through brute force. Really,
Ed Kramer: I think you've
created each individual tree as
a separate object and right and
then animated between them.
Right? It was right.
Unknown: Yeah, it was crazy.
Ed Kramer: That would have been
in what 84
Unknown: I'm thinking more like
8586 in that range.
Ed Kramer: What was the next
step? And and I have a feeling I
know this because I was there
too.
Unknown: That's right. I ended
up going down to Atlanta to work
for a Crawford design effects.
We were a post production house
and develop some really cool
stuff for mostly TV show opens
but a lot of commercials also,
and national commercials
including, you know, car
commercials and Coca Cola and
beauty rest and oh my gosh, so
many different things and lots
of TV show opens and we were
lucky to have Ed Kramer Are
there as well as a bunch of
other brilliant people working
with us?
Ed Kramer: It's amazing how many
people from Crawford ended up
working at Industrial Light and
Magic and write Sony and
DreamWorks. And, you know, all
the big companies and some are
still doing it. And I remember
that Simmons Beautyrest spot.
You wrote some code so that as
the animated character made more
pressure on certain parts of the
screen was, yeah, you wrote code
that change the colour of the
spring, so you could actually
see it visually, which was kind
of like one of the first
scientific visualisations.
Unknown: You know, I think that
might have been one of the first
shows we use render man like 1.0
on and Barry Dempsey was working
with us. And he heard about
render man SIGGRAPH. And he's
like, we gotta you gotta use us.
That's the coolest thing is
like, what's render man, I still
have the render man 1.0 Manual.
Like, I think the first one they
have republished in, you know,
with Bill Schultz is help, we
figured out some really cool
spring mesh systems to where
we're doing dynamic simulations.
And having been an art school
kind of guy, it was fun to
combine them, the art and
science, you know, to come up
with this stuff. We did a lot of
stuff very quickly, and don't
look back. Because you know,
when you see some of those old
videos, you just got like, ah,
but at the time, they looked
amazing, they really did look
amazing. And some of them kind
of hold up a little
Ed Kramer: bit. I enjoyed
looking at the old stuff. I
mean, you know, it's so cool. I
share that with my students to
show them what things used to
look like. And I find it hard to
believe that there was ever a
time before right now.
Unknown: Yeah, back when
wireframes were high tech.
Ed Kramer: You know, exactly
what Robert Abel was doing.
Wireframe little aeroplane
flying through a wireframe
scene. And we all were, you
know, our jaws were dropping.
And how cool was a
Unknown: mind blowing? Yeah,
yeah. So how did you? NBC New
York, was sports. I made a golf
ball in wavefront. And I had it
rotating on a monitor, and a
sports producer came by and he's
like, how did you how did you
shoot that golf ball that way.
And I said, it's fake. There's
no such thing. I just made it in
the computer and his jaw
dropped. And it's like, that's
impossible. And even then, it
was believable enough to fake
him out to think that, you know,
that was a real golf ball that,
you know, and that those are
really early days. So it was
pretty crude. By today's
standards.
Ed Kramer: We didn't have quite
the polygon count that we can
you rely on today, rendering
techniques? And yeah, rendering
speeds as well. I mean, it's
amazing where we are today.
Well, we'll, we'll get to today
in a little while. How did the
job at Crawford them lead to
working at Industrial Light and
Magic?
Unknown: I think it was at the
High Museum of Art. Pearl
Rosendahl from Pei came to do a
talk, they are showing some of
the cool stuff that Pacific data
images was doing at the time.
And it was like dinosaurs made
out of Chrome that we're running
was like, how did you do that?
That looks so cool. He talked
about how people that have both
kind of a math science and art
background are like gold to
them. Now, these are exactly the
kind of people they want. And I
was like, He's talking to me. T
two came out Terminator two, and
I saw that, you know, kind of
liquid metal character that ILM
had made. I was like, Okay, I
gotta go through this stuff. So
I think it must have been after
SIGGRAPH or something like that.
And I was super inspired, you
know, back then you would mail a
VHS tape to studios or you know,
you have the internet to just
send a movie file or anything
like that. I sent out my info to
rhythm and hues in LA to PDI and
the Bay Area, and Industrial
Light and Magic. Think that was
just those three, and I got job
offers from all three of them.
Lawrence Kao: I hope you're
enjoying CGI Fridays with visual
effects pioneer Ed Kramer, who
worked for George Lucas at
Industrial Light and Magic if
you want to read more Star Wars
stories to companions got you
covered sign up to a companion
membership at the companion dot
app. That's www dot the
companion dot a PP. Now, back to
the show
Unknown: so I was like, Oh, wow,
okay, well, I guess this is
serious. I gotta think about
moving. And ILM had been doing
some really cool stuff. They
were just going to shove
Jurassic Park. For God's sake. I
was like, I gotta get in on that
dinosaur action. Somehow, yeah,
took a job at ILM Who hired you
John Burton, and Jeff light were
like two of the key contacts
there. I think it was Doug Kay,
that headed up that CG
department. And it was kind of
weird because back then, you
know, ILM had mostly done
optical type stuff. And there
was a small group of like,
computer graphics people that
weren't in the union or anything
that kind of like, oh, yeah, we
don't know what they're up to.
That's not never gonna amount to
anything. When you and I got
involved. It was a pretty small
group before these companies
ended up being 1000s and 1000s
of people. I don't know if it
was even 60 people or something
like that was like, within
months, I became a senior
technical director. It was
weird. My first movie was babies
day out working with John Knoll,
and John Knoll, and his brother
invented Photoshop. And I was
like, what I'm working with one
of the guys that I met in
Photoshop, that's cool. And Doug
Smyth and others on that team
and I learned a lot working on
that project. But it was weird
cuz, you know, babies the out,
we had to have a CG City,
Chicago for those shots where
the baby's looking down from the
crane, I was the guy that was
going to be making that city.
