Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
From clown college to CGI, practical modeller turned digital modeller Mark Siegel talks Ghostbusters, Star Wars, ET, Planet of the Apes, Van Helsing, Pirates of the Caribbean, and getting into the visual effects industry in Ed Kramer’s CGI Fridays podcast. If you’re looking for entry points into the industry, then Mark Siegel is a pretty unorthodox example, but perhaps that’s what makes it so inspiring. His career goes from a slapstick starting point to sculpting Klingon foreheads in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock to puppeteering some of 80s cinema’s craziest critters in Ghostbusters, and then into the emerging field of CGI as a stalwart of Industrial Light and Magic.
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.
Mark Siegel: I'm Mark Segal, and
I loved monster movies when I
was a kid, and I turned out that
I got to make them. And the
greatest honour of my career was
that my work and part of my hand
are on a US postage stamp
Ed Kramer: Welcome to CGI
Fridays, a podcast from the
companion dot app. I'm Ed
Kramer, and I've been a
professional CGI artist for over
40 years working at Industrial
Light and Magic and on some of
your favourite movies, including
the mummy, Stargate and Star
Wars prequels. In this series,
I'm catching up with some old
friends in the industry to talk
about their careers, their work,
and give me a damn good reason
to stay behind in the movie
theatre watching the credits all
the way to the end. I'm really
honoured to be talking to one of
the actual legends of visual
effects from even before there
was CGI.
Mark Siegel: I was born and grew
up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a
graduate of the University of
Minnesota I was a double major
in theatre and English. My
intention was to be a performer
or something related to theatre,
and it's just been amazing.
Unknown: 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 the companion membership
at the companion dot app. That's
www dot the companion dot a PP.
Now, back to the show
Mark Siegel: in the unexpected
directions that it took me and
it actually started in high
school with a really influential
drama teacher who is young and
creative and inspired a whole
bunch of us one of my closest
friends Gary Parker, I am not a
creator, or you know, an
innovator by any means, like
some of these legends people
like Dennis Muir and people like
that. I've always considered
myself a work for hire.
Ed Kramer: Now I've watched the
interview you did with the
Ghostbusters guys. So a lot of
your early history leading up to
ILM is already kind of
documented out there. But if you
want to kind of like do a
overview of the twists and turns
that led you to ilm, I
Mark Siegel: graduated from the
University of Minnesota with a
theatre degree thinking it would
be a smart thing to do. I also
got my degree from the College
of Education. So I wound up
teaching Junior High in
Minneapolis where my first year,
but the showbusiness bug was in
me and I discovered the
existence of the Ringling
Brothers Barnum and Bailey clown
college. And in a scholastic
magazine I was using in my
eighth grade they had the
address to write to and so I did
is I was accepted to the
Ringling Brothers clown college
went through their course, and
was hired about half the class
was as a clown to go on the road
with them in their 1972 tour.
But now the visit is essential
Park during clown college with
experts in various fields coming
to teach our various skills. And
our makeup teacher was a guy
named Vern Langdon, who besides
teaching us clown makeup and
helping develop our characters.
He taught us basic prosthetics
he had recently been on the
original Planet of the Apes with
John Chambers learned how to
take the casting of my nose, do
sculptures and moulds and make
my own rubber clown nose. Varun
liked my work. And I enjoyed
doing it. And we stayed in touch
after the year of the circus and
moved to New York to continue to
have my acting career eventually
moved out to LA to continue the
acting career but you know, you
need real work. While that's
happening. And by great happy
circumstance, the same Vern
Langdon of generally creative
guy. About a year after I moved
to LA, got a contract with
Universal Studio tours to create
a monster Makeup Show the land
of 1000 faces. He needed people
with the right skills, couldn't
pay, you know, union makeup
artists or anything. But he knew
I had the skills he wound up
hiring me and three other guys
he knew from the circus. So I
was in on the ground floor to
helping to create and then work
for the land of 1000 faces for
about three and a half years
thinking it was you know, a
temporary job while I was trying
to be an actor, you know, turned
into a career. I learned
virtually everything about
sculpting mould making mask
making prosthetic makeup
effects, a lot of the materials,
met some people in the business
like Rick Baker because it was
just makeup effects was just
booming at that time. But they
come through our shop, because
we were doing cool things. So
when I finally left universal,
it was a matter of just making a
few calls and I was freelancing,
which I did for about a dozen
years in LA eventually made the
move to San Francisco to many
circumstances to go into but I
moved to San Francisco with my
first job which was a small
company, magic VISTA who got the
contract To do the visual
effects for Luke who's talking,
and they had interviewed me like
a year before and re contacted
me. And they hired me. So I was
there working on those effects.
Yeah, the sperms in the and the
eggs all we did all of that
stuff, met a few people involved
with ILM at the time because
they were either on the crew, or
came to work with this Gary
platic in particular. Meanwhile,
I learned that Hi, LM had gotten
the contract for Ghostbusters
two. And I had worked on the
original Ghostbusters in LA. And
they hired Tim Lawrence, who I
knew from LA to come up and had
the Creature Shop. So really, I
just called Tim and said, You
know, I live in San Francisco
already, so you should hire me.
And he said, Yeah. Okay, so
that's what got me to ILM in
September of 1988.
Ed Kramer: That was so perfect.
You're a natural, I think you
should consider a career in
acting.
Mark Siegel: Well, you know,
after I retired, I started
taking acting classes and
workshops again, and I actually
have an agent who occasionally
sends me out on things so you
never know.
Ed Kramer: Now what you did, of
course, in telling that story
was glossed over some
unbelievable things. We can't
just take you right into ILM
without mentioning like,
Ghostbusters one.
Mark Siegel: Ghostbusters one
was not my first motion picture.
My very first right out of the
universal show was Star Trek The
Motion Picture. So I worked on
Klingons aesthetic headpieces
for Klingons because it was a
last minute decision to do them
for the movie. And they needed
them really fast. And one of my
friends was on Fred Phillips
makeup crew, they didn't know
how they were going to get them
done. Because you'll between
taking impressions of all the
actors, and then doing all the
sculptures and moulds and with
the standard prosthetic
technology using foam latex. You
have to bake it and it's never
for certain. But we had
developed this Chris Stetic
grade urethane foam and
universal working with one of
the chemical companies. So Rick
Stratton, my friend told Fred,
he said hey, I know this guy,
Mark Siegel, who knows this
technology that help us get them
done, get it done. So they hired
me and each of us there were
three of us. Each of us sculpted
three of the nine Klingons we
turned them out we did the
prosthetic heads. They were also
reusable, because they're more
durable than foam latex. So that
was my first movie.
Ed Kramer: Were you ever on set
with Doug Trumbull? Because he
was shooting the optical
effects? Yes, he
Mark Siegel: was. And no, I was
never on set. Typically all of
our special makeup effects work
unless we're on set actually
applying the makeup is all you
know, pre production rarely
interact with the shooting or
unless we're puppeteering. But
even so the visual effects
director would usually not be on
the set for that. So no, I never
got to meet Doug until later on,
when, after, you know, establish
a bunch of other credits and
made some contacts. They hired
me at boss films to do
Ghostbusters, the original and I
wound up doing a number of shows
boss, which was just down the
street from Doug Trumbull
studio. In fact, Doug did a lot
of work over at boss. So
occasionally he'd invite our
crew over to see in his
screening room, whatever show
scan project he was working on.
So it was a number of years
later that I got to meet Doug,
we haven't yet used the word
Slimer Slimer was my main
character. I was not the
original Slimer creator. That
was Steve Johnson, who was head
of that unit, and a few others
he did the library and ghost.
