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Intro

[00:00:00]

Rob Bredow: I would hide the cowboy hat, because on, on Beach Boulevard, in the bus, you don't really want to be wearing the cowboy hat looking, you're already wearing faux western clothes, it's a bad look.

Rob Bredow: Welcome to the Lighter Darker Podcast, where we talk about the creative process of filmmaking and the art of visual storytelling.

Rob Bredow: Today is a special time. 2024 year end bonus episode. So hope you're having a great holiday. We plan today to get to a few more questions from the mailbag. It was overflowing. We're also going to take a visit to the Misinformation Corner and uh, make some corrections.

Rob Bredow: We're also sharing our own rejection letters. So you're going to get our three rejection letter stories as something we've done with guests but have not had a chance to do, with each other. and then you'll hear, of course, we'll end with martinis to celebrate, and say goodbye to 2024. As usual, my co host Todd Vizzeri

Todd Vaziri: Hey, I'm Tom Vasari, compositing supervisor and [00:01:00] artist at Industrial Light and Magic.

Rob Bredow: and our producer Jenny.

Jenny Ely: Hello, Jenny Ely, production manager at ILM.

Rob Bredow: And I'm Rob Bredow, Chief Creative Officer at ILM and SVP of Creative Innovation at Lucasfilm. And we all work together at ILM on visual effects, in animation, and immersive entertainment.with that intro, Jenny, should we just dive right into the mailbag? We've got a few to get to.

Jenny Ely: Yeah. Okay.

Mailbag

Jenny Ely: The first question is from Justin Pimenter from Australia. “I've attached a recent BTS screenshot from the set of skeleton crew. Can you please identify or name the device attached to the lens that the DP is using to frame up the shot and explain how they work on set and aid the DP?”

Rob Bredow: Love this question. Thank you, Justin, for asking. And we got John Knoll to give us the answer to this question since he was on set with the team, and can describe it perfectly. So, here's the answer from John himself.

John Knoll: The person in the photograph is Jake Schreier, our episode [00:02:00] seven director. He's looking through a director's finder, which is a way for a director to have a lightweight way to view through one of our taking lenses. So it's just a viewfinder attached to the lens itself so they can see how a shot would be framed without having to hold a big heavy camera.

Rob Bredow: Thank you, Mr. Knoll. The perfect answer, of course. Also, you can use different kinds of directors finders. this one, if you take a look at the picture, which will be attached in the show notes, is a great one, because you can actually, as John said, Look through the actual glass that they're going to later attach to the camera, and it's as perfect as it can be, and you get every characteristic of the glass affected, or you're seeing it through the actual lens.

Rob Bredow: You can also download an app, like this is Cadrage, I don't know how to say it, C A D R A G E, and it'll work on your iPhone, and you can use that as a finder, and you can load in there, you can pre [00:03:00] configure what lenses, what kit you have, What, short and long and wide lenses you have on your show and actually frame up and take still frames with your iPhone.

Rob Bredow: And that is another really great way that people use to communicate on set where they want to frame up their shots and plan for the shooting day.

Todd Vaziri: It's a really lightweight, easy way to get around. You don't have to move the motion picture camera, which is hooked up to about 85, 000 cables. And it's a big deal. No, no, no need for dollies, no need for cranes. You could just zip around and quickly, uh, visualize or experiment with a camera angle or a lens on the set.

Rob Bredow: And then you can also do the most primitive thing of all, which is just use your two fingers to make a little V and then point where you want the camera to be.

Rob Bredow: And actually, that is surprisingly effective to communicate camera position on set as well.

Jenny Ely: Yes.

Jenny Ely: I will link the image that Justin sent in of the screenshot from skeleton crew in the show notes, so you can see what we're talking about.

Jenny Ely: The next question is from Sergio Lugo.

Jenny Ely: “I read somewhere that early panels for LED volumes were made out of commercial [00:04:00] LED displays for outdoor signs. Is it true? How has the tech evolved since then? And isn't it a downgrade in color range compared to old lights, like decimating your light range?”

Rob Bredow: Such a good question. Thank you, Sergio, for asking. Um,really the led technology was more born out of the industries that were using it for concert tech, hardened cases that could withstand a production environment. but usually not outdoor leds, specifically outdoor leds are great and that they're really bright.

Rob Bredow: But as you're maybe pointing out in your question, they don't always have the actual color accuracy that we're looking for. And before we started shooting on led volumes, we tested. Dozens and dozens of different LEDs to see which had the best response to the cinematic cameras that we shoot with. And it was a non-trivial color science experiment job to try to get those LED panels to behave well enough to be able to be directly photographed. And uh, boy, I could go into tons of detail about the processes that we [00:05:00] used and the years long testing process that it was to get, take LEDs from being a useful lighting source to being something we could almost photograph on camera, to being something we could actually use, for the first season of The Mandalorian, with Jon Favreau being excited to dive in and honestly take a big chance on this technology for that.

Rob Bredow: One of the first times I know that we used it pretty extensively, certainly on Star Wars, was on Rogue One. That was John Knoll supervising that show. He was working with Greig Fraser, who is a cinematographer that we've worked with many times and also worked on The Mandalorian. And Greig was very bullish.

Rob Bredow: Even though the LED tech was earlier, and the accuracy of the colors was not as high as what we have today, what Greig Fraser and John were excited about was that this technology was going to give us the opportunity to control the lighting over a large area light in a very articulate way and make it super dynamic.

Rob Bredow: For some of those flying sequences and the results are incredible in Rogue One, the lighting on the faces. But it wasn't the only light that was used. I think there's a bit [00:06:00] of a misconception that you're restricted to just using LEDs. And that's not the case at all. So on Rogue One, Greig was flying, I think, a 10K incandescent light, a normal lightbulb that is built on fire that gives you a beautiful color range.

Rob Bredow: And that was the main sunlight. And then the LEDs were giving all the fill, and you get this really dramatic fill that's very dynamic. and they used it in a couple of on camera shots in Rogue One as well. On Solo, we actually use laser projectors for some of the same reasons you're highlighting here.

Rob Bredow: We had more resolution, more color accuracy. We had better color controls, but we were getting some in camera finals on solo and then by the time The Mandalorian came about, the panels were at a resolution and, you know, the space between the pixels was finer and the panels themselves were giving off colors that were much closer to the kind of color range we look for in cinema.

Rob Bredow: And even with our very high dynamic range. Cameras, you could pick up a lot of subtle detail on them. So yeah, it was really important that the led technology evolves. Back then on, Mando season one, [00:07:00] we all predicted like a year from now, we'd have new panels and a year after that we'd have new panels and there are some new panels.