And I was like, I just started
here is like, Yeah, but you're
the 3d expert guy. I knew that I
took me a little while to
realise, oh, most of the people
I'm working with here, more 2d
compositing type people. And I
just kind of coming in on my
show first show as being like
one of the experts on the team.
Ed Kramer: I barely know what
I'm doing. You know, every
project at ILM involved
something that had never been
done before. So what did you do
that really hadn't been done?
That so
Unknown: little had been done to
date, I don't think island had
done a major city. And somebody
else had modelled the city and
done initial lighting setup. So
I can't take credit for that
stuff. There was some really
nice work done there. There was
some issues around around
rendering that I was able to
kind of sort out and speed up
and make more efficient, there
was a couple interesting things
like the baby was up on this
crane, this platform, so they
shot the baby on this platform
with a blue screen, the way it
was set up on this rig, the
whole platform kind of vibrated
as it was moving up, and they
could not stabilise that shot at
all kind of look like the baby
was just jiggling and then big
construction platform. And I
think like three different
people had tried to do it. And
you know, it wasn't my area of
expertise at all. But I kind of
looked at what they were doing
and talk to some of the guys
that were doing the match move.
And they showed me what they
were doing. I said, Hey, you
know, I'll tell you what, do
this for me, give me a match
move done this way. And I'm
going to track this. And we'll
see what happens. So I tracked
it and use their match move in a
way that I guess nobody had
tried before. And the whole
thing was nice and smooth. And
John Knoll was like, how did you
do that? I was like, Well, I
just love all blah, blah, blah.
And, and that worked out well
for me. Because then I became
like, Oh, this guy can do some
cool stuff here that we haven't
done before. You know, it's all
about problem solving with this
kind of work. It's a lot of this
stuff hadn't been done before.
So you just figure it out and
make it work,
Ed Kramer: that's probably going
to end up being something that
every single person I
interviewed says at some point
or another, I had no idea how to
do this, but we just kind of
like figured it out. All right,
so let's get into the cool
stuff. Star Trek Generations. So
So what did you do on Star Trek
Generations,
Unknown: there's this huge
energy ribbon in space. That's
like gobbling up planets and,
and destroying things. It's not
too easy to film energy ribbons.
So somebody's got to make it. We
started working on that. And I
had some, I think some concept
art and some reference in
software. Initially, I was told
like, hey, we really want you to
like hand animate this so we can
really get you know, these are
some of the techniques we
discovered on Jurassic Park. And
we really want to use them here
on this project, too. I was
like, I really think we should
do it a different way. But I
kind of struggled hammock given
all these tendrils, and each one
of them needs to move in an
interesting way. It's not a lot
of animation. So you know, we're
kind of plodding along. I wasn't
supposed to be doing this
procedural way. I was told not
to do that. I was like, Okay,
forget it. I'm just going to
stay late one night, really late
one night and then come in on
Saturday to is kind of like on a
Friday I decided to do this. I
applied some procedural
techniques of just running some
noise, fractal type noise
through the tendrils to see what
that would look like. showed it
in dailies on Monday, the
journal and there's like, whoa,
so that's what we've been
looking for. How did you do
that? I was like, Oh, I don't
want to tell you said I did it
procedurally like, and then it's
like, it looks good. Let's go
with that. So sometimes you got
to break the rules a little But
it was a little bit of a
stressful time. But once I kind
of broke through that barrier, I
was able to just really run with
it. And we're able to bring all
sorts of more sophistication to
the animation and still have
pretty decent control of this
energy ribbon. Which ultimately,
yeah, James T. Kirk was consumed
by the energy ribbon as far as
you know, from the from the
film, so I never thought that I
actually killed them, but maybe
I did. And I love Star Trek. I
really do. This was so exciting.
I'm much more of a Trekkie. And
Star Wars Star Wars is okay. I
know that's going to be
sacrilege to a lot of people
listening to this. But Star
Trek, that's, that's where it's
at. And super exciting. We had
to do a shot with the saucer
section, you know, crashing into
the planet. And we wanted to
have the crew on the top of the
saucer section, all running away
from the energy room and like
that's going to help but anyway,
it helps the dramatic, you're
not going to be able to run away
from the energy ribbon. But so
what we did is we got a camera,
I think it was up on the roof of
the building or something like
that. And then in the parking
lot, we all had the wardrobe
from Paramount, the actual
wardrobe from the film and the
TV show, you can pick whether
you want to be a science
officer, or medical officer or
whatever, you know, the
different colour costumes and
put them on so I gotta wear a
real Star Trek costume. My wife
did too. So we were both extras
that are about an inch high on
the film. You won't recognise
us. But we're on top of that
saucer section running away. So
that was my boy. I was I was
living the life. I was just like
I've reached nirvana. Now. I can
just call it quits now because
I've been in a Star Trek movie.
Ed Kramer: That's, that's great.
So not only did you kill Captain
Kirk, but there's pixels of you
in the movie doing it. Yes.
Let's move to Casper. What was
your role on Casper?
Unknown: I got involved with
that film pretty late. Stephen
Fang Meyer and Dennis Muren.