Steve did the work on the MCATs
zeroing in on the design. He
sculpted the original
Ghostbusters Slimer puppet. I
think the very first project I
had was to sculpt all the
interior of Slammers mouth. So I
did these giant oversized
dentures that I sculpted and
moulded and made out of dental
acrylic plus a tongue, I
sculpted over my arm. So it was
a tongue puppet that would fit
my arm. So when we got shoot
Slimer I was in there
puppeteering the tongue for all
of the eating shots.
Ed Kramer: I watched the video
that you did, and I saw the
breakdown of that shot frame by
frame by frame and I was in
stitches watching that. That's
the great thing about what we
do, right is that we create
memories that people actually
carry with them. But you know, I
remembered that scene and now
breaking it down frame by frame
and watching you puppet the
tongue and, and somebody inside
the suit and then somebody
handling things like eyebrow
movements. I mean that that was
just That's lovely and, and
people can track that down on
YouTube.
Mark Siegel: Yeah, it was super
fun. I mean, it not only cracks
me up to watch that sequence. It
cracked us up while we were
shooting it. We knew the entire
crew just had a feeling Slimer
would become a really popular
character because every shot we
did of them. We were cracking up
after the shot was over. Or
sometimes during the shot
because there was no sound it
didn't matter. As long as we
weren't shaking. That's one of
my favourite thing. is about
working in effects, whether it's
practical or later on digital
is, you know, sometimes so much
time goes by between the time
you do the work, and then it
appears on the screen. So you
have this objective distance.
And it has actually happened to
me that I'm watching something
in a movie and said, Oh, that
looks really cool. Oh, I worked
on that. And it's it's super
gratifying. It's sort of what I
live for.
Ed Kramer: Your List of films on
IMDb reads like who's who of the
entire realm of visual effects
work? Just gonna read a little
bit of this. It's got
poltergeist too. We've got Star
Wars Episode Five and six Empire
Strikes Back return to the Jedi.
Then those were the special
editions we got Ghostbuster to
look who's talking back to the
future to Joe Versus the
Volcano. Back to the Future
three death becomes her Meteor
man, men and black Galaxy Quest
and now we're just starting into
a generation that I was a part
of, because Galaxy Quest means a
lot to me. I supervise the rock
monster on that show.
Mark Siegel: I love that movie
in general is one of my
favourite so we talked
Ed Kramer: about Ghostbusters
one is there any story that you
haven't told about Ghostbusters
one man?
Mark Siegel: I don't think so.
Especially if your listeners
want to watch my interview on
YouTube. It's on the channel of
the containment unit, which is a
San Diego based Ghostbusters fan
club when I talked for almost
two hours. I even surprised
those guys. They know a lot. But
I told him stuff and showed him
pictures that nobody's ever seen
before.
Ed Kramer: So now let's move on
to Ghostbusters to my first job
at ILM.
Mark Siegel: Well, when ILM
hired me Slimer was kind of the
main reason they hired me. And
then for a while they were
thinking of cutting Slimer out
of the movie. And I thought, oh,
maybe I'm out a job, I and then
they brought him back. By that
time he had become kind of a
star on his own even had his own
cartoon show. So the designs got
a little more cartoony. And he's
very cute. But he's not the
original Slimer. And what I
loved about the original Slimer
was that he really was kind of
ugly. Well, he was inspired by
John Belushi, especially his
character Bluto in Animal House,
who was really kind of gross and
disgust. And it was just because
of his behaviour, that he was
also somehow cute and charming
and very funny. And that's a
quality that the original Slimer
had. And because it went more
cartoony, I don't think that
part of it was quite as
successful. The other thing was
technology had improved a lot.
And instead of hand puppeting,
and simple cable controls for
the expressions, we went very
much mechanical with radio
control expressions. And the
most limiting factor was instead
of the original puppet that had
just a rod with a little tea in
the lower lip, that a puppeteer
could just stretch in all kinds
of ways stretch and twist, we
suddenly just had a pneumatic
cylinder jaw control. That was
cool technologically, but it was
just really limited. The Puppet
just didn't become the loose,
cartoony puppet that he could.
Of course, I didn't know at the
time, I was just excited to be
working at ILM. And all the
ideas everybody came up with.
Wow. Yeah, that makes sense. And
it's only in retrospect that I
found that when disappointing.
Ed Kramer: So I've got to ask
which one of these was the one
that I walked past to get to my
desk every day?
Mark Siegel: That's an
interesting one. That was not
for the movie. While we were in
production of Ghostbusters, two
Planet Hollywood, came to Ilm.
And they wanted a figure of
Slimer because they knew the
second movie was coming. They
wanted a figure of Slimer for
their planet, Hollywood
restaurants, of course, you
know, the model shop people came
to me to sculpt it. And I
thought, Okay, this is the
opportunity, I have to bring it
back a little bit closer to the
original Slimer without
departing too much from the one
we were working on. Because I
mean, that's what we're working
on. It couldn't do that. But I
brought back the body
proportions, quite a bit more. I
kept the smile, but it's not
quite as broad and extreme. His
head, His cheeks are not quite
as wide. So that is the
sculpture that I came up with,
for Planet Hollywood. I also
sculpted them you know, with a
pose rather than the neutral one
that I did for the puppet. And
that's the one that's hanging in
the hallway. So I have a
favourite moment related this
Slimer to that one that's
hanging at ILM is that during
our speaker series at ILM, Jason
Reitman came to give us a talk
and a screening of the film he
directed up in the air. He was
there with Anna Kendrick, the
star Jason Reitman's of the son
of Ivan Reitman, who directed
the original Ghostbusters. So in
the audience during the q&a, I
asked the question of how much
his dad's directorial work
influenced his directorial work.
And then later on, you know,
usually our speaker guests get
tours of Ilm. And I was sitting
in a digital model shop and it
was right outside the door of
that digital model shop where my
sculptures hanging. So I ran out
the door to make sure I could
meet them and I introduced
myself to Jason and I told Have
them that I was the one who
sculpted that he was gracious
enough to have us do a picture
together with it. He said, Oh
man that brings back so many
memories because as a kid, I
grew up with a sculpture of
Slimer. On my dad's desk, Jason
is now directing the next sequel
of Ghostbusters two in
production now. I'm just sorry,
he didn't call me up. I'd come
out of retirement to work on
that one. I don't even I
wouldn't even want to do effects
work on it, I'd probably want to
get into it as an actor and a
walk on part or something.
Ed Kramer: So as a wizard of
Hollywood now at Industrial
Light and Magic and with
Ghostbusters two under your
belt, you did a number of years,
probably a decade more years
doing practical work, right?
Mark Siegel: Actually, it was 14
years in the ILM model shop. At
first with Ghostbusters. I
didn't know how long it would
last and I was in a temporary
furnished apartment in San
Francisco. But by the end of
Ghostbusters, it became clear
that I could keep working on
things. And I worked on some
fabulous projects toward the end
of it was getting really
interested in CG. I had always
been interested in CG even
before moving to San Francisco,
where it was just being born.