Rob Bredow: There's some great panels out there, but those panels we picked on Rogue one, probably power 90 percent of the led stages that are in use today around the world, they ended up being a really nice trade off. They're really bright. They have good color range, they're very durable in a production environment, and it turns out a 2.

Rob Bredow: 9 mil panel, meaning three millimeters between each pixel, it turns out that resolution, while you can go finer, that's to be, that ends up being about the sweet spot. If your camera's 15, 20 feet away from the wall, using some depth of field, it ends up working out pretty well. So that's ended up being a very useful panel for us for, as an industry, I would say, for the last, what is that now, seven years or so.

Rob Bredow: Since, we started doing those tests on The Mandalorian.

Todd Vaziri: There's a, there's two moments of, the modern projection system that ultimately became StageCraft that I will. Never forget as an artist and as a movie fan. One of them [00:08:00] was when Rob, you and Pat Tubach turned over the going into hyperspace shot from solo, where we're looking behind Lando and the droid and the streaky stars happen.

Todd Vaziri: All of that was happening in camera. We were doing the L3 CG version of L3 and that's why I was compositing the shot. The camera. swings around to see Han in profile and you're getting the accurate hyperspace tunnel interactive light on his face. And more than that, you can see the tunnel reflected in his eyeball.

Todd Vaziri: And I'm like, wow, This is breathtaking that this is happening all in camera. The actors can actually see what they're supposed to be reacting to. And we get all of this very authentic. You know, true to life, interactive lighting and reflections. It was just stunning. And I,I'm never, ever going to forget that.

Todd Vaziri: And I'm like, wow, if we, and then I start thinking like, Oh, if we wanted to [00:09:00] recreate this in digital, we absolutely could do it, but it wouldn't have nearly the fidelity and instant results that we get in camera, using the techniques,

Rob Bredow: and the best thing about putting the tools all together on set is. you would never have thought to storyboard and pre plan that shot out. But Bradford Young was a DP on Solo. He's such an artist. He would feel his way through these shots.

Rob Bredow: And, you know, Phoebe Waller Bridge throws the hyperspace lever in the front seat, and he's every other Star Wars movie, I know because at that point I had researched every hyperspace shot in Star Wars and watched them all and studied them because they're, and they're so much fun and they're so inspirational.

Rob Bredow: But a hundred percent of them cut the moment after the lever gets thrown into hyperspace. And the reason for that, I think, is, well mostly, in the cockpit there's not a lot of place to go with the camera so it's really a lot of work to move the camera. And the editor is cutting with a blue screen. So once the lever has been thrown, what are you there for?

Rob Bredow: You cut and you could give you just a half a beat for this, the stars to streak, and then you're out. And that's just how it [00:10:00] had been done in Star Wars for all the years leading up to solo. And then we had the hyperspace tube wrapped around this projection screen and Bradford looked around at the cockpit and.

Rob Bredow: Emotionally in the story, this is the first time Han Solo is in the cockpit of the Falcon, uh, when he goes into hyperspace. So it's this moment of hope coming out of a pretty dark first act, right? We're starting the second act. This is pretty cool. Now we're in the, now we're in the ship.

Rob Bredow: And then he noticed the reflection of hyperspace in his eye. And he's that shot. And did this nice continuous shot that none of us would have ever thought of without putting those tools on set for everyone to see.

Todd Vaziri: The other one is, I wasn't on Mando season one, but,when some of the first plates, some of the first photography from StageCraft started coming online, and Charmaine Chan called a bunch of, uh, compositors over. She had it loaded on her screen, and she called a bunch of us and she's Hey, guys, look at this.

Todd Vaziri: Isn't this cool? And she would bring up a shot, and she would ask us, okay, now, guess where the set [00:11:00] ends and stagecraft begins. And three or four of us are looking over her shoulder and we're all just shouting out, maybe around that tread or maybe around that piece of prop. We were all wrong.

Todd Vaziri: None of us could tell. Where the set ended and the panels began it was so incredible And I cuz up until that point we had seen demos we had we talked a lot about it We'd seen the test, but this was the final pixels coming out of the camera and it was stunning

Rob Bredow: That's so much fun. We love to play that game of like, where's the led wall. And I love to stump people with that. Because it always surprises, it surprises all of us that the magic tricks you can play are really fun. So just to go back, Todd, you composed L3 in the shot where we go into hyperspace, one of my favorite shots in the movie, so now we're two for two for my favorite shots that you composited.

Rob Bredow: And okay, we're just noted

Todd Vaziri: Weird how those always come up, too.

Rob Bredow: Todd knows how to pick them. [00:12:00] We've got another question from Samuel.

Jenny Ely: Yeah. Samuel DeVore asks, “Has the use of drones and the prevalence of drone video in everyday life changed the way that camera movements are used in visual effects and virtual worlds?”

Todd Vaziri: I love this question because to me this is all about, you know, a new piece of tech, a new style, a new technique. That is added to the vocabulary that we call cinema, like the words that we use in cinema, things like a cut. If you didn't understand what A cut was when you're watching your first motion picture, you'd probably be a little, you know, there would be jarring and because you're immediately simultaneously, you know, instantly transforming your field of view to a new perspective.

Todd Vaziri: We've talked about that on a previous episode. Camera movements is another one where, let's say, a slow dolly move. If, you know, you had never really experienced what a dolly was, and, you [00:13:00] know, the perspective is changing in the middle of a shot, that's a new thing. And so every decade that cinema progresses, we add new words to our vocabulary.

Todd Vaziri: Now, a cut, moving camera, tracking shot, crane shots, none of that bothers us, none of that, it's all just part of the regular language of how we tell stories, using cameras. And drones are absolutely becoming a part of it. We are now becoming way more accustomed to seeing it in a, let's just say, a documentary style where it's a, a lot of people are, just going out and taking amazing drone photography and putting it on social media.

Todd Vaziri: It's being integrated into literal documentaries. and it's now appearing in. Hollywood, narrative films. I would say that probably recently the most, extensive use was in Michael Bay's Ambulance, where it would, dramatic chase sequences, car chase [00:14:00] sequences, and you would cut to, drone shots, which are, you know, there's a, Are there so dynamic, that's the, that, and we're supposed to just imagine that this is part of the visual language of the movie, and you get absorbed into it and it just becomes, of the way the movie is made.

Todd Vaziri: Now, if you saw those shots, maybe 10 or 15 years ago, it would probably be a little bit more jarring. along the lines of the frequent criticism of certain visual effects movies that have the camera of God, the camera move that is impossible, that goes through key holes and in and out and spirals and does things that are real.