Were the VFX supervisors for
that they had some shots that
they tried a few times and
couldn't final. So I was lucky
to get this kind of crack crew,
you know, like Greg kill master
and Robert Marinette, some
really, really good people in my
crew of doing some special VFX
work. And one of them was the
ghosts toward the end or kind of
swirling around in the room in
that giant room with a staircase
and I remember Janet Healy's
producer, and Dennis Mira is
there, and I show it and
somebody audience says, you
know, one of the animators says,
who did that? That's awesome.
And Dennis says, says, violent?
And Janet says, Did you hear
what Dennis said? And I said,
No, what did he say? I didn't.
She said the final. I said,
That's my first take. I'm not
going to final it. It's my first
take. And and she said, okay,
okay, go meet with Dennis. So I
go meet with Dennis. And Dennis
is a God of visual effects with
all his academy awards, if you
don't know who he is like, Oh,
my God, he's just done
everything that can be done.
Really wonderful person, too. He
said, No. Okay, let's try
modifying this a little bit, do
another take and then I'll take
us modify this a little bit, do
another take didn't undertake.
Let's adjust this. So this goes
on for like a week and a half,
two weeks, we're making some
adjustments. And he looks at us
like, you know what, Henry, your
version was better just go back
to your version and do whatever
it is you wanted to do to it.
And we did some other stuff with
the ghost smelting Mitch geodis,
I think was helping with this
and they were dripping down.
We're doing metal balls and
stuff like this. So it was
really cool and fun work to do
to just kind of kind of one off
weird shots. And I did a bunch
of lighting also. And came up
came up with a new rig to new
technique to get the little
highlight in the eyeballs to
work every time. Oh, yeah, that
was a really fun show. Really
the first animated film to
feature a CG lead character.
That's a big deal. Casper was
CG. He's the star of the movie.
And he's he's not real. We had
something like 360 shots in the
film, which was a huge number of
visual effects shots. Today.
That's nothing. There's 1000s
and 1000s. And in any given
film,
Ed Kramer: let's move on to one
of my favourite movies that that
I worked on with you, which was
Twister. Yes. You were one of
the CG soups you and Habib and
eventually you guys were
nominated for an Oscar for that
which is really cool. So give a
little background to to your
your work on Twister.
Unknown: Sure, you know for
Twister to hit greenlit by the
studio. They need to see a test
to prove that we can actually
make a convincing experience for
the audience before they say
here's millions and millions of
dollars to do that. His work,
and we're gonna go film this
stuff because really a film like
that wasn't possible even a year
or two before this. So it was
really cutting edge work like we
were doing stuff with software
that literally lives just off
the shelf hubby had worked on
that test, and they really liked
it with a tractor. And then a
beat was on another show, they
asked me to do the early visual
development work on the design
of the tornadoes themselves. You
know, I've worked with a bunch
of smart people like Chris
White, who's now an amazing VFX
supervisor led a digital working
on some huge films, and yourself
and lots of other smart people.
Also working with Stephen bang
Meyer, again, we came up with
some techniques to not only
create the funnel of the
tornado, but also, you know,
kind of that whole dust trail
that was left behind where we're
using this software called
dynamization, which allows you
to animate particles and it had
a scripting language in it. So
you could make it dance really,
a lot of what was done animation
went on to become a foundation
for Maya, which is a huge 3d
package that is used in the
industry today. Most of my work
was in figuring out how to
create those tornados and then
training up a team to do that,
and working with Mike Ludlum and
others, we figured out how to do
all the debris shots, we have
tonnes of shots of debris
flying, I was on set, they had a
giant jet engine on set, the
practical effects guys would be
dropping all sorts of debris,
leaves and various things into
the jet engine. While the actors
are acting, it doesn't really
work because actors are kind of
like they don't want all that
stuff blowing into their face.
So you can't see their face
while the debris is blowing
them. And then you probably end
up with somebody getting
injured. So the jet engine was
useful for John Frazier's team
did that stuff was useful for a
lot of practical effects. But
when it came to debris that was
anywhere near the actors, and we
had to simulate that ourselves.
Ed Kramer: Someone said that
people were getting sick because
the fan was blowing not only the
debris, but water into their
Unknown: faces. Oh, yeah, there
was. So off the sides of the
roads, there were the ditches.
There's that whole sequence
where they're hiding underneath
that little bridge in this
ditch. And there's water that's
been sitting there, that who
knows what's in that water?
Yeah, one of the actors had to
go to the hospital. But you
know, like Bill Paxton, oh, my
God, what a wonderful human
being, it was great to work with
him. Because the sweetest man in
the world they play frisbee with
us during breaks and hang out
with us and eat lunch. And, you
know, a lot of actors go back to
their trailers and not talk to
anybody on the crew. But Bill
was really sweet man. And yonder
Bond was all about getting the
shots. He was a lot of energy
and pretty intense director, but
it was, I think my first time on
set. So it was really fun
learning how films are actually
shot and being there to help
supervise it to make sure we got
the plates back that we need.
And it's funny in interviews the
client did after the movie came
out. He said, there's only one
real tornado in the film, see if
you can spot which one's the
real one. You know, and I
thought that was so clever of
him to do that. But there are no
real tornadoes in that movie,
because the insurance is set up
such that if there's any tornado
within, I don't know, 10 miles
or something like that. We had
to shut down the front end there
several times. They just sent us
back to our hotels, because it
was like, yeah, there's a
tornado near here at that exact
thing we want to film but we
can't, for insurance reasons. So
you know, there's a practical
side of it like that, too. They
didn't want anybody getting hurt
by the tornadoes.