I'm really comfortable with
computers. I've lived in a
science fiction world since I
was a little kid. So I was
always interested in the
potential of computer graphics
for movies. And then it was
starting to happen at ILM. There
was some early stuff like young
Sherlock Holmes that was before
my time there. But then the
abyss and Terminator two
happened while I was there. And
I did some work on Terminator
two, sort of related to the CG
department, there are these
figures of the policeman who
turns into the metallized T to
cop in the hallway at ILM near
the reception desk. And I did
that sculpture. This is in the
early days of CG and they wanted
to have a physical thing they
could test to see how the light
played off the wrinkles of
clothes, things like that. And
we did another casting of it
that we vacuum metallized we
kind of melted the clay and did
a soft version as he's
transforming. And then Richard
Miller did the real soft version
of it. I was in communication
with the CG department. And in
fact, you mentioned the Back to
the Future films on my IMDb
credits. I really hardly did
anything for them. In fact,
there's nothing that appears on
screen, I did a little ornament
for the train back to the future
three that ultimately wasn't
used. But back to the future to
the CG department was going to
animate the shark come that
comes out of the marquee for
whatever it is Jaws 17. Or he
can't remember, one of the CG
guys came to me and asked if I
would sculpt and fabricate a
shark hand puppet that they
could just kind of play with and
shoot and use that for some
reference for the shark. And
then of course Jurassic Park
happened and I was blown away by
it. Because all of us from the
model shop got called into the
little D screening room and got
to see some of the test footage.
A lot of the people were saying,
well, there was my job. But I
was thinking this is really
cool. Eventually ILM started
making self training available
to those of us in the model shop
to ILM is credit they recognised
that the art is the art and the
artist is the artist and you
could learn another tool, you
bring the same eye and the same
creative skills to that tool.
They had people in all
departments not only sculpture,
or modelling of painting, but
editing and lighting and
animation, all of that stuff.
They were encouraging people
with the practical skills to
start moving over to CG so I
started along with my buddy how
we we'd we both started some
self training, it was
frustrating because we didn't
have official training, they
just made computers and some
manuals and software available
to us to do after hours, you
know, after a regular day of
work. And eventually both of us
were offered contracts with the
CG department how we accepted
the contract, but I didn't there
are a few reasons. Basically,
I'm really lazy. And over the
years from when I started at
ILM, when we had a 50 hour work
week, you know with our union
contract, we had started paring
it down to a 40 hour week, which
I really liked. And I've always
been of the belief that your
project expands to fill the time
you have, you can if you know
the time limitations, you can
get as much done in a 40 hour
week as you can and 50 you pace
yourself differently. Plus me I
know my work style, I'm really
fresh in early morning, up until
like after lunch and then the
rest slows down. So I like the
40 hour week. I also like what I
was used to in LA working at
different creature shops. I'd
work on a project for a few
months or many months, and then
there'd be a break and I could
travel and then I'd get onto
another project and the island
model shop was very much like
that. I was not full time
employed there. I was on the
list. You know if they needed
somebody with my skills, they
call me in but I had years there
where I worked only a few months
or eight or nine months and I
actually liked that but now
suddenly CG was I think it was a
45 hour week at the original
content racked essentially full
time employment and my free
spirit rejected that how he
still rags on me every time we
talk. He says I abandoned him.
You know, we joke about that.
And I have to say I made the
right decision because in those
few years, I worked on a few
projects including sculpting
MCATs and doing some miniature
work for Phantom Menace. So one
and then again for episode two.
And then for AI Artificial
Intelligence. Which creatures in
each of those Did you sculpt?
Should I bring up some phantom
minutes MCATs that'll be the
easiest way to talk about it.
Oh, Dragonheart was another one.
I'm going
Ed Kramer: to do a screen share
for you. And you'll love this.
Mark Siegel: Ah, that's my
tongue. I sculpted that along
with Jean boldy that puppet was
fantastic. Especially because I
got to spend a month in Slovakia
on location. puppeteering the
thing
Ed Kramer: that was on the wall,
I looked up and saw that tongue
every day in the Presidio.
Mark Siegel: And there's a tail
of the dragon to the tip of the
tail somewhere in one of one of
the elevator lobbies, that I
also sculpted because they
wanted one practical shot where
the tail kind of swings through
him, maybe it hits somebody or
something during those films, or
after rejecting CG, I did what I
think is some of my best
sculpture work ever. Wow. That's
the EOP.
Ed Kramer: I got to tell you,
Mark, I lit the last shots of
Episode Three with the ELP.
Mark Siegel: Very cool. Well,
this was during the design
phase. And this was in the days
when people in production and CG
people actually like to see a
physical model doesn't happen
much anymore. They do the
prototype models in like ZBrush
or something because directors
are used to seeing it on a
screen instead of in real life.
But at the time, you know, they
really liked to play with
things. So I got sketches from
the ranch on this one had Anakin
riding it. This is sculpted in
Super Sculpey. So we never cast
and moulded it ever. It's way
too complicated. But it was so
much fun to do all these little
details, all the saddlebags and
the sales and the ropes and
things. So I was using a number
of media. But then it was
sculpted in Super Sculpey. And
then we baked it in an oven. And
that's that became the finished
model. Which, by the way, George
Lucas loved it. I heard it was
on his desk for a while. And now
it's on display. In one of the
showcases at the main house at
the ranch. It's in the same
showcase is one of the
lightsabers
Ed Kramer: I know that showcase
you're talking about and it also
has Indiana Jones is whip. And
it has the badges from all of
the Keystone Cops. And it also
has the Holy Grail, the actual
holy grail from the Indiana
Jones movie. So your work is in
pretty good company being in
that display case,
Mark Siegel: I did not know it
was there until I happen to go
up to the ranch for lunch one
day. And I spotted it there and
it kind of blew me away. I mean,
I'm just unbelievably honoured
to have it showcase like that.
Now this one, this is the one
that more closely relates to the
one that you worked on that you
lit because after the basic
model was approved, they wanted
a neutral model. And this one's
quite a bit bigger, I don't know
18 inches long or something they
wanted one without all of the
stuff on it and in a neutral
pose. And then they did a laser
scan of this that became the
template for the CG model. And
that was typical of what we did
with MCATs. There was one for
the design phase. Then we made
one that could be used
practically. That was scanned
like here's the same thing that
I did for the Watteau, you can
see the little water. That's the
design sculpture that I did not
do. I can't remember who did it.
But then I did this one in the
neutral pose. That was the one
that was scanned for CG. This
was not CG. This was actually
practical. Doug Chang design
this this was a stone head that
was used in a number of shots.
Lauren Peterson was the lead on
creating this gigantic miniature
environment of the Naboo swamp.
So all of that set is practical.
It was on one of the Windward
stages, and it was like a 40 by
60 foot set of miniature foliage
and you know my stone heads and
I got to work on that set. With
Lauren Lauren recruited me to
incorporate my stone head
sculpture into this tree. So I
kind of built three roots around
it, and I worked with him on
assembling the entire set. And
Lauren is you know, he's a
legend. He's one of the true
legends. I learned so much from
working with Lauren, and he just
so great to work with and just
building that set was a real
treat for me. That was my
Episode One stuff. AI was the
other film. I really loved
working on this little Geppetto
and Pinocchio appears in the
underwater scene when they got
the submersible going around the
underwater amusement park, and
they passed by Geppetto his
village and you see a shot of
Geppetto carving Pinocchio
through the window. And for me,
this was a very fast and loose
sculpture but there's something
I love about the feeling of it.
It's the sculptor sculpting The
sculptor sculpting the puppet so
it's very personal on a lot of
levels for me. I have a casting
of it that I was able to get and
take home on my put it on my
mantelpiece, it became pretty
clear by the time Episode Two
was done, the bulk of my work
see, I'm an organic sculptor, I
am not one of the hard surface
model makers I'm not, I don't
have the patience for standing
in truing, smooth surfaces and
stuff. I like to work fast and
quick and loose, and I really
like creatures and other
characters. As an organic
sculptor puppets were starting
to go away most of the character
work.