Todd Vaziri: Physical camera that cannot do with a, with a helicopter or a crane or a steady camera and things like that. And those sometimes take you out of the movie. Now we have a new phrase in the vocabulary of cinema. And that's drone photography. Cameras that can zip around and go into places, get in and out of places that previously [00:15:00] was impossible with the tech that was available at the time.

Todd Vaziri: I think it's super cool.Just any tool, used,with great care and easing into that transition, I think is important. And in 20 years or 10 years or even five years from now, we're not even going to be thinking about it at all. It's not going to be like that new innovative style. It's just going to be integrated into the way we make movies and, and leads to opportunities for shots that we couldn't even conceive of, previously.

Rob Bredow: Yeah, my favorite drone shots are the ones that, you know, maybe they start as something else and then evolve into a drone shot and you just, you're just drawn in and usually sort of great storytelling purpose is trying to tell the expanse of the space or the distance a person has to go or something and you start in close and you come out to an infinite shot and you're like, that couldn't have been a chopper because it was within four feet of the actor.

Rob Bredow: So I guess it was a drone, but I don't even know how they did that. And. When you ask that question afterwards, I think it works amazingly well. Some really fun [00:16:00] drone photography that we should link to in the show notes, and maybe everybody's seen it, but there's this brilliant pilot slash cinematographer who flew a drone into a bowling alley and just did this amazing tour of the bowling alley.

Rob Bredow: And it's, Probably not a show that today would belong in a movie because it's, the camera move is so flashy it's drawing attention to the piloting skills of the cinematographer, which is amazing and you should enjoy it for what it is. It's beautiful. We'll link to it. But it's really interesting to figure out the best storytelling.

Rob Bredow: Purposes of these new tools for sure. Like anything, like StageCraft can be used as a storytelling device seamlessly, or it can draw attention to itself if not used perfectly. So you want to make sure your drone photography is the same. I would say. Jenny, do we have one more question before we jump into misinformation

Jenny Ely: Yes. We have one more question. This is from Shauna. Shauna asks, “I'm curious about lens flares in modern movies. Are they captured in camera or added in post and what makes a good lens flare?”

Todd Vaziri: That's interesting. I would love to talk about lens flares. Rob, can we [00:17:00] just set aside the whole rest of the show? Because

Rob Bredow: Yeah, that's

Todd Vaziri: here's the deal

Rob Bredow: Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on. Before we go into, before we go into what will probably be an entire episode worth of, discussion of lens flares. Why don't we save all these up? Let's save all of our lens flare questions and topics, and let's make a whole episode out of it. Todd, what do you think?

Rob Bredow: I mean, let's make it the 20th episode of the season. Let's have a lens flare extravaganza. Something for everyone to look forward to.

Todd Vaziri: I think that's a great idea.

Jenny Ely: and let's be sure that we say what a lens flare is at the top of that

Rob Bredow: We will definitely tell

Rob Bredow: What a lens flare is That's what is a lens flare. What makes a good lens flare is going to be the discussion. That'll be fun. Great.

Jenny Ely: for that episode.

Misinformation Corner

Rob Bredow: That takes us to the misinformation corner. And there was some news in the press this week about the release of Skeleton Crew and some misinformation that got fixed live in real time.

Rob Bredow: Todd, do you want to walk us through the fun that you were following online on the interwebs?

Todd Vaziri: Yeah, sure, well, uh, Everybody probably knows that the new Star Wars series, [00:18:00] Skeleton Crew, is now streaming on Disney And, I had the good fortune of being a lead artist on that show. It was a wonderful experience.

Rob Bredow: The show looks beautiful, by the way. I mean, it's just, it's super pretty.

Todd Vaziri: It's awesome. We're very proud of the work and we're very happy that people are enjoying the show. One of the great characters is Neel, the elephant-like, kitty character that is so cute and so wonderful and such an incredible performance. And, we were very proud to be a part of the creation of Neel, which was a combination of the physical performer, there was a combination of the animatronic puppet that was on the performer's head and also digital augmentation and sometimes all CG versions of Neel's head to either enhance the performance or make tiny little tweaks to the performance.

Todd Vaziri: It truly was a team effort to bring Neel to life. Imagine [00:19:00] my surprise when I was reading an online article, pro very proudly and boldly proclaimed that Neel, was not, surprisingly not CGI. That was, quite a shock to read that. And this is something that happens all the time.

Todd Vaziri: When the press gets a nugget of information, but sometimes extrapolates that into making broad conclusions about how a particular fact was done, a particular creature was executed, and jumped to conclusions. And I believe this happened, for Neel, and in interviews or seeing B roll from the making of, from the onset photography, it sure looks like it was fully animatronic, fully was a puppet.

Todd Vaziri: And if that's all the information you had. That is a conclusion you can draw from. However, that is not the full story. The full story is that Industrial Light & Magic was [00:20:00] intimately involved with the creation of Neel. And, uh, Clayton Sandell got to interview with ILM VFX Supervisor Eddie Pasquarello and Animation Supervisor Shawn Kelly and got the full skinny on How Neel was created and that's going to be online At ILM.

Todd Vaziri: If it isn't already at the time of this episode comes out. So there's gonna be more on that soon, but since I'm on social media I saw the headline and I asked politely here's Clayton Sendell's reporting on how Neel was created. Could you please maybe consider changing the headline or issue a correction within the body of the story?

Todd Vaziri: And they did. And that's really great. And the headline actually got a lot better.

Todd Vaziri: The new headline is, One Star Wars Skelton Crew character is a stunning blend of incredible visual effects. Very accurate headline. I couldn't have written it better myself.

Rob Bredow: I mean, the combination [00:21:00] of techniques here is exactly what we all want to celebrate. And actually the new headline did, Robert Timothy Smith's performance as Neel is amazing. And the character is

Rob Bredow: so charming in fact, because you believe him so much and the combination of his performance inside.

Rob Bredow: That puppeted character, which is really articulate and can do some amazing things, is fantastic. And then there's certain limitations of what you can do on set, live, and what can be done with CG afterwards. And the fact that it's such a seamless hybrid, you don't know which is which when you're watching the show, is exactly the goal.

Todd Vaziri: And in the piece, they added an additional line, Neel was created using a stunning, seamless combination Of practical and digital effects, and I bring this up because, you know, we see a lot of misinformation about that out there about how Hollywood movies are created, particularly about anything related to digital effects

Todd Vaziri: What's really interesting is that shot that Clayton Sandel was reporting on and indicated that Neel's head was completely digital. [00:22:00] It is one of my shots that I composited. so it hit real home and,I'm glad that the site,we'll link to my article in the show notes where I documented the whole thing.