Ed Kramer: Tell us about what it
was like with the Academy Award
nomination for twist. Oh, and
going to parties and you know
what you got,
Unknown: oh, my that is so so
much fun. Getting that
nomination is just huge. I like
to refer to myself as an Academy
Award loser. But you go to a
luncheon. So they have this
nominees lunch and you're
sitting at the table with all
these other amazing people and
all these other actors. And it's
weird because you're in a room
where you recognise a lot of
people but you've never met
them. And so you have this great
luncheon and they kind of
explain how the award show goes
and they take a picture of
everybody. And then you go to
the Academy Awards, which is a
fantastic experience for Barbara
and I you know, there's a the
dinner afterward, Vanity Fair
puts on a party and so we went
to this restaurant where they
had the the after party. It's
such a bizarre experience
walking into a room where
literally almost every single
person in this room you've seen
before, but you've never met
them. And it's just one star
after another star after another
star after another star. I saw
Tom Cruise off on the side
talking to a reporter Uh, and
you know, as I got there, I went
to the bar and I just got a
stiff drink. It was like, well,
we lost, let's get drunk. And
Barbara's like, what are you
doing? I was like, I'm gonna go
talk to Tom Cruise. She's like,
you can't do that. And I was
like, why not? So I went over
and kind of got near him. And
coincidentally, the interview
ended. So Tom Cruise is sitting
alone. So I went up and
introduced myself and super
wonderful nice man genuinely was
interested in speaking to us not
distracted, but it was just
great eye contact. Cameron Crowe
was one of the people that we
had lunch with, and he was a
double nominee. And then he is
like Henry, how you doing? Let
me introduce you to some of my
friends and he took us rounds as
there's Woody Harrelson. Here's
Courtney Love, and you know all
these other people. He was
hanging with it. Yeah, it was it
was a pretty cool experience.
Ed Kramer: That's something that
not many people get to do in the
course of their careers. And,
quite frankly, I'm jealous as
hell. No, and I'm happy for you.
That's awesome. So now we can
get back into what happened
after Ilm.
Unknown: Yeah. Twister wrapped
up. I heard about this studio,
DreamWorks. I was starting up
with Steven Spielberg and
Katzenberg and David Geffen and
a friend of mine, Matt Elson was
working there, you know, hey,
we're looking for people and I
excelled backup just a little
bit right before I started
talking to them. They're
starting these Star Wars
prequels. And we need somebody
to go out to the ranch to meet
with George about the Star Wars
films he wants to do. I was the
first person from ILM to go to
the ranch and meet George and
Rick McCallum as a production
designer and really, really
cool, small team. But it was
really interesting and exciting
to see. And the chemistry just
wasn't there. So I decided to go
to DreamWorks instead, talking
directly to Jeffrey Katzenberg,
who was kind of recruiting me,
they said that they're doing us
animated film prints of Egypt.
And they need somebody to park
the Red Sea. And how many people
have that on their resume I part
of the Red Sea. And I've never
done any animated films before.
And I thought, wow, that could
be fun. Let's go do that, you
know, just something different.
So moved down to LA. And my
wife, Barbara was working at
Disney on dinosaur. And I was
working at DreamWorks, we had a
great team we built up, you
know, Doug Cooper was really
instrumental and for the party
in the Red Sea. You know, as was
so many other people trying to
do some of the stuff I was
doing, but in a stylized way
that fit with an animated film
and working with three directors
and building a studio. Like
literally plugging in computers,
downloading software from
scratch, not unlike ilm, where
everything's all set up. It was
quite a challenge. But we
managed to get it done. We did
some pretty advanced stuff,
combining cel animation, with CG
and particle animation with
render man and Houdini using
Houdini 1.0. That's a really
powerful VFX animation software,
we use the very first version of
it got some great support from
the team that builds up side
effects software.
Ed Kramer: That sounds like kind
of a theme of your career being
the first to use a particular
technology there
Unknown: think David Allen was
one of the guys on my team who
had this idea of like, well, if
we get the traditional animators
to just animate just like a
little splash, we can instance
the hell out of that splash. And
you know, make it look like it's
it's gigantic close up, it'll
look like they're hand drawn
droplets. So was that technique
of trying to combine something
that's hand drawn with the power
of the computer to make
something huge. Another thing we
had to do is put all these
people in the scene now there
really wasn't a way of course to
hand draw all those people. So I
developed a technique with it,
it's kind of a sprite technique
was very common today to make a
walk cycle of these characters
from all different points of
view, and then figure out where
the camera is what angle we're
seeing them and use the right
angle from that sprite animation
cycle to make it look like it
was full of this giant crowd of
people passing through the part
at Red Sea technical stuff along
with some artistry to kind of
stay in style with the rest of
the film.
Ed Kramer: Well, that's great
that you were able to take what
the artists could draw, and then
instance that in a CGI
environment, so you you were
really using the best of both
worlds of techniques. That's
really cool.
Unknown: Right? Right. Right,
right. And at that time, you
know, my wife had just finished
working on Toy Story. She was at
Pixar when I was at ILM, using
CG for animated films as a brand
new thing. And DreamWorks at
that time, very was very
emphatic that they're not going
to use computer graphics except
for a lead character, but after
Shrek that change very quickly.
Again, it was one of those
things you just have to be
fearless and go for it and work
hard and collaborate with the
smart people around you to make
it happen
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Ed Kramer: And after Prince of
Egypt, you you worked on the
Sandra Bullock film forces of
nature, what do you
Unknown: think you were gonna
bring that one up to?
Ed Kramer: I've got IMDb open
right now.
Unknown: The next Oh, my PDI was
acquired by DreamWorks and PDI
was working on Shrek. So when I
was done with Prince of Egypt, I
did a little bit extra
development work and some cool
stuff with DreamWorks. But PDI
needed some help with some
visual effects they were doing.