Unknown: If you're interested in
behind the scenes stories in the
world of Star Wars, make sure
you subscribe and become a
member. The companion is the
insider platform that brings you
stories straight from the cast
and crew, you can read our Star
Wars or a history titled How we
made a new Hope's Death Star
trench run, as told by Denis
Lawson, the actor who played
wedge actor Gareth Hagen, who
played bigs and the experts who
designed the spacecraft created
the computer animation and
graphic displays of Star Wars,
head to the companion dot app.
That's www dot the companion dot
a PP, and access 500 More
stories, including a number of
Star Wars, oral histories and
podcasts like the one you're
listening to right now. All
right at your fingertips. All
right back to the show
Mark Siegel: was becoming CG.
Because it was just so much more
versatile, you can do so many
more things with it. MCATs were
becoming less and less needed
because people were getting used
to CG. So as an organic
sculptor, most of my work
started going toward big organic
sets, like I worked on carving
foam for the Padres canyons. And
for Episode Two, I worked on the
big Jedi arena, which was a
monstrous foam sculpture. There
are a lot of things I love about
it, because foam is so easy to
carve. And you can do so many
things with it. But mostly I
just hated it. Because it's
usually really big stuff. And
you have to wear the white suits
and you still get foam dust
inside everything and your skin
and your clothing and your
eyelids. And it's toxic. Yeah,
and I wore masks and it's still
it's everywhere. And I decided
when I left la I just don't want
to ever do foam sculpture again.
And now here I was at ILM doing
a lot of foam sculpture, you
know, rocks and rocks and trees
and things. And I realised that
if I continued wanted to
continue doing character work,
I'd have to make the move to CG.
So I went to Patti Blau, who was
I think she was the head of
animation department at that
time, she knew my work from the
model shop, really wonderful
woman and she liked me and I
went to her and said, You know,
I'm really interested in moving
into CG now. You know, my
skills, you know, I have the
interest in it. And she got
behind me and supported me, and
also told me that my timing was
extraordinary because they had
just landed the contract for Van
Helsing, which was a gigantic CG
monster movie, you know, and I
grew up with a monster movies.
That's where I lived in my
heart. I had also made good
connection with Andrew cars. I
don't know if you've ever known
Oh,
Ed Kramer: sure. Well, I was on
Van Helsing. So I TD shots on
Van Helsing.
Mark Siegel: I used your bats. I
can bring up the animation of
the pygmy bat. Yeah, yes, I can
pick me that was my very first
CG creature. Andrew was in my
corner because he used to come
over to the model shop and he
liked my sculpture work. And we
talk about sculptures. And I
show him some of my techniques.
You know how I build armatures
and things. And Andrew is an
extraordinary sculptor. But I
know he got some tips from me
when I would do a sculpture, I
could take into consideration
some of those little things that
could make the mould makers jobs
easier. So I showed Andrew all
of this stuff. So he was in my
corner. And Andrew became my
mentor and Patti got the company
to sponsor me to go through the
ILM CG training programme. So I
benefited vastly more than self
training because I went through
six weeks, Vicki McCann was my
main trainer. vixen. Yeah,
vixen. Exactly. I actually got
paid to train, you know, they
dropped my pay rate a certain
amount from what I was making in
the model shop. But that was
perfectly reasonable because I
was a trainee. But still, I was
being paid for six weeks, got
the best training, I got all the
foundation and learning units
and all the stuff you needed to
negotiate the menus. And I
learned the basic Maya software
in the Maya modelling. And so by
the time they moved me into
production, I had the good
foundation. And then my very
first project actually was not a
feature. It was a public service
announcement commercial for
keeping the oceans clean. So I
got to do some digital fish
models, which you know, pretty
simple stuff. But it helped get
me in production mode. And as
you probably know, where you
really learn things is when
you're actually in production.
Ed Kramer: Absolutely. So what
was it like learning the tools
that Maya provided? And was it
frustrating that you couldn't
just get your hands into it and
start manipulating like you had
always done
Mark Siegel: but thanks for that
question. That's really a
fundamental one for me.
Fortunately, I'm very logical,
and I'm very computer literate.
You know, I had been working
with my home computers, I don't
know if you remember the K Pro
computers, they were old MS DOS,
I had one of those I was doing
some writing when I lived in LA.
So I had, there was so called
portable computers, you know,
but I had one of those. And then
I got my first Mac laptop wasn't
even called a power book at the
time. So I'm very comfortable
with computers. I'm very
logical, in my mind, so I can
kind of think like a computer,
it all made sense to me. And I
found that learning software was
really very easy fact, I would
rarely even have to refer to the
manual, because once I started
getting into it, it all made
sense. Like I think, okay, if I
wanted to do this with this
programme, I bet there's a way
to do it, because the
programmers are smarter than me.
And okay, if there's a way to do
it, it's got to be under one of
these menus, you know, so I
learned software very easily.
The other part of it, though,
was a challenge was learning how
to sculpt with a mouse and
getting it to be as familiar to
me as sculpting with my hands.
But everybody in CG people like
Andrew, who had worked
practically, but also in CG,
everyone tells me don't worry,
it's going to happen one day,
it's just going to click in. I
said, Yeah, okay. And then I
remember what I was doing, when
it clicked in, I was working on
Van Helsing, they assigned me a
little task with the werewolf
transformation. And what I had
to do was take the digital model
of the human teeth which
existed, and using the same
geometry, transform that into
wolf teeth. So it became a
puzzle solving thing, which I
really love to do. So I use the
same geometry and I started
sculpting and pulling to use the
same wireframe to make wolf
teeth. And then there was
another problem that wolf hit
wolves have one more molar than
humans do. And then then I
figured out I've solved that by
taking one of the molars and
just nesting them together. So
in the human mouth, they would
look like one but then it would
stretch out and I used, I can't
remember which programme we were
using at the time there was this
was before Zeno. And it was one
of the features in the programme
where you could morph something
from one to another. So I did
that I took the human teeth, and
I transformed into a wolf. And I
realised at the end of the day
working on it, that I was just
so busy figuring it out and
working on the problem that I
was not thinking at all about
sculpting with the mouse, it was
just happening, and from then
on, it became kind of natural.
So there's my pygmy bat, I want
to give a shout out to Frank
Gravette, who was my immediate
supervisor on this. This is my
first production. This was a
challenging creature to do.
Frank was always there to get me
out of trouble to help show me
things if something had to be
done. And I want to say in
general, this is one of my
favourite things about ilm,
model shop digital department,
it's the best team I've ever
worked on anywhere. Because
everybody is more interested in
getting the project done to the
best possible way it can look,
then, you know, guarding
professional secrets or
whatever. Everybody with
knowledge is willing to share
their knowledge and their tools
and help out. It's the most
supportive environment I've
Ed Kramer: ever experienced. And
Frank is also a really
interesting story.
Mark Siegel: Oh, man, Frank is
such a talent. And I first got
to know him because he was there
like sweeping floors and the
models. That's what I was
talking about the greatest guy
and he became one of the top CG
modellers at ILM. He just did
amazingly difficult and
beautiful stuff. I never did any
animation myself. In fact, I
just turned it over to the
animation department. They
generated the animated
turntable. So there we go.
That's my first piece of CG
history
Ed Kramer: talking about turning
things over to animators. Was
that part of the model building
process to think about how the
rig would be applied in the
future? Or were you just
building geometry and letting
the next level of people figure
out what to do with about
rigging?