Todd Vaziri: I'm really glad that they were able to make that change because that doesn't happen hardly ever. So

Rob Bredow: It's super nice. It's really cool to see that from Slashfilm that they wanted to do that. We'll link to their article and Todd's highlighting of this correction in the show notes, so you can read that if you're interested. But it's always nice when the reporting gets the whole story, so it's very cool when that happens.

Rejection Letters

Rob Bredow: Okay, that takes us to our main topic for today, which is we're going to actually tell you our rejection letter stories, our stories of us getting started, and, why don't we kick off, Jenny, with you, because you said you've got a rejection letter story that, could apply today, so we're very interested.

Jenny Ely: Absolutely. I actually made a career shift in about my mid thirties. just a little bit of background about me. So, like a lot of people in this industry, and ILM specifically, when I was a kid, my favorite movies were, you know, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, E. T., [00:23:00] Willow, Jurassic Park, all the things that ILM and Lucasfilm have done.

Jenny Ely: I didn't actually really realize at that time that there were all these jobs working in movies other than just being an actor. So in college, I chose theater as a major because at my school, which was East Tennessee State University, that was about as close as I could get at that time to the immersion and magic of film and entertainment.

Jenny Ely: So I actually worked in professional theater for about 10 years after college, and then I decided that I wanted to make a career change and take a shot at maybe working for my dream company.

Rob Bredow: Wait, what did you, sorry to interrupt, but what did you do in professional theater?

Rob Bredow: This is

Jenny Ely: I was a scenic artist. So I was a painter. I painted like backdrops and props and things like that, Yeah, I worked as a production assistant, like a stagehand for a little while too, but mostly as a scenic artist.

Rob Bredow: Oh, that's great.

Jenny Ely: I, and that was great. I loved it. But, you know, it's working for non profit theaters and long, hard labor was, you know, I was like, I don't really want to do this forever.

Jenny Ely: And I'm not by nature a talented artist. I just had really great teachers and kind of got the hang of it. So I wanted to do something I was a little more [00:24:00] passionate about. And of course, Lucasfilm ILM were at the very top of my list. I moved to California when I was 36 and I started applying for jobs.

Jenny Ely: I didn't really know what I wanted to do, I just knew where I wanted to do it. So I had some experience in office management and project management because when you work in theater you never have just one job because you can't live. So I always had a couple of side jobs and things but on paper I wasn't qualified to do anything in the entertainment industry and I was applying for everything that looked like it's something I could even remotely handle, and it, I wasn't just applying at Lucasfilm or ILM.

Jenny Ely: It was every film studio, game studio, theme park job. Literally in California. And it was just radio silence. You know, it's like tough getting an automated rejection letter, like five minutes after you submit an application, but the majority, I just never heard anything from, so this went on for like a year and a half I was living here for You know, like I said, it was like a year and a half, and I still have my email folder with at least a hundred jobs that I had applied [00:25:00] for.

Jenny Ely: Some rejections, some just nothing. But I was starting to get super desperate. I was obsessing over my resume. Rewriting it after every rejection. Changing wording, moving things around. And I just kept thinking, I don't look right on paper. I knew if I could just get an interview that I could sell myself, but I had no experience in this industry.

Jenny Ely: And I was just getting run over by thousands of people who were like 10 years younger than me, graduating from film school and coming off internships with production companies. And so I was. It's pretty close to giving up and just thinking, okay, I've just got to shift my focus. So in sort of a last ditch effort, I thought, okay, I'm going to scrap my entire resume and start over.

Jenny Ely: I cut it down to just one page. I made it very simple and I wrote it as me rather than, you know, what I thought a hiring manager might be looking for. And I put a lot more of my actual personality into the cover letter because, you know, like I said, I thought I can sell myself. If somebody will just talk to me, I'll explain to them that I will, you know, I'll learn how to do this and I'll make it work.

Jenny Ely: But, you know, on paper, you these [00:26:00] people are getting tons of resumes all the time and they just have to go with what they see. So I saw a job pop up for an executive assistant at Skywalker Sound and I thought, okay, this is it. I'm going to apply for this. If it doesn't work, I'm going to shift focus and move on.

Jenny Ely: So I sent him my new resume and cover letter and I got it. Got contacted by a recruiter literally one hour later. And let me tell you, after what I had been through, seeing a Lucasfilm recruiter email in my inbox is a feeling I will not forget. And so I talked to Laura Holliday, who's one of our incredible.

Jenny Ely: recruiters at Lucasfilm. And I went through several screening interviews, with recruiting phone interviews with some of the people at Skywalker Sound. And I kept getting through each round. And then I finally made it to the last round, which was the in person interview. And I was gonna go to Skywalker Ranch, meet some people there, and I was like, Okay, this is it.

Jenny Ely: This is what I've been waiting for. You know, we were down to two or three candidates, and I was like, Okay, I can get in the room, I can sell myself, I know everything about Star Wars, [00:27:00] I'm outgoing, I can, pretend to be professional. I'm going to nail this. So it went really well. I went there. I interviewed with a few people.

Jenny Ely: I didn't have any major mess ups, felt great about it. So a little bit later that afternoon, I emailed Laura, the recruiter, with a thank you note, which by the way, you should always

Todd Vaziri: Always, always do a thank you

Jenny Ely: always, even if you don't think it went well or you don't want the job, always send a thank you note.

Jenny Ely: I sent my letter to the recruiter and said, would you mind sending these to the people I talked to earlier today? So she called me and she said, they decided to go with somebody else.

Jenny Ely: And I legit felt like the world dropped out from under me. I thought, that's it. I just blew the only shot I'm ever going to get at working for this company. And the fact that they decided so quickly was a little bit of an ego blow.

Jenny Ely: Of course I was doing all kinds of speculation about why they didn't go with me, which is not a good idea because you never know what's going on. You know, so anyway, but Laura was so gracious. I mean, she is just the best recruiter.

Jenny Ely: She seemed to genuinely empathize. She could tell that [00:28:00] I was upset, but you know, she said, we'll keep your resume on file. She said she would keep an eye out for anything that looked like a good fit. And I was like, great. Thank you. And goodbye forever. I was like, I'm never going to hear from people.

Jenny Ely: So I was just heartbroken. I got in the room and I couldn't do it. I couldn't sell myself. I blew my shot. And I thought they're going to pass my resume around and they're going to be like, don't ever hire this person. She interviewed terribly.

Jenny Ely: um, I stopped applying in the entertainment industry. I was like, I can't do this anymore. So I focused on applying for other jobs. I got a job at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Working at the school of architecture, which was cool, but it's not really what I wanted to do.