So they asked if I could go up
to the Bay Area and work with
them. And Richard Chun was
heading up this cafe group a
PDI. That was the VFX side while
Trek was being made. My wife was
working in Shrek, and I was
working on visual effects there.
When we moved up to Los Altos,
we did the wedding sequence
where there's all these flower
petals kind of flying around and
flowing through the scene. We
did a whole bunch of stuff on
the film, but I think that's
probably one of the most notable
sequences. And I was able to use
a lot of the tricks I had in my
bag of how to animate. It's very
similar to the debris. We
animated on Twister, to be
honest, but it just had to be
more graceful and beautiful. And
you know this for a wedding in
and then that one I was on set.
Nice experience actually being
the visual effects supervisor
for the film.
Ed Kramer: And you were on the
set for all of the plate
photography.
Unknown: Ah, yeah, that related
to the VFX. Yeah, was all right,
where are you? We're outside
Savannah somewhere.
Ed Kramer: So did you actually
like interact with the actors
with Sandra Bullock?
Unknown: You know, we didn't
interact with a talent that
much. But yeah, we're right
there with them. The other woman
that was getting married while
she was in a wedding dress, and
we're on the set. There's all
these guys standing around.
She's that's kind of hot. And
she's just waiting for the scene
to start. She's like, well, I've
got a wedding dress on. Does
anyone want to marry me here?
Ed Kramer: We've got supernova
we've got Mission Impossible to
and then we go into AI
Artificial Intelligence of
Minority Report. So do you want
to go with all of those?
Unknown: Mission Impossible two
was a fun film to work on to
John Woo, really likes having
doves in his films. And he
wanted some doves to fly through
this building that was on fire.
And oddly enough, doves don't
like to fly through fire. You
know, they're smarter than that.
Get the VFX guy in here to make
the does fly through. We made
the doves and we went down to LA
to meet with him. And I've never
met him before. So it's the
first time I'm meeting them
showing them this stuff shot. He
doesn't say anything is like
just kind of nods to say hello.
We go in these kind of signals,
play it again. Play it again.
Play it again. He's just
signalling, like oh crap. He
really doesn't like it. Maybe
he's watched this like five or
six times. He's just looking for
the words to tell me how bad it
is. And then he takes me aside
and just stares at me. And it's
all it's like at least 30
seconds and there's nothing and
he's just staring at me. I'm
like, What's going on here? And
he says two words. He just
stares at me right in my eyes
and says more spiritual. And
then leaves the room I should
have known you know, this is
maybe the reason why he puts
doves in his films. And that was
a really cool experience working
with John Woo and we gave them a
bit of a glow and you know
change the speed. They were
flapping their wings and stuff
like that to make them more
graceful and more angelic in a
way. And it was a final
Ed Kramer: that now you move
into Spielberg. Yes. Okay,
Unknown: so one of my dreams all
along, has been to work with
Steven Spielberg and The first
date I ever went out on with my
girlfriend here actually in
Minnesota where I am, again, was
to see jaws. I remember trying
to be really cool. And then the
shark attacks I go I was like,
no, no, I'm supposed to be cool.
I'm on a date, you know. But,
you know, he was the master ILM
was doing a lot of the VFX for
Minority Report and AI and there
was some additional work they
needed done. And because
Spielberg was one of the owners
and founders of Dreamworks and
PDI was part of Dreamworks, it
was like, hey, why not have PDI
help out on this. So it was a
really great opportunity to work
directly with him. For him. Some
of the stuff we did was
invisible effects like Hailey
Joe Osmond, you could see his
breath, but he's supposed to be
a digital person. I mean,
robotic kind of being not a
human being. So we had to get
rid of the breath and stuff like
that. But we also did some
gigolo Joe transformations where
he's combing his hair with
changes into a different style,
so it can appeal to somebody
else, depending on what they
were looking for. Jude Law was
very cool to work with on that.
We also did this other
hitchhiking to the city. They
show this hologram of this
dancing girl to get this ride.
And I was doing the second unit
photography, it was great to get
a chance to work with Spielberg.
He knew of me because he was the
executive producer on both
Casper and Twister. I think as
some of these, you know, tougher
shots were final course they
shared everything with him. So
you know, when I first met him,
he was like, oh, yeah, you did
that shot. And it's like, Oh,
yeah. Oh, you know something
about me? Nobody heard Steven
Spielberg. So yeah, that was
that was kind of cool. If you
remember the film flesh fair.
Was this kind of like circus
environment?
Ed Kramer: Yeah, they were
killing all the robots for fun.
Yeah, right.
Unknown: And on the stage was
the band was ministry that was
playing, and I was a fan of
ministries, music. And I was
like, oh my god, I'm, I'm
getting paid to be in a ministry
concert with all this cool stuff
happening. So the little teddy
bear was a puppet kind of thing
that is sometimes CG that ILM
was doing and sometimes a
puppet. Um, so we had to do some
reg removal and stuff for that.
And some different compositing
work to get it to do what we
wanted to do.
Ed Kramer: For people who don't
know CGI terms. What does rig
removal actually mean?
Unknown: Ah, yeah, sure. This
puppet had a, there was a few
different types of puppets. But
let's say it was a puppet that
had some rods that was
controlling. So there might be a
puppeteer that's moving the arms
with some some thin rods. And
when you see it in the film, you
don't see those rods, it's
because people on my crew
tediously went through and
remove them frame by frame. We
did some of that stuff. And
Mission Impossible to it's just
some of that work that needs to
be done that you don't even
really notice there was also
like a mechanical version of the
teddy bear that must have
weighed 100 pounds is just this
not that big of a bear. And it
looks all cute and cuddly. But
all this armature inside, this
thing was so heavy, this really
brilliant guy from MIT, that had
come up with a way to programme
it and animate it really early
days of doing stuff like that.