Mark Siegel: Well, that's
another great question at the
beginning. I mean, I didn't know
enough I was brand new when I
was doing Van Helsing. So I just
tried to make the model look as
good as possible. Later on. I
would start being conscious of
the rigours and I'll tell you a
story in a little bit when we
get to rango. Because rango was
a great lesson for me and
probably the biggest
collaboration I ever had with
the riggers. And if you want me
to go into that, now, I was
going to show you one more CG
thing show
Ed Kramer: me what but we'll
definitely cover rango because
we we have to cover Ringo
Mark Siegel: and rango is kind
of later on. It's after pirates
and after indie. My second
project was son of the mask, and
I was surprised, you know,
because I was a sculptor. They
knew me as a sculptor right away
in my second CG project, Jeff
Campbell was the supervisor of
it. They thought I would be good
at doing a human baby sculpture,
which was the main character. So
that was a huge challenge. But
the most fun on that movie for
me was doing some of the
cartoony stuff the baby would
change into that one. one point,
the baby turns in his head turns
into Woody Woodpecker. So I did
this sculpture. And then one of
the animators, I just did, we
did a turntable. But then one of
the animators did the little
animation of it. And again, you
know, I'm really at home with
cartoon characters. This
particular digital model was
unique, I was still relatively
new. And I thought, you know,
I'd be more comfortable working,
not directly on the screen, but
if I had a moquette. So I, like
went into the model shop and
sculpted my own moquette like I
probably knocked it out in about
a day, we had a small laser
cutter. So I sculpted my own
Woody Woodpecker moquette, and I
scanned it, and I spit out a
digital file and then that
became my template to build the
CG model. And you know, that's
probably the last time I ever
did any
Ed Kramer: sculpting to your
last physical model. Woody
Woodpecker,
Mark Siegel: I want to get back
a little bit to your question
about the difference between
physical and digital sculpting
on one level digital sculpting
was as satisfying to me as
physical sculpting. I got the
same brain visual artistic
satisfaction out of doing. The
biggest drawback for me was not
so much the sculpting
physically, I didn't really care
that much about that fact, I
never liked getting you know,
the oil clay sent in my hands
forever in the clay under my
fingernails and didn't like
working with the toxic
chemicals. So I didn't have to
deal with that in CG. But what I
did like was the kind of
community of it because the
difference for me between
sculpting physically and
sculpting in the computer is
that sculpting physically, I'm
using my eyes and my hands. But
other parts of my brain are
completely separate. I could you
know, be doing a sculpture and
somebody next to me can be
working on somebody else, and we
could carry on conversations,
and I could still focus on my
sculpture with CG, I found I was
engaging my visual and my verbal
skills at the same time because
I had to deal with making
selections and menus and verbal
oriented stuff. So I found that
I just was not able to focus, I
couldn't even listen to music or
anything else. While I was
sculpting in the computer. That
was the big difference for me,
didn't miss physical sculpting,
per se. I was really never a
sculptor as an artist, sculptor,
it was always my job, a job that
I loved. But it didn't matter to
me and I didn't really have any
motivation to do any sculpture
after I didn't have to anymore.
You know, I've really never
considered myself a designer, I
didn't design any of these
creatures or characters that I
worked on. I knew I was a really
good interpreter. You know, I
knew I could take flat art and
turn it into three dimension and
visualise it that way but left
on my own, you know, do creature
sculpture, I have no idea so you
know, really no visions, I play
music and I I write things
that's more where my creative
instigation really comes from
more than visual stuff.
Ed Kramer: We're working with
polygons, did you ever work with
NURBS as opposed to polygonal
based?
Mark Siegel: No, we had a little
bit of alias. And then there's
some Softimage stuff that we
worked on that had more NURBS
central that I was much more
comfortable with polygons. And
eventually, when we went to
Zeno, I pretty much abandoned
Maya almost completely. Because
even for hard surface models,
which I had to do occasionally,
our modelling and sculpting
tools in Zeno were really
robust. The sculpting tools in
Xena were far superior to the
Maya sculpting tools, often I
would model a basic geometry in
Maya, and then just copy and
paste it over to Zeno and do all
the finish work there. Zeno just
kept evolving ILM has the best
conditions for software use by
the artists. Because if I had a
problem with a tool, or if I
thought of a tool that would
work better for something, I
just call up our IT department,
Colette Mullen Hoff was became a
good buddy of mine, and, you
know, collects a genius, Academy
Award winner, you know, for ilm,
and I call up Colette and say,
you know, this tool, it's got
some problems and if it did
this, and she said, Oh, yeah,
and then the next day, I'd have
a new tool. So what kind of
tools did you use, mostly, the
stuff I would ask for, were like
slight variations of the tools,
like I wanted to be able to push
something in a particular way
are much more user friendly for
pulling and pushing shapes and
for smoothing and creasing, and
just pretty much everything you
need in sculpture. And then
things would be added along the
way. And then other tools when
we had to start creating facial
shapes. I use them all,
Ed Kramer: did ZBrush enter the
picture at some point I was
Mark Siegel: aware of ZBrush
earlier on Jeff Campbell was
using it as far back as mask,
and he was kind of raving about
it. Because it's so much more
like real sculpting. I didn't
start using it until Pirates of
the Caribbean pirates two was
the first of the pirates that I
was on and it actually became
necessary to use it for pirates,
too. You know, the monster
pirates were really complex and
they had so many things stuck on
seashells and barnacles and
things like that. They realised
early on that if we had
populated those the surfaces of
those characters As with like
geometry, barnacles, the thing
would be so heavy, it would just
take forever to animate and
render. And then they got the
idea to use ZBrush. And they
would create ZBrush tools for
like barnacles and shells and
various things like that, that
we could take our model into
Zbrush and populate it with
these barnacles and shells and
other things, and then export
that as a displacement map
instead of as real geometry. So
you got the same dimension and
the same look, and the painters
could use those to paint. And we
accomplished very complex
characters with a minimum of
geometry.
Ed Kramer: Could you explain
what of displacement map
actually means?
Mark Siegel: a displacement map
is not real geometry, it's sort
of a texture map. But the CG
creature dev people could assign
properties to these texture
maps, that was either you know,
colour, or reflection or
subsurface reflection or
whatever. And one of the options
was displacement. So that
mathematical trick they did that
called a displacement, allowed
this map, which was really a
flat map on the surface of the
geometry to be rendered in a
three dimensional way. So even
if it turned sideways, you could
see the dimension of it.
Ed Kramer: And then it went off
to get textured, and then you
would see it in final shots.
Mark Siegel: Yeah. And so the
way they set up the digital
model shot, I had the good
fortune of being in the same
room, we're very sitting very
close to whoever was going to do
the texture on it.
Unknown: Did you miss our live
stream with visual effects
pioneer Ed Kramer, when you're a
member of the companion, you'll
automatically be invited to all
of our events. But don't worry,
you haven't missed out. Members
can watch all of our interviews
on demand whenever you want,
including inspiring
conversations with Quantum Leap
co creator Deborah Pratt, and
fireflies, one and only jewel
state who played the wonderful
Kaylee fry, head to the
companion dot app. That's www
dot the companion dot A P P, and
check out all of our premium
videos, podcasts and articles
you won't find anywhere else.