Jenny Ely: And I kept in touch with Laura over that year, just every once in a while I'd say, Hey, you know, anything, you know, looking promising. And, you know, she was always like, yeah, I'm keeping you in mind, but nothing really. And my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, was very encouraging to keep going and keep trying, you know, he was like, this industry is hard, but it just takes the right fit and the right person.

Jenny Ely: And so about a year after the [00:29:00] Skywalker Sound interview, I decided to look at the career website and there was an executive assistant role posted for ILMxLAB, which is now ILM Immersive, and at the time it was a fairly new kind of scrappy team. They work in VR and AR. And it was in the Lucasfilm ILM family, and it sounded really cool.

Jenny Ely: So I thought, okay, I'll give it a shot. So I applied and emailed Laura, told her I applied, submitted my application, and she called me hours later and said she thought I could actually be a good fit for this role so I went through the interview process again, I did pass.

Jenny Ely: phone interviews, and I got to the in person interview stage again. So here I am walking into Lucasfilm, doing in person interviews. I talked to Julie Pang, who's the director of production for ILM Immersive and Vicki Dobbs Beck, who I would be supporting if I got the EA role. And Vicki is the VP of Immersive Content Innovation.

Jenny Ely: And I just loved both of them. And I felt like it went really well, but I didn't want to get my hopes up because obviously, I didn't want to go through that pain again. I spoke to Laura afterwards. She told me that, [00:30:00] The team had a few things going on so it would be like a week or two before I heard. So I kind of just put it out of my mind,

Jenny Ely: went on about my life and then Laura called me a couple of weeks later and said that they really liked me and they were considering me or one other person and that she would hope to have an answer for me that evening. So needless to say I didn't get anything done at work that day because I was just, you know, a nervous wreck.

Jenny Ely: So, um, she called me about 6 15 that night and told me that they wanted to offer me the job. It was just the best feeling ever after going through almost two years of just rejection after rejection. And I can remember exactly where I was sitting when she called. I remember what I was wearing.

Jenny Ely: I'll never forget that moment.

Jenny Ely: I was 38 years old at that point and I felt like my life was just starting. So I got in and I just swore to myself that I would never take any of it for granted. I wouldn't let anyone down. I'd prove that I deserved to be here. And I worked as hard as possible. Learned everything I could, volunteered for every extra project, and Vicky is just an incredible person to know and work for.

Jenny Ely: And both she and Julie [00:31:00] taught me so much and let me grow, and eventually they promoted me to a project manager role, then an operations role, and then about two years ago, I moved over to ILM into Rob's office, and now I am right in the middle of VFX for film and television and all the other incredible things we do.

Jenny Ely: And here I am doing everything I ever wanted to do for the holy grail of my childhood.

Jenny Ely: So that is my long saga and it was absolutely worth it. So

Rob Bredow: Oh, That's great.

Rob Bredow: Two

Todd Vaziri: great story.I am getting those, you're, you're triggering some of the rejection letters that I've gotten over the years telling that story. You did it really well.

Rob Bredow: Yeah.

Rob Bredow: Two years is a long

Jenny Ely: It was a long time

Rob Bredow:

Rob Bredow: well, it's very different in terms of where you were in life and how long two years is in that phase of life, especially after changing careers and feeling that's tricky, I really wanted to work in computers and computer graphics, and I had no idea how.

Rob Bredow: I lived in Orange County, which is near L. A. It's [00:32:00] in Southern California, so I was really near the epicenter where a lot of this was happening, but I had no connections to the industry. The closest thing I knew was, reasonably, you know, like a half an hour bike ride from my house away. It was a computer store called Century Computers that sold Amigas.

Rob Bredow: And, you know, Amiga computers were home computers with pretty good graphics and sound cards in them. And we bought a computer there. And as my dad was buying our Amiga 1000, which, by the way, we expanded to have one and a half megabytes of memory. It came with 256K. So one and a half megs of memory was the expansion card, and it took up the entire giant device.

Rob Bredow: Yeah. So when we were buying our computer, I'm like, this is where I want to work. And I think I was 12 or 13 at the time. I was too young to get a job at Century Computers, but my parents are like, we'll go there. I would go there and look for software and exchange shareware discs. You would have these freeware and shareware desks that you could do copies of, so I'd buy blank discs and copy software on there and take them home and [00:33:00] use them and try to learn how to use the Lux paint and make my own graphics.

Rob Bredow: And I started my own little business at home called Ultra. Online video, which by the way, I should have registered that. If there was such a thing as domain names, online video would have been an okay domain name. I still have my very first invoice where I did a flying graphics logo for a laser cutting company.

Rob Bredow: I bumped into this guy who worked for corporate, did corporate videos for people on VHS. And I burned out this like M and T, laser company logo. And it was like this. Fake laser burned in from the side. Sparks went flying everywhere, which all had to be hand drawn. And then the letters M and T like fell away or the backing fell away, leaving their logo on, you know, a decent logo.

Rob Bredow: I invoiced them for that. It was a big time. First contract 6. I have that. I have that invoice. Yeah. 6. It was about 25, 30 hours of work probably for me, you know, that's a 13 year old. But so I was, you know, getting underway. I was editing people's weddings. I was shooting anything I could shoot. I was just making as much stuff as I could, but I wanted to work at this computer store [00:34:00] and I think I went by.

Rob Bredow: Probably 10 times between age 13 and 16 applying for work. and they were like, basically they didn't want to say you're too young kid, but that was really the story. Like they could, I could, you imagine like a 14 year old salesperson comes up to you in a computer store, do you need any help?

Rob Bredow: I was too young. So when I did need a job to pay for my car, I applied all over the place. I'm like, I'm not gonna get a normal job. Of course, I applied at Knotts Berry Farm, which was down the street from my house, half an hour ride. I didn't, couldn't afford a car yet, so I was taking the bus to Knotts Berry Farm.

Rob Bredow: I was selling churros, come home smelling like a giant churro in that

Jenny Ely: Oh my God. This is the best story ever.

Rob Bredow: a cowboy hat, you know? I would hide the cowboy hat, because on, on Beach Boulevard, in the bus, you don't really want to be wearing the cowboy hat looking, you're already wearing faux western clothes, it's a bad look.

Rob Bredow: And,I was a seasonal hire at Knott's Berry Farm. And in my first summer, I'd been there two or three months, and Century Computer called. And the woman who co-owned [00:35:00] the place called me and said, Rob, are you, are you still interested in coming to work for us at Century Computers? We actually could use some help.