It was a good show. And that
kind of gave me the opportunity
to work on Minority Report.
Probably the most memorable
thing we did were those spiders
that are going down that
tenement hallway, they kind of
get underneath the door, and
they come into the bathroom
where Tom Cruise is in this
bathtub that's filled with ice
because he's trying to hide from
them. And when we were filming
that I'm on the set. And Stephen
likes to film like real rooms,
not rooms that have fake walls
that move away to kind of really
get the feeling of shooting in a
real room. There's a small
bathroom and in that bathroom is
Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg,
and Janusz Kaminski, his
director of photography in me
take a picture of this, like
which person does not belong in
here? And I was like, wow, this
is cool. I gotta be in the same
room with these guys.
Ed Kramer: You know making a
movie. And it's a bathroom. The
bathroom of all places you are
in a bathroom with with Steven
Spielberg.
Unknown: Yeah, we came up with a
way to you know, animate these
spiders. So they're kind of
creepy and intelligent is
actually talking to Tom Cruise
and you know, giving them some
idea of what the spider is going
to be like and cool. And I was
on another part of the site at
one point, and I hear this voice
Henry Henry, like, Oh,
somebody's calling my name. I'm
like, Oh my God. That's Tom
Cruise. I better go quick. So
it's like he actually remembered
my name is a really sweet guy
but a real perfectionist too.
Who He is holding his breath
under the water? For real? For
the longest time, we're all
like, when's it going to come up
as he okay. And he comes up. And
I think Stephen said, Yeah,
that's good, we got it. And he's
like, I can do better, I can do
better. He wanted to do like
three takes I really respect the
way he works with his craft is
really amazing. We did that. And
we didn't, you know, like those
little wooden balls that go
through that machine that tell
them who committed the murder.
There was actually a physical
prop that did that. But it was a
little bit clunky. It was, you
know, as high tech as you could
make it at that time. So we
actually rebuilt that entire
thing.
Ed Kramer: That's also kind of a
theme of working in this
business is everybody thinks,
you know, some, there's one
person who does something, and
it's not. And it's really nice,
you know, you're you're
mentioning name, after name
after name of all these other
people that, that were in there,
because it's never at one person
working in a vacuum. And there's
always a team of people. So
yeah, that's really cool.
Unknown: One more story from
this. So Steven was saying, you
know, the shot, you can see the
bottom of the spider. And he was
saying, you know, Henry, I want
to see how the spider works
somehow. And he was kind of
saying, you know, like a watch.
But it's not mechanical, it's
more high tech than that I had
been at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium with our girls saw the
deep sea jellyfish there. And,
you know, their tentacles have
these bioluminescent little
lights that kind of like, run
through their tentacles. And
that just looks so cool. So I
got back to the studio, and talk
to the artists and I said, we're
going to do some radiating
jellyfish bioluminescent lights
on the bottom of this spider,
and try that. He didn't
specifically ask for that. But I
thought, I think he's gonna like
it, I'm gonna give it a go. And,
and he did. He thought it was
great. It was like, okay, that's
fine, you got that. So you never
know where inspiration is going
to come from, I just keep your
eyes open.
Ed Kramer: Everybody has a
degree of creativity that they
can add to a shot that that
they've been, you know, assigned
to do. And you can add little
personal touches to things and
discover them, you know that the
people above you like them, and
they become part of the movie
itself.
Unknown: That's why I loved
working with Spielberg because
he has a specific idea in mind
of what he wants. And he's great
at communicating that he's also
very open to ideas. If there was
something we weren't doing
right. And there are some shots,
we messed up on AI, he let us
know it. No, mincing of words is
like fix that. He didn't want to
know why it was messed up. He
just want to know when it was
going to be fixed. And when he
could see it again. It's like,
okay, it's all business. Let's
get this done. No problem on
Minority Report. There are a
couple times like even in that
bathroom sequence, right?
suggested we shoot it slightly
differently, because I had an
idea for how the spider anatomy
and what the camera move would
do. And he turned to Jana, she's
like, let's do it that way.
Let's do it, like Henry said,
and I was like, wow, he's gonna
use my shot. Because these
things are all storyboarded out.
I didn't make it into the film
is on the cutting room floor.
But I love how collaborative he
was. Because, you know, as a
director, you can't know the
right thing to do. And every
single little detail of every
little thing you got to get some
good people and trust them. And
I learned a lot working with
him. That was fantastic
experiences. Really, really
great
Ed Kramer: guy. Well, now let's
move into your video game life.
Unknown: Yes, after Minority
Report trek had, like just done
so well, way beyond
expectations. I think DreamWorks
said, you know, we don't want to
be in this visual effects
business. There's really not
much margin in it. It's kind of
unfortunately, a race to the
bottom of its work for hire.
It's honestly not that great a
business model. And I was
bidding and lots of other
movies. But what you'd have to
do is kind of bid less than
competing. So you're trying to
bid enough to be able to pay the
people that are working on it
and keep the doors open, but bid
less than the next guy. And
there's only a few clients a few
studios to work for was becoming
as a hobby, but coin like One
Hour Photo visual effects stuff.
A little bit of the magic was
lost for me and I've done some
cool stuff and could continue to
do and I've seen some amazing
work since then. colleagues of
ours have done I was up shooting
a commercial a Kool Aid
commercial in Vancouver and talk
to my wife. I was like
Vancouver, British Columbia
isn't amazing. You should check
this place out. So she came up
with girls and we looked around
it's like this place is so cool.