Mark Siegel: So we could work
together on it. You know, if we
need a problem, we need to work
something out laying out UVs on
a park or things like
displacement maps or hair maps
even and in most cases, the
texture artist was somebody I
had a long history working in
the model shop and people like
Jean Balti, or early Barbie or
Susan Ross. I mean, I worked
with Susan a lot back in the
models. I don't think she
painted any of my models I can't
remember specifically, here is
the Hydras model turntable. This
is before text strings we had to
model their weapons to if they
carry it any so this is the
handle he would hold those
things in his hand and would
become a sharp spiky weapon that
he use. I tell you, I've had the
luckiest career like anything
else. It has its moments in the
days that you were not so happy
to be there. I can't think of a
better job. I know that hundreds
of 1000s of kids are envious
that I got to do this. And man I
was just lucky. Well, I had some
skills, but I was also
Ed Kramer: really lucky. We all
have that same appreciation of
what allowed us to be able to do
this work professionally.
Mark Siegel: Yeah. Oh, now I
think that I think it may have
been John Goodson who textured
this one. Yeah, John is one of
my other good buddies from
forever in the model shop days a
number of us have stayed close
after my retirement and some of
them are gone from Ilm. But we
have a little group from the
model shop. John and Kim Smith
and how we we eat and Melanie
weightless and Lee Barbara who
are in contact all the time and
get together whenever we can. So
that's the other thing. I
appreciate about the ILM people
is Melanie Jamie weightless his
wife no no she's sister of Chris
weightless and Mark weightless.
Chris was at ILM in the early
days. He was a sculptor model
maker and then he went off to
start his own shop. What was it
called Chris way was industry so
yes, and did a lot of shows like
Gremlins the fly in the fly too.
I wound up in between projects
at ILM I worked up at Christmas
shop. So the way it was family
is a big visual effects family.
younger sisters Melanie who
worked at ILM for a long time
both in the model shop and as a
CG texture artists their brother
Mark weightless never went over
to CG but he was in the model
shop and kind of worked up to a
supervisor position. He was also
a supervisor over at his
brother's shop too. I just want
to share one more model. This is
wheel back you can see him from
all the angles with the
different ships parts on his
face up there. That monocle is a
ship's compass.
Ed Kramer: I don't know how many
times I've seen this movie and
I've never noticed this wheel
built into his back. So now I
got to watch the damn movie
again.
Mark Siegel: Yep, next time once
I don't have any pictures of one
that I don't think was used
until pirates three a character
they called Man Ray and his head
kind of looked like a manta ray
shape. With the manta ray tail
that was like a ponytail. I
really liked him. I don't have
any pictures of him. I didn't
get anything from him. It's
three. But you know, they reused
some of the same characters and
created a few others. The main
one I did, I think made that
probably right after pirates is
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of
the Crystal Skull.
Ed Kramer: I gotta say, you did
the amps. And when I saw the
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in
the movie theatre, and I saw
those aunt sequences, I had been
responsible for the scarabs in
the mummy. And oh, I went, you
know, it looks like they were
trying to one up me.
Mark Siegel: Well, as you know,
I only had to model one. Well,
in fact, I modelled eight of
them, I modelled one basic
geometry. And then I did like, I
think seven variations, just
varying the body proportions, so
that they could have a little
variety. And I've got turntable
of the app. It's one of my
favourite characters. Do you
remember those little? What did
they call them the little light
bulb with the gear awards, they
were just little show Awards for
Best whatever. I got a best
creature award for that. And
Ed Kramer: awesome. You also
showed something that's really
interesting, because most people
don't know what level of detail
means you show an ant with three
levels of detail. So show that
and tell us why you would sculpt
those three?
Mark Siegel: Great question, I
will do that. The other creature
I did for that was the prairie
dog. And then I got into doing
digital doubles, which is
another entirely different
realm.
Ed Kramer: I just want to say
for anybody who's a budding CGI
artist, the importance of
working to reference is about
the most important thing you can
show in a portfolio that if
somebody gives you artwork, you
can make it look like that
artwork, everything for Mark was
done from reference, and he's
about the best that there is on
the planet.
Mark Siegel: Thank you for that.
And that was true back in my you
know, physical sculpting days,
too. Because we'd always have
reference pictures we get, like
on Star Wars, you know, for the
EOP I get drawings from the
ranch. And I sculpt as best as I
could to match the drawings. As
I said, I'm not a creator, I'm
an interpreter. And you know,
Doug Chang would come down to
our sculpting shop was me and
Richard Miller, just the two of
us sculpting all these MCATs
Phantom Menace, Doug would
always if there was any
questions, you'd always come
back to the artwork. At least
that was the Bible. For me.
Ed Kramer: For anybody who
doesn't know this. That's
because the producer has shown
that artwork to the director and
the director has approved it.
And the director's approval is
law in a movie.
Mark Siegel: Exactly right. So
that film is a director's
medium. So here's the three res
ants, you were talking about the
top one, obviously, that's the
full res. And you can see this
great zoom out here, there's a
fair amount of geometry here.
And I don't know how many 1000s
of ants they had to render for
that scene, but they were
rendering 1000s and 1000s of
ants, when you are close to an
ant, you want it to see all that
detail. But the farther away it
gets from camera, the less you
need it. So suddenly, this one
is starting to look okay. And
now by now this one's starting
to look okay, so if you've got
something really far away from
camera, you don't need all that
geometry just makes it much
faster to render. And that's the
reason we do those various
resolutions. And we do those in
a lot of characters, not just
creatures like this. But our
digital doubles, we made low res
versions that were sometimes
used as tools for the animators
to animate quickly. And that
also, you know, for shots that
were done in the distance starts
with the unpainted aunt coming
at us from a distance, then
it'll kind of fade into the
painted app, and then all the
hairs that I put on it that are
rendered now for really close.
And that's what it looked like
in the scene. At some point, you
don't need to render all the
hairs, you don't even need to
render all the complex geometry
by the time they're weighing the
distance doesn't matter. So it
just makes animating and
rendering a lot more efficient.
Ed Kramer: And what this is, a
great example of is the kinds of
tests that you do before making
these final shots. Every shot
involves a lot of r&d and
experimentation and pre
visualisation of the shots. So
there's great examples of all of
that.
Mark Siegel: I really came to
appreciate how many different
disciplines have to go through
all of these different steps,
and back and forth and you know,
making things better. Well, I
want to go through the prairie
dog so I have a cool little
turntable movie that will show a
bunch of the process of
modelling. So I modelled is
prairie dog, it's for the
opening scene of the movie. And
this is the grayscale model.
This is generally what I look at
to look and what everybody looks
at to see what it looks like
that shows the wireframe on the
surface, get an idea. This is
just the wireframe. Now here's
the rig that the riggers would
build to go inside my model and
then the animation handles they
put on it to control all the
points and then the rig inside
the wireframe and then with the
hairs modelling the hairs you
know we're working just with
curves just with splines, so you
don't have to put millions of
hairs on a creature. I just have
to have enough hairs on it that
Determine the general length in
that particular area of the
body, and then where the hair
changes direction so that when
they finally render all the
hairs, it looks good. And then
the texture artist creates the
colours of the hairs that can
even vary from the root to the
tip. Each one of those curves
can be one hair, or 20 hairs or
100. hairs, they can have
different thickness from the tip
to the root. So from these basic
splines that I put on, the seat
should have person and the
texture artist. And eventually
the simulation people do a tonne
of stuff to get the hair
Ed Kramer: to look right. And
these are usually called guide
hairs, if anybody does this
stuff in Maya, exactly, thank
Mark Siegel: you, the animators
actually animated him into
position because you remember, I
just had them down on all fours.
And then all of the other
artists rendered all the hairs
in the colours to make them look
like that. As you said before,
there's the reference picture of
the fairy dog that I was working
from. And then texture artists
also works from those same
reference pictures. And now we
can get into digital doubles.