Rob Bredow: We need tech help in the back, a little sales help, help up front. You'd be building machines and doing tech support. And I'm like, yeah. Yes, 100 percent I'm in. I think I was going to make 5. 30 an hour, which was great with me. I was thrilled. So I drafted my resignation letter to Knott's Berry Farm that night.

Rob Bredow: I remember my mom saying, you know, Rob, you have a pretty stable job at Knott's. Are you sure you want to give that up to go work at this little tiny, tiny company? A computer store that had like six employees, you know, you never know what's going to happen. And I'm like, I'm a seasonal employee at Knott's Berry farm.

Rob Bredow: Yes. I want to quit. I wanted to work there forever. And so I turned in my resignation at Knott's Berry farm. It's kind of funny. The lead, I turned it into, she, she's like reads it and she's like,this is a resignation letter. As a seasonal employee, they had probably never received a resignation

Jenny Ely: people just don't go back to work when they

Rob Bredow: They

Rob Bredow: just don't

Todd Vaziri: just don't show [00:36:00] up. They don't even

Rob Bredow: chances of someone not showing up on any given day were non trivial and, uh, they were like, we were going to make you a lead. And I'm like, oh, thank you so much. But I'm going to go work at this computer store. And it turned out I worked at Sentry for. More than a year and a half.

Rob Bredow: I met some friends there. There was a guy who did computer graphics there at the Emmys. This guy named Doug, who I did reverse etching of signatures, for the ride on the Emmys. I think maybe we've talked about it before where I did all the work. It ended up getting cut from the show, but I met like the first people in my life who were doing computer graphics full time, and then.

Rob Bredow: One day I was working on the floor, which is, it sounds, it's about the size, just bigger than the size of this office. It wasn't a big place. And, this guy comes in to buy an Amiga. He wants a nice brand new Amiga 3000, pretty souped up. And I'm like, Oh, what are you using it for? Oh, we do computer graphics. I need to, I need a thing to do some painting on.

Rob Bredow: Cause we're going to be sending Wavefront machines. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'd been watching the Wavefront demo reel. These were, at [00:37:00] the time they were using SGI. which were 200, 000 computers running 100, 000 software. And, you know, by today's standard, very primitive, but it GPUs in them. They were really sophisticated machines and very expensive.

Rob Bredow: You couldn't get time on a machine like that any other way other than maybe at some colleges. And it was hard to get access. So I'm like, I need to do an internship for my school. Is there any chance I could work for you for free? And, David Rose was like, yeah, let's talk. So we set up a time. He ended up.

Rob Bredow: hiring me as an intern, well hiring is really not the wrong term. He allowed me to come in and work nights and weekends for free, to learn the craft of 3D computer graphics at a professional level. I've set up his Amiga for him, got that all working and then I got time on the wafer machines. Got to sit next to people, Wayman Chinzy and Ed and others who had graduated from CalArts and learn from them.

Rob Bredow: I ended up staying there all the way through college, and that was my first job for the first 15 years, that's where we did Independence Day and Godzilla, so, big movies that we [00:38:00] ended up growing into, all the way from cable television spots in Orange County to some movies there over 12 or 15 years, so it was quite a fun time.

Rob Bredow: Fun journey, and in part because of the couple years of standing by, getting told no at Century Computers, but hanging on because I had a passion for it. It was what I really wanted to be involved in doing.

Jenny Ely: Please tell me there's a picture of you in this hat

Rob Bredow: Oh,

Rob Bredow:

Rob Bredow: I'm sure it can be dug up. This is, I'm afraid to say it's pre digital era, so I have to dig back into the albums

Jenny Ely: I think a Polaroid would be,

Todd Vaziri: Wearing the hat holding a resignation letter. You know, that's, that would be the

Jenny Ely: Rob, when you get busy and stressed out, are you ever like, God, I just wish I was selling churros.

Rob Bredow: You know, at the time when I was at Knott's Berry Farm, the highest I could see, you know, some people ask me, what do you want to do for a living now? Like, what do you want to do next? And I'm like, Oh my gosh,I'm so lucky to be doing what I'm doing. I'm working with the best people in the world on the best projects.

Rob Bredow: When I was at Knott's Berry Farm, I aspired to be on the video team. Which was the team, the [00:39:00] in house team, that would go and make the videos that would play at company meetings, where they would have a thousand employees all get together, and they would tell you about the new churros that were coming out, and they would, you know, all this stuff, and I was like, and the videos were pretty good, and they would like, you know, Camp Snoopy was going, and they would do these commercials that they would do sometimes in house, and I'm like, I would, they would be watching, I would be selling hot dogs, and they'd be walking down, I'm like, that's the team I want to be on, that's what I want to be when I grow

Jenny Ely: Oh my god, I love it.

Rob Bredow: I'm very lucky.

Jenny Ely: I feel like I don't know. It must be the cowboy hat image. I just feel like you had standoffs with the churro slingers at disney world. It was like who's the better churro team?

Rob Bredow: What you were saying in terms of applying yourself and giving a hundred percent, like the fact that I showed up every day early before my shift and basically it didn't steal from the tills and I was like really. dedicated to doing the best job I could.

Rob Bredow: And then, I was there a few weeks and they're like, you know, you should start doing the breaking job, which is like giving each person their break and do the different stations. Cause you basically knew how to, [00:40:00] you were putting in a hundred percent, even though you know, people weren't that thrilled with the 4 and 35 cent minimum wage.

Rob Bredow: And they might not have, they might not have been loving that job, but I was like, you're paying me to be here. I want to give you your money's worth. And. that sort of dedicated aspect that you can show in any job, it can be a, what can at least make a good terms when you're turning your resignation letter.

Jenny Ely: absolutely Awww.

Todd Vaziri: Amazing stories. When I was in college, we're going into the mid nineties. You know, back when there was barely a thing called digital effects. I knew I just wanted to work in movies I didn't know I wanted to work in digital effects I'm not really a computer guy, even though I work with computers every day of my life And I use them to create my art I knew I wanted to work in movies and, you know, the fact that, digital technology, digital animation was just taking off at that time, was fortuitous [00:41:00] for me.

Todd Vaziri: And in college, basically my last year, that's when we did get a seat at Wavefront. And an STI and we came with the software, the big computer and a monitor and a manual and the class was we're going to go through the manual and we're going to try to make projects in it, which was amazing. I also dabbled inMacromind director, became Macromedia director, Photoshop.

