He headed up the groundbreaking VFX on James Camerons T2: Judgment Day.
Its worth sticking around to hear what he thinks about the future of CGI in movies, too…
It was very hard.
But thats what it took to get Jims vision on the screen, and just confirm that it happened.
Oh yeah, thats right, thats right.
Thats what was successful.
And it took us a long time to do we spent months and months on that show.
I think it was 52 shots or something like that.
He has a felt pen grid drawn all over him.
Im guessing that was you capturing reference material for the CGI.
He came up here thats actually behind ILM in Orange County.
It was then that we started to realise how incredibly difficult it is to do a person.
I dont think any of us quite knew that before how one person is different from another.
Its based on their weight and inertia all sorts of things.
Robert was great, too.
He said, check that none of these photos get out, because itll be very embarrassing!
Do you remember which scene you would have tackled first, perhaps as a proof-of-concept?
No, I wish I could.
There were so many different things we had to solve.
It may have been close to that walking shot, you know but Im not really sure.
That was the last shot we did.
And how close to principal photography was that?
I understand you front-loaded quite a lot of the effects.
We didnt do any front-loading.
We did tests, but based on story boards.
I showed stuff to Jim all the time so that he could understand the concept.
We showed him the wire frames.
I did that all the way through the shoot so he could understand it and be comfortable with it.
So how far into post-production were you rendering these shots down?
Immediately after we started shooting.
That may have been close to the beginning of what we were doing.
Then for the next two or three weeks we got a lot of work.
We got the kitchen scene in the kids house we did that right at the beginning.
Oh yeah, they had to.
The robotic arm, the heads.
It probably wouldve been impossible to do.
Everybodys working on the cutting edge.
Thats what sort of knocked people out about it.
But most of that stuff was going on inT2.
Well, I think thats part of it.
I mean, a lot of my crew hadnt worked on movies before; they were more computer science.
They just needed help, a direction of where to go.
Steve in Jurassic Park he took it to the next level.
Its not real anymore, its not the same anymore, and weve seen it before.
I wish there was more originality, but its very hard now to come up with something new.
So many things have been done.
What was the most difficult shot to achieve in T2?
Turning inside out in the molten steel.
It was a nightmare, that one.
Yeah, for that shot.
There really wasnt for that.
He was taking a huge chance, we were taking a huge chance.
So that last shot, the movements going on in there are quite complex.
So was there a special piece of software written to do that?
There was some, but the main skill with that stuff is really it being hand animated.
The thing that a movie is, it only has to work one time, for one shot.
Steve was really good at that.
That might be something that people dont realise the handmade aspect.
Everywhere, every step of that.
The original CG look for the chrome guy looked terrible.
Jim said he wanted him to look absolutely perfect clean and everything, and flexible and changing shape.
And I just thought, no, you dont want that, because its not going to look real.
You never see that in real life its going to look like an effect.
Thats what anchors it into the shot.
It is the details.
Yeah, well that was the plan.
That was my idea.
He said, youre right, thats great, lets do it.
All that stuff is the same thing it ties it together, keeps everything looking real and more frightening.
Its the detail, and weve been doing that detail stuff since the originalStar Wars.
The attention to detail is one of the things at ILM.
When you look back on it, its a very fast evolution.
Have they evolved at a similarly fast pace since, do you think?
Oh no, not at all.
It goes in spurts, where technology and artistry all come together.
Thats happening, but I think were losing the feeling of it being made by people, you know?
I think films always want to look like an efforts gone into everything youre seeing.
The work the people are putting it.
you could sort of see that now in some places.
Theres a lot of talk lately about all-CGI characters and the uncanny valley.
Do you think thats something that CGI will overcome, in time?
You know, maybe, to some extent.
But again, you cant push a button.
Getting skin right is so complicated.
The actors are trying it, the directors are trying it, the camera guys trying to do it.
And when you get into the realm of AI, youre getting into the realm ofThe Terminator,ironically!
[Laughs] True!
It all goes full circle in the end!
Dennis Muren, thank you very much.
Terminator 2: Judgment Dayis out now.