Ed Kramer: Yeah, let's talk
about digital doubles. What is a
digital double? How do you go
about making them using them?
Why do you have them all that
stuff?
Mark Siegel: Great. Well, the
digital double is literally a
double of the actor, but it's a
digital model. The reason we
make them is because there are
some times and more and more
frequently these days where the
character has to go through some
kind of outrageous action or
stunt that even the most skilled
stuntman could not even possibly
do. Even if they were insane
enough to try it. Oh, you know,
the digital doubles are getting
good enough, especially now even
more than they were when I did
them on indie and realistic
enough that especially in like a
medium to far shot. But some
even sometimes in a fair close
so that they can be pretty much
indistinguishable from a real
actor. So if you can get away
with doing a digital double, you
don't have to put an actor into
jeopardy at all. And you can do
anything you want with a
character. Sometimes
unfortunately, a director puts
digital doubles through things
that are physically impossible
in any universe. And that always
takes me out of the film that
comes down to the judgement of
the director. I mean, nowadays,
I'm not even sure I can tell
which is a digital double,
except I can just kind of guess
that no actor would do that. As
we were doing indie, ILM was
developing this great new
technology for digital doubles.
Typically, in the old days, we
would have the faces and their
bodies laser scanned in great
detail. And that would become
the template for the model. But
then they had ILM developed this
new technique, doing photographs
from multiple angles way more
complex. And I even understand
through stuff that I could work
with it, that we could take our
geometry for a human and bring
in that 3d image, use it as a
background, and literally get
close up and pull the wireframe
of the human to every point that
matched up on that 3d digital
image of the actor. So we could
get them extremely accurate in
high detail. It also generated
texture maps, because they were
photographing the actual actor,
the texture artists could start
with those texture images. And
because my wireframe sculpture
was pulled directly to those
images, they could pretty much
project the texture onto my
model, and it would fit. Of
course, there's tweaking after
the fact that as is always the
case, but it got you a lot of
the way there in a much more
accurate way than just kind of
painting by looking at
reference. Here's my first
example of Karen Allen from
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of
the Crystal Skull. That's the
real Karen slanting over there
on the left and my digital
double have Cara. The other
thing is with a digital double,
we don't just model the human,
we model every bit of their
costume as well. I kind of
really got to enjoy costume
digital costume making, I really
enjoyed making boots and shoes,
there was something fun about
the geometry of boots and shoes,
you know, I've got one coming up
to have some great boots, you'll
see,
Ed Kramer: unfortunately,
because of cloth simulation, you
no longer get to sculpt ripples
and folds of the cloth because
that's going to happen in the
simulation department right? For
the
Mark Siegel: most part it does
there have been occasions where
they wanted me to sculpt the
version of the model that had
some basic large scale wrinkles
and draping in it. Because then
in certain shots, they could use
that digital double without
running extreme simulations. Let
me do the close up now here I
think you can see not only the
modelling but the texture and
how useful it would be to have
that technology that gave us
that accurate texture map and
all the accurate shapes and that
really looks a lot like Karen
Allen. I also by the way had to
model the hair again by using
guide hairs guide splines are
the people who did the
simulations could do all kinds
of cool things with the hair as
it reacted to movement or wind
or whatever, Ray Winstone, he's
the one with the cool boots. And
I don't know why I've never had
any kind of shoe fetish or
anything but just turns out that
boots and shoes are just really
fun geometry to build. And you
see his boots are really
complicated. He's got those
eyelets and grommets and various
things in the laces all the way
up the bottom.
Ed Kramer: There's some wrinkles
built into your model.
Mark Siegel: Yes. And it made
sense in this case, because
those trousers, were always
tucked into those boots, instead
of somebody having to simulate
the fabric to fit there, that
became the basic model. And then
they would do simulation beyond
that, you know, the way they
would bounce or move change a
little bit. And then I also did
Shai Elizabeth, I have a good
story to tell about how this
digital double was used. That
could be informative to our
listeners here. Of course, you
know, the texture artist didn't
have all the dirt that he had on
when he was photographed. But
you know that that would be
added specifically for shots
that needed the dirt if he did.
Again, we've got wrinkles in the
genes, because those are things
that are always going to have a
certain amount of almost built
in wrinkle. One of the things we
use him for were, you know, big
stunt shots like that when he's
swinging on the vines with the
monkeys. You know, that's all
digital double stuff that's no
human could possibly do this
close up of his face. I learned
after the fact that they used
him for a really cool shot. Near
the beginning of the film. He
gets on his motorcycle, and he's
racing away from the library.
They had a stunt double for a
Shi'a on the set that matched
his body type and his general
look pretty well and could ride
a motorcycle really well. So
they used him in the shot. But
he wasn't a dead ringer. He
really didn't look a lot like
Shaila book they used the stunt
double shot completely his
entire body and I wind up doing
digital doubles on quite a few
films. After that. It's some of
the Avengers movies, I did a
couple of Star Trek Into
Darkness just wind up doing a
lot of digital doubles. Not that
I'm an exceptional portrait
sculptor. But because I got
really good at using the ILM
software system, and making
really accurate digital doubles
from
Ed Kramer: those. You were on
Van Helsing, I was assigned to
do the digital double of Hugh
Jackman for Van Helsing, I
wasn't doing what you were doing
sculpting. And I wasn't painting
the textures. I was running the
turntables and lighting them
very cool. There are a lot of
things about digital doubles
that are very subtle things,
reflections in the eyes of the
lids themselves, you know, there
are things that you have to put
in there subsurface scattering
in the ears and in the nostril.
Well, there's a lot of stuff
that people just don't know that
we do to make these things look
as good as possible.
Mark Siegel: Yeah. And ILM
artists, you know, like you and
the rest of the team tried to
figure out because it's not all
intuitive. You know, you have to
watch and say, Well, what's
going on there and things like
you know, the subsurface
scattering, you mentioned, your
skin looks translucent, you just
can't paint that you have to
have light coming from below the
surface of the skin, all of that
stuff that that they started
doing and then continues even
now to get better and better.
You know, it occurred to me when
you talked about digital doubles
for Van Helsing, I think that
might have been my first digital
devil was not Hugh Jackman, but
the guy who turns into one of
the werewolves and I'm worked on
some of the digital doubles of
the vampire women. But I got
experience in quite a few things
on Van Helsing that helped me
immensely later on.
Ed Kramer: Okay, so let's move
on to the moment we've all been
waiting for rango Okay,
Mark Siegel: first thing I'm
going to do this is excerpted
I've kind of trimmed it a bit,
but this is from the trailer of
rango that will show my main
character I did several of the
characters, you know the
townspeople and things, but my
main character was his first and
biggest nemesis, the hawk, I
modelled this cactus, and I
modelled some special needles
that could come off into his
body. I modelled the cactus to
match that pose that they wanted
to put rango in. And you can see
how beautifully realistic it
came out. This was one that Jean
both he did the texture or Han
and then I'll talk about working
with the riggers on this one
because that became really
significant C's incredibly
realistic or she is that shot
where got the cat on his head
and turns around and the I will
say he's going to die that what
that cracks me up every time in
the trailer. So the hawk, I went
through some discussion at the
beginning with John Knoll who
was supervisor and then Jeff
Campbell, who is our immediate
creature model supervisor and
with the riggers James Tooley
was in charge of rigging this,
about which position to sculpt
the hawk in whether wings
outstretched or folded in or
what and it became pretty clear
that having wings outstretched
especially for the rigours would
be the most trying to unfold
folding wings into something
straight would be really
difficult. So I modelled him
flat out, you know, just flying
legs extended tail extended and
wings spread out. A lot of the
feathers are guide hairs that
were rendered as feathers. But
the major feathers like the wing
feathers, the tail feathers, and
some of the bigger body
feathers, were actual geometry,
those things all had to be
attached to the rig. So I did my
first pass on the model I handed
over to James Tooley. And had,
he had his team put together a
rig for it, put it through its
paces of different positions.