Todd Vaziri: I've started doing editing in Adobe Premiere. And I realized that I really like digital effects. I really want to do something with digital effect, but you know, in Chicago, you know, at Northwestern University,

Todd Vaziri: I have no idea how I'm going to get into that, to the business. And, it just so happens that my girlfriend at the time had a family friend who was a TV director. And we were talking about, you know, the future, how we're lucky to spend an afternoon with them. And, [00:42:00] he had the idea, you know, you know, it'd be a good thing if you don't have any connections and you want to get into the movie business and you want to just do something.

Todd Vaziri: The Director's Guild Training Program. You should try to do that. You know, the end of the credits, the DGA trainee. So there's a pretty rigorous application process to get to become a DGA trainee. At that time, there were four big rounds. and I was like, okay, when I graduate, I'm going to apply and it happened to coincide with my graduation time.

Todd Vaziri: That would be really sweet to go right from college, into the director's guild training program. And, first off is the application, and, fired that off and thinking that it's never going to work. They liked the application. They said, that's great.

Todd Vaziri: you move on to round two, which are, in person. testing, and there, there's two locations, one is in Los Angeles and the other is in Evanston, Illinois at the campus of Northwestern University. I was attending Northwestern [00:43:00] University.

Rob Bredow: Is this possible?

Todd Vaziri: I was like, okay, this is totally, you know, set in the stars.

Todd Vaziri: This is going to happen. What are the odds? So while other people around the Midwest and the South and the Northeast are flying into Chicago to do these in the in person testing. It was a written test or something like that. I waltzed over from my dorm or my apartment and walked right in. And I'm like, hey, trouble getting in from O'Hare or anything like that?

Todd Vaziri: Everybody else was very tired from their journey. I was not. Took the test. I felt pretty good about it. And I passed that round. I was like, oh, this is great. Only two more rounds. This is fantastic. We're getting close to graduation. The last two rounds are, in person group interviews. And then the final round would be an in person one on one interview, and that would only happen in Los Angeles.

Todd Vaziri: And it just so happened to coincide with my graduation day. So I had to make a choice.do I attend my own graduation? Or [00:44:00] do I try to, become a DGA trainee. And I decided to go for it. I got a plane ticket and flew out to LA, got the cheapest motel I could find. That was near the director's guild, rented the cheapest car I could get and went to the group interviews with somebody from the DGA.

Todd Vaziri: And I felt like it went really well. I was very nervous. And, they said they would call you that night and tell you if you move on to the next round. So I go back to my motel and the phone rings at the motel, and it was the Director's Guild telling me that I did not get to go to the next round, which was gonna happen the next day.

Todd Vaziri: And I was very sad and I was just sitting there on the edge of the bed knowing that the, that was the day of graduation that I had

Rob Bredow:

Rob Bredow: literally all your friends are having a party back at graduation, and you're in a motel in L. A.

Todd Vaziri: And the TV was on. And it was a police [00:45:00] chase because it's Los Angeles. Of course, it's a live police chase.

Rob Bredow: That's primetime entertainment in L. A., I tell ya.

Todd Vaziri: When I eventually left, and I had to stay a whole extra day cause I kind of planned on the extra day of interviewing, but I had nothing to do.

Todd Vaziri: As I was about to leave the motel to return the car and get to my flight, I dinged the car. Because I was just so frazzled, my nerves were on edge. Not so great, not a really great time. I felt really bad about myself At the exact same time I was also applying to Digital effects companies in the Los Angeles area.

Todd Vaziri: I applied to all of them using my, you know, very crummy reel from that animation course, my macro media director stuff, my Photoshop work. It was a crummy demo reel.

Rob Bredow: Do you remember like the best shot on the real Todd?

Todd Vaziri: It was, I did model and animate a [00:46:00] telescope that was in the, a dumpster that had a memory of the beautiful stars that it used to see, but now it's been thrown into the dumps.

And it's just as, it was a pretty good idea. It looked wasn't, cheeseball, total cheeseball. It was student work.

Rob Bredow: I remember a reel of mine that I don't know if I ever gave it to anybody, but there was like a demo, like a revolver or something model that was included in one of the applications that I was using, like direct draw or something like that. And, I remember just positioning that lighting it and then animating the revolver, like pretending I did the shot.

Rob Bredow: And so basically I did almost nothing. Yeah. And I put it in my reel and it was on my reel towards the end. I'm like, is that okay to put in there? Like I did do something, but they're going to think I modeled it too. Cause it was really a modeling demo. and it was, I wasn't at a point where I could say like, where I realized you could say I did everything, but the modeling, I just, I was like, I don't think I basically rendered out somebody else's demo

Rob Bredow: Anyway, sorry to interrupt, but [00:47:00] yeah,

Todd Vaziri: Well,

Rob Bredow: should do more on demo reels.

Todd Vaziri: I was, I applied to every visual effects company I could find, and I was rejected, thankfully, by every single one. And I probably still have a few of those literal letters, because it was, you know, we're again talking about the mid late 90s. Let's see, Metrolight Studios, Digital Domain, Cinesite, you know, PDI, you name it, they all rejected me.

Todd Vaziri: Again, rightfully. and then, it took me a couple more years to get a really good demo reel. I was working at a kid's video game company where I used the director again, a lot of After Effects, a lot of Premiere. And then by the time I had a pretty good reel, Van Ling at Van from the Ranch, gave me my first big break and I'll always forever be grateful for that.

Todd Vaziri: And it's like we talked about Dean Cundey. episode, you know, be the Roger Corman. You know, give people a chance. Van gave me that chance. And, you know, the rest happened.

Jenny Ely: When we talk about rejection letters, there's always the person in the rejection letter that gave you the chance and believed in you, even if you didn't really have, you know, [00:48:00] exactly what they were looking for. I think that is a key takeaway from rejection letters too, is that once, you know, we all get to the point where we've kind of gotten through and risen up a little bit, you want to be that person for somebody else.

Jenny Ely: So if you're a recruiter or a hiring manager and you can, you know, make that happen for somebody else, it's, that's really special.

Rob Bredow: Definitely. Yeah, or Vicki Dobbs Beck, who's been a mentor to all of us here. Um, yeah, it's really, there's people that are special about pouring into other people. And certainly that's a nice thing to celebrate.

Jenny Ely: Yeah.

The Martini

Rob Bredow: That takes us to our martinis, our last chance to do a virtual toast in 2024. And all right, we get three more favorite things.

Rob Bredow: I'll call out something that saved my butt this week. It sounds very boring. You should totally buy one, a 12 volt DC portable air compressor pump. So why do you ask? Would you want a 12 volt? portable air compressor pump. And it's a little thing I'll link, we'll link to it in the show notes.[00:49:00]

Rob Bredow: It's this little tiny air compressor that you can use to put air in your tires. And because it's 12 volt, it just plugs into your cigarette lighter. So I was at a show this week with my daughter. We had a really fun time at this concert and we got out of the parking lot and my tire is almost completely flat.