I think it was Glenn Entus who's
been this fantastic mentor for
me over many, many years, one of
the founders of PDI and he
started DreamWorks Interactive,
which was later sold to
Electronic Arts. He said you
know Henry, you're you're up
there you should really go meet
with EA Electronic Arts. And I
thought it'd be this like little
building on a strip mall or
something. Now it's this huge,
beautiful building on a hill.
Really impressive. I didn't
really know that much about
games, to be honest. But while
we were shooting, every break we
had, there was a PlayStation
two, I think it was at the time
that the crew was always playing
games on. And I was like, wow,
these games are kind of cool.
They're kind of fun. They don't
look that great to me. You know,
I think the graphics could look
a lot better. But crew was
playing these games all the
time. And I wasn't really much
of a gamer. But I went and
visited EA and they sent me home
with a stack of games. One of
the first games was sex tricky.
It's like this looks fun is
snowboarding. And when bought a
PS two started playing that with
my daughter, Valerie. And we had
so much fun, like beating levels
and challenging each other. I'm
Steve Rec. Schaffner as the
leader of the SS X franchise. He
had asked Glenn, he said, Glenn,
you know, I'm looking for an art
director. But, you know, I
looked in the phonebook, like
how do I get an art director?
And Glenn said, you know, you
need a visual effects
supervisor. And he's like,
what's a visual effects
supervisor? They they
interviewed me and they said,
how you want How about working
on SSIs with us as I've got I
love playing that game. That's
really fun. But you know, I do
movies and and then we got kind
of got excited about this 911
happened right then my wife's
mother had worked in the twin
towers that went down. So we
were kind of she wasn't there at
the time. Fortunately, she had
retired since then. But we were
kind of devastated by that. We
had this opportunity to go live
in Canada and do some video
games. I was like, well haven't
done that before. I've done
television. I've done film
visual effects. I've done
feature animation. Haven't done
these video games things. Let's
go give that a try.
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Unknown: Um, so we moved to
Vancouver, I was the art
director on MSX three, I'm still
proud of the work we did on that
game was super fun. And I used a
lot of the stuff I learned in
film and creating that game did
a lot of Need for Speed games.
There was this team called Black
Box downtown Vancouver that was
working on those and consulted
with them initially as they were
finishing it to put some polish
on the game. And I also was busy
recruiting people so actually
recruited Habib to EA. He did
some amazing work on native
speed underground. Oh my god, he
just killed it. Oh, and I worked
with EA Sports. I was a chief
visual Officer of EA Sports
briefly chief visual Officer of
EA, period. Yeah. And then I
went to work in the UK for a bit
which was really fun with
criteria and really great studio
EA studio there. The first Navy
game I made was Need for Speed
Hot Pursuit, too. And this was a
new Need for Speed Hot Pursuit.
And I think still to this day is
the highest Metacritic rated
Need for Speed game. When I
first got into games, I've
noticed people playing games. On
the set in between shoots, I was
surprised by how simplistic
everything looked. Some of the
early work I did on SS x three,
we were able to push things a
bit. But now game engines are
being used for virtual
production actually ending up
and films as you know,
backgrounds. It's amazing. Some
of the new developments with
stuff. We've seen demos for
Unreal five engine, for example.
Wow, amazing lighting happening
in real time. And there's always
been potential to do some great
imagery, but it happening in
real time has been a challenge
just in my lifetime. It's
amazing. What's happened.
Ed Kramer: Did you have polygon
limits,
Unknown: if we can do more
polygons, then we can make a
rounded object look more rounded
than old school games, you may
have seen a rounded object that
looked very faceted like it was
an octagon or something like
that. And that was just a limit
of how many polygons you could
push through the hardware.
There's also things like
overdraw, which is how many
layers of transparency you can
draw. So if you want to do smoke
or VFX, you know special effects
kind of stuff. That became very
challenging because for that one
pixel on the screen, they'd have
to calculate multiple times what
that colour should properly be
for it to look correct. I think
the biggest thing really is
lighting honestly and animation
Then, of course, with more
advanced global illumination
type related techniques, you
know, make everything look more
believable. So even if a cube is
very simple, if it looks like it
really sits in that scene with a
proper lighting and looks
believable, and that makes a big
difference in
Ed Kramer: Need for Speed, you
had trade offs between weather,
you could do reflections or rain
or, you know, what, what, what
was that? What am I remembering?
Unknown: Yeah, you are. So one
of the things we've done in the
past is tried to throw a lot of
visual features into the game.
And we can do that if you don't
turn them on all at the same
time. So I'll give you a
specific example Need for Speed
Hot Pursuit is a game I worked
on with criterion in the UK
quite a while ago. And that's
like 2010 2009 in that range.
And I wanted to have wet roads
have the rain falling, have the
roads be reflective. And we had
some technology to do that the
goal of the game was to have
five cars on the screen at the
same time, running, I think it
was 30 fps or 60 FPS. But you
know, at whatever our frame rate
was, at that time, for the
longest time was like, Yeah,
we're not going to get wet
roads, we're just not going to
get wet roads. And then as the
game developed, as we got toward
the end, I was kind of like, you
know what, there's a big parts
of the game where there's only
two cars on the screen. Can we
turn on wet roads for those
working with engineers and a
brilliant technical artists? You
know, I gave it a try. And it
looked amazing. And it worked.