And inevitably things would
break and we discuss it. And
then he passed the model back to
me and I tried to make
adjustments, move feathers and
things we went back and forth
several times, what we've
discovered was quite
fascinating. We found out that
the closer I could get to the
actual geometry of a real Hawk
down to where each feather was
routed on the skin, the better
the rig would work. We actually
had a taxidermied Hawk hanging
in our digital model shop was
over by Jean both these desk
since she was painting. So I
would go over there and I would
take measurements and I would
look on the model like where
this particular wing fetter was
sticking on and to which muscle
by the time we finished the
model, it's probably extremely
close to a real hawk and how
that's geometry is set up. And
that's what worked best with the
rig. So that was a real my
biggest collaboration ever with
the rigging team. And you know,
and James Tooley. He's another
one of the ILM geniuses was
great to
Ed Kramer: work with and James
also rigged the rock monster for
Galaxy Quest.
Mark Siegel: There you go. Yep.
Ed Kramer: Was there more that
you wanted to say about rango?
Again, it
Mark Siegel: was crash McCreary,
who is the character designer,
his characters are weird, and
funny, and quirky. All at the
same time of the CG character
creature models I did. crashes
were always the best, most fun
to work.
Ed Kramer: You know, people
don't understand how CGI works,
what my project, the interviews
that I'm doing is to explain the
process. Everything that you're
saying today is really going to
go a long way to get people to
understand how CGI works from
the inside from someone who's
been doing it for for quite a
while.
Mark Siegel: But I did want to
add something to your last
comment, which I really
appreciate about how people
don't know how much goes on in
CG. And I've had people say to
me, well, CG is easier because
the computer does everything.
And no, first of all, look at
the number of people in the
credits of a CG movie. And
there's hundreds and hundreds
compared to like 30 We used to
have on a practical show. And I
also say it's really the artists
are using the computer as a
tool. And I'd love to make this
analogy. You can be really good
at using Microsoft Word doesn't
make you a writer.
Ed Kramer: There you go. What a
great analogy. Okay, I'm
Mark Siegel: going to tell you a
story about the stamp. This was
for the 20th anniversary of EA T
Spielberg came out with a
special 20th Anniversary Edition
and he wanted to fix some of the
shots that he was not happy with
in the original film. Some of
them were the puppet shots, few
of the shots look pretty quanti
he came to ILM to do it as not a
puppet. Because that would have
been really it take too long to
build a whole puppet just for a
few shots. You know, it was
complicated puppet made much
more sense to do it as a CG
puppet that Bill George was the
supervisor on that. And he came
to me to do a sculpture of ET
that they could use as the basic
template for the CG model. And
there was a moquette that was
done by Legacy Effects Stan
Winston's shop down in LA. That
was a cool sculpture of ET. But
it was completely wrong for the
purposes was not the T that you
saw in the movie. It was their
stylized version of ET it had to
look like the rest of the puppet
shots because most of the
original puppet shots, we're
still in the movie. So I went
back to behind the scenes stills
and screen grabs from the movie
and I tried to sculpt in et that
was as close to the original as
I could get it. The other great
part of the story is that our
little production team, the four
of us had to go down to have a
meeting with Spielberg about all
of the things that we were going
to do for the film, the model
shop made me lift transport box,
I had to bring down this
sculpture still in clay and a
selection of my sculpting tools,
because we had to have Spielberg
approve that sculpture before I
left the office. Fortunately,
Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy
liked it just as it was. So that
became the template that was
laser scanned, and became the
template for the CG model. I
also did a full size head based
on the small head that was also
scanned and used as guidance for
the CG model. So fast forward a
couple of years, the US Post
Office decided to come up with a
pane of stamps of 10 stamps
dedicated to the behind the
scenes crafts of American
filmmaking. So they had
directing screenwriting costume
designing all of these 10 crafts
and they were looking for some
iconic image for the special
effects stamp. So they went
around to a bunch of the
different studios and ILM
submitted a number of shots you
know they thought would be
iconic for are special effects
shots in the post office
selected my sculpture VT, so
here's a composite I did that is
the the individual stamp comped
on to the original photo of me
sculpting et you know, you don't
see me in a typically living
people are not portrayed on us
postage stamps, but they do have
my hand on it. The other great
part about this, first of all,
it was the most unexpected
honour of my career to be on a
postage stamp. But they also
invited me to the academy
Theatre in Beverly Hills where
they held the first day of issue
ceremony of the stamp up on
stage. Leonard Moulton was the
emcee. He was at a podium. We
had poster sized images like
that up on the stage covered
with black velvet, and then one
giant poster size of the 10
stamps. And as molten would talk
a little bit about the behind
the scenes craft that was
depicted who those of us up on
stage would lift the cover and
reveal the stamp so I was up
there with Sarah Karloff Boris
Karloff daughter, because her
father was on the makeup stamp.
He didn't do the makeup that was
Jack Pierce, but he was on it.
The Frankenstein monster is an
iconic makeup is up there with
Karl Malden and Ernest Borgnine
who didn't have anything
specific to do with the stamps,
but apparently there have it
stamp collectors and you know,
members of the academy and with
Jenna rowland's who is the widow
of John Cassavetes, he was on
the director stamp. So Jenna
rowland's was there. And she
joked, you know, thinking about
living people not being on
stamps, she said, Well, now they
have to cut off three of your
fingers. But then I did learn
from the Postmaster General at
the time, John Potter, really
nice guy. He said that it's not
a hard and fast rule. There have
been times where somebody like
the President could honour like
a national hero or somebody very
special by having them on a
stamp while they were still
living. It's just very rare, but
it's not a hard and fast rule.
So at the end of the ceremony, I
was looking at these posters and
I asked John Potter, the
Postmaster General says, Is
there a chance that I can get a
poster like that of my stamp?
I'd like to have it. And he
said, Oh, yeah, yeah, we'll set
you up with one. Then he said,
Now go ahead and take that one.
So this is the one that was on
stage. For the first day of
issue ceremony, I packed it up
and shipped it back on the
flight with me back to San
Francisco.
Ed Kramer: What a great story.
One of the highlights of my
career. There's great material
here that's gonna really help
people understand the process of
modelling and what it's like to
be a professional modeller for
feature films. And I can't thank
you enough. Is there anything I
didn't ask?
Mark Siegel: Not really. I mean,
your questions were great. I
mean, the only thing I'd say
about the advances is that it
just keeps getting better and
better. And I'm blown away by
some of the current work the
stuff that ILM did on the
Irishman like it was amazing.
That was always the Holy Grail
is we want our digital work to
not look like digital work. If
you can't tell we're doing it.
That's then we've done our job.
I love talking with you. You
have great questions, and you
know your own personal insight
from being inside.
Unknown: Thanks for listening to
CGI Fridays with Industrial
Light and Magic alum Ed Kramer,
the companion is the most
authentic and trusted insider
platform in sci fi television
and film. As fans ourselves, we
want to create the magic of
ComiCon every single day. It's
why our long reads in depth
podcasts and incredible events
feel different. Our stories come
directly from the cast crew and
experts who are there. Subscribe
to a membership at WWW dot the
companion dot app and access
over 500 stories you won't find
anywhere else.