Rob Bredow: And I'm trying to like, how am I going to call a tow truck? Am I going to try to find a gas station that's open at near midnight in a part of town? I don't know. And then I remembered when I first bought my car, I bought this 12 volt DC portable air compressor pump. It was sitting in the trunk and I'm like, I've never used this thing.

Rob Bredow: So I get it out. I'm like, Oh, I wonder if this thing even works. And it turns out the one that I got for 30 bucks off Amazon here in the U S has a digital readout for its PSI. You screw the little thing into the valve on the tire. You screwed in the tire. You're going to have another problem, but screwed into the valve.

Rob Bredow: It actually grabs on there really nicely. You put the other end into the 12 volt. It gives you a readout of what the air pressure was, which mine was like 18 PSI. It's supposed to be [00:50:00] 42. can even on this one, I mean, this is a 30 pump. I've used good air compressors before, but this little tiny thing, You tell it what you want the PSI to be set to on the little digital readout.

Rob Bredow: And then you turn it on and it starts, you know, it goes and it starts pumping up your tire very slowly. It's a tiny little compressor, so it takes a while. It's 10 seconds for every half a PSI. But then when it gets to the right amount, it turns off and you unplug it and you have air in your tire.

Rob Bredow: And to be able to do that, like self sufficiently in the parking lot before you drive home. In my case, it was like an hour and a half drive home. It made me feel like I was the smartest person in the world for having invested that 30 years before. And it's super easy to use. I highly recommend it. This brand was EP auto that I had, but my guess is there's a lot of brands that are going to be called the same thing that are roughly the same package.

Rob Bredow: And I saw, I did some research, there's 50 and 80 ones. Maybe they're twice as good, but mine put air in my tire. I needed to do it once. That may be all I ever need, but if you need something like that, I recommend it.

Jenny Ely: Nice.[00:51:00]

Rob Bredow: Jenny.

Jenny Ely: Yeah. So my overall martini of 2024 is the Lighter Darker podcast. Yes.

Rob Bredow: our own

Todd Vaziri: Alright!

Jenny Ely: Yeah, it's just been so fun. I mean, obviously you just heard my sob story about how, you know, all I wanted to do was work in the films that I loved, and just getting to do this podcast and sitting down to talk with people who worked on Ghostbusters and you know Jurassic Park and Halloween and Rob is randomly just yeah, I worked on Independence Day.

Jenny Ely: I'm like what? You know, like all these people I get to interact with and meet that worked on all these, you know, iconic films It's just it's been incredible. I mean, it's been fun learning how to do a podcast and it's been amazing seeing the feedback from people who have listened and loved it and, you know, working with the two of you and our editors, Chris Hawkinson and Greg Grosby from our PR team, it's just been so much fun and, you know, challenging, but you know, it's one of those things that I I [00:52:00] don't take for granted that I get to do this.

Jenny Ely: And so that's been my highlight of 2024.

Rob Bredow: Ah, super nice. and, you know, you hear in the credits, Jenny's a producer on this show, but you know what that actually means is she just has to do all the work.

Rob Bredow:

Rob Bredow: yeah. So like the fact that we're here recording this session and the fact that you're going to hear it there's a lot of people involved.

Rob Bredow: Chris helps edit it, which is amazing. And he helps with the tone. there's a lot of other people involved too, but. When it comes to, are we going to have an episode on the air or not? And what is our schedule and how are we going to get it to happen? Jenny's doing all that work. And, you know, for the first time.

Rob Bredow: So thank you for taking this on. As I'm really glad to hear that's been a highlight for

Jenny Ely: Yeah, it's been worth it for

Todd Vaziri: We are very grateful for Jenny and you know, at Lucasfilm ILM, lots of people do a lot of different things, but we're one of the only people that can say, yeah, we do a podcast.

Todd Vaziri: That's kind of cool. My martini, looking back at 2024, is something that was quite literally otherworldly was the eclipse that happened.

Todd Vaziri: And I was lucky enough to be able to travel to [00:53:00] Austin, Texas. So that's where we had the full eclipse where the whole entire sun was blotted out by the moon, and it really is a once in a lifetime. it's a moment that you'll never forget because there, it's a truly otherworldly experience.

Todd Vaziri: It's extremely spiritual. The people that we were, we just witnessed it all out in the middle of a field in Austin, Texas. And it was maybe 20, 30 of us, some of whom didn't know each other at all.

Rob Bredow: Wow.

Todd Vaziri: And, there are stages to the eclipse and when it finally goes dark, I'm getting choked up just thinking about it.

Todd Vaziri: Uh,everything gets eerily silent, and then everybody wants to cheer, and there are tears. It's, there's something inside of your body saying this shouldn't happen, and yet this is something incredibly special, and it's not gonna last forever. For very long. And sure enough, after just a few minutes, it started, the sun starts coming out again over the moon.[00:54:00]

Todd Vaziri: And it was a once in a lifetime experience, probably for me. And I'll never, ever forget it. I'm so glad that I got to experience it with my family and a really good spot. And, yeah, it was absolutely stunning.

Rob Bredow: Oh, that's really fun. What fun highlights.and thank you all for listening to the Lighter Darker podcast this year, man, to have a 2024, where we got to get 10 episodes to you, has been really fun. So we really appreciate the support, your questions, the reviews you've left, on our first episode of 2025 will be a good one.

Rob Bredow: It's with Amy Beth Christensen. She's one of the designers in our art department. It's an episode titled shaping characters for tomorrow, and it's out on January 14th, and we have some other really fun episodes all lined up for 2025. And if you want to reach us, email us at lighter, darker at ILM. com. our social media links will be linked to in the show notes.

Rob Bredow: So thank you for leaving the reviews. If you haven't already, maybe drop a review into Apple podcasts. That can be your new year's [00:55:00] resolution. And we want to thank industrial light and magic who has generously hosted the lighter, darker podcast.

Rob Bredow:

Rob Bredow: This show is produced by Jenny Ely and myself, Rob Brito. And in the art department, you've seen some artwork from Chelsea Castro and Hannah Puente, who have done a great job promoting the show.

Rob Bredow: and they work with. With the rest of the team, including our editor, Chris Hawkinson and our PR team, Greg Gresby, they all have been working behind the scenes to make sure the show happens and we get the word out. So people find it. So thank you all for your help, happy new year, and thank you for listening to the Lighter Darker podcast.

Rob Bredow: And until next time, may your pixels be both lighter and darker.