So when you play the game, and
there are five cars on the road,
you didn't see the wet roads,
but nobody noticed that I even
asked people in the industry, it
was like, wow, those my roads
look amazing. Is that what did
you notice? They they don't
always happen? It's like, no,
they're always on. It's like,
no, they're not. We just tricked
you. So a lot of this is just
that illusion of detail. And
sometimes in games, that opening
cinematic sequence where you see
the one drop falling off of the
leaf gives you the impression
that that's happening in the
entire forest. Well, it's not
but you know, this is a way we
can get you to believe the world
is more amazing than it really
is. Worked with some really
talented people like Alex Frey
was a graphics engineer working
in games is so different than
film. But, you know, a lot of
the same stuff still applies.
And I had a lot of people ask
me, especially when I was
recruiting people like, Well,
why should I work in games?
What's different about it? Well,
in film, you've got a production
designer, you've got an art
director, you've got a location
scout, you got somebody doing
wardrobe, somebody's doing
casting, and you've got a VFX
guy that's got make the spider
here, but everything else, you
know, the lighting the set,
everything else has been decided
by somebody else. But in games,
it's a blank slate as an art
director, I was effectively the
production designer, the
location scout, the director of
photography, you know, so many
different hats you wear to put
the game together, it's a
smaller screen, but a bigger
canvas light kind of took me
back to the stuff I originally
love doing. It was more fine art
was what I'm really into, rather
than all this stuff. And the
stuff I learned in art school, I
was like, wow, I can craft an
image from scratch here. Rather
than, you know, just adding the
monster to the image. For me,
that was creatively more
rewarding. And I've been doing
games ever since every once
awhile, see a movie in the movie
theatre. I go, Oh, that's
amazing. And I wish I worked on
that. And then I'll talk to some
of the people that worked on and
I'll go, Oh, God, I'm glad I
didn't work on that. You know,
you have to be on set at a
moment's notice for months at a
time. And if you've got a family
at twin girls, many and Valerie
and I did not want to be away
from home. Like you need to be
as a VFX supervisor in games,
you can actually have a work
life balance.
Ed Kramer: And I know a lot of
the companion fans are in the UK
because the companion is UK
based. So what what was it like
working in the UK versus working
in the States? Oh, I
Unknown: so loved working in the
UK. I was working in Guilford
initially. And I was recently
working in the UK again. So two
different times for a year and a
half each. This is probably
pretty predictable. But the crew
would go out to the pub a couple
times a week. And I just loved
kind of like oh, we're going out
to the pub, learning the pub
culture and getting to know
people at the pub. All the
craziness that ensued from that
this most recent time living in
London I actually said okay, I'm
not living in Guilford. If I'm
gonna live here, I'm gonna live
in London. I was looking around
London is I live in Covent
Garden. Nobody lives in Covent
Garden. I live right on floral
Street, in Covent Garden right
around the corner from the tube
stop, which is pretty much
ground zero for tourism and
everything. But you could walk
to Soho and all the art
galleries and art museums, which
is really what how I entertain
myself mostly and the current
eat Indian food. Oh my god, I
can eat that every day such
great restaurants and culture.
In the Tate, Tate Modern. Tate
Britain. I became a member right
away. I just love living and
working there. What a great
experience all the concerts and,
and the super smart and talented
people I got to work with.
Ed Kramer: That's awesome. So to
wrap up, what are you working
on? Now? What's the future
looking like? And you know, or
are you are you winding down?
Unknown: Oh, I'm trying to pass
your so due to the pandemic, I
was working from home, I decided
to move back to Minneapolis,
where I'm from and lots of
family here because I can work
from home here, I decided I
don't want to work full time
anymore. I've become a
contractor studio in the UK,
stellar entertainment I'm
working with is doing some
really cool stuff. We're working
on some new IP. That's super
exciting, but I can't tell you
about it. I'd have to kill you
just like James T. Kirk. And
we're I'm also working with Glu
Mobile, which was recently
acquired by EA. So it's my
fourth time working for EA, I'm
working on something completely
different. You'll never believe
this. I haven't told you this.
But I'm working on design home,
which is kind of like an app or
a game. A lot of people that
play it don't think they're
actually playing a game. It's a
mobile game. And they're doing
interior design is what they're
doing. So this is a game that my
wife and sisters have play,
which is like, it's like, wow,
this is cool. I get to work for
work on something that middle
aged women are the primary
audience, just not usually, what
I've done before. And working in
mobile games is completely
different than console games.
I'm trying to kind of narrow
things down. There's all these
really cool projects, and people
I've worked with before that are
really nice people that are
asking me to help them. So it's
really hard to say no, I keep
myself busy. And I really would
love to be doing more of my own
artwork, honestly. Well,
Ed Kramer: I'm looking forward
to the time where we see Henry
lamonta fine artist.
Unknown: That would be awesome.
That would be great. So
Ed Kramer: thank you, Henry.
This was an absolutely fantastic
few minutes. I don't know how
long we've been talking. What I
think is going to be interesting
to our viewers is that they
never think of a person having a
career that covers multiple
projects. And I think by hearing
your evolution today, people are
realising Wow, a CG artist
doesn't do just one thing. Then
they go on to the next thing and
the next thing and the next
thing and
Unknown: I think Ed you and I
were lucky to get involved in
the industry at a time when it
was just taking off. It's so
many different ways computer
graphics are used. So I'm really
excited about your podcast
series and looking forward to
listening to your future ones
with with other people. So thank
you for doing this.
Ed Kramer: Oh, my pleasure.
Thank you Henry for being here
and being on the companion dot
Lawrence Kao: thanks for
listening to CGI Fridays with
Industrial Light and Magic alum
Ed Kramer. The companion is the
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