John Goodson

John Goodson grew up in North Carolina, Alaska, and Northern California. His dad was a surgeon in the Air Force and John loved airplanes and science fiction. Space 1999, Star Trek, and later Star Wars captured his imagination as a young person and he began building models.

He earned a degree in Product Design from North Carolina State. He loved to draw hard surface models and objects and he's always made his own models and props. He got a 1966 Ford Mustang as his first car and it needed some body work. So he went to a bodyshop that was run by a patient of his dad's and learned how to work with all kinds of materials and developed a sense of precision in "making".

He and his pal Tony Hudson made their own Empire Strikes Back snowscape with working miniatures in a spare bedroom in his parents house. Some time later, Tony wound up working at ILM and he and John talked on the phone frequently while John was in Design School. He continued to build and develop his skillset making all kinds of models from the starship Enterprise to the EVA pod from 2001. He came out to stay with Tony for a few weeks in California and wound up with a full-time job in the ILM model shop where he worked for the next 31 years.

John's credits are beyond impressive and include; Back to the Future 2, Die Hard 2, Star Trek VI, The Rocketeer, Alive, Mission Impossible, Deep Impact, Mission to Mars, Planet of the Apes, Harry Potter, Terminator 3, Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, & 3, Rogue One, and The Mandalorian. Just to name a few...

John's enthusiasm, passion for making, and love of problem solving are inspiring. He shares some amazing stories of his experiences, the techniques developed, and solutions found to complex problems on numerous projects. It was an absolute blast talking to John and we could have easily gone on for another couple hours. May be this one will someday get a part 2...

Mark Moore

Mark Moore grew up in the Pacific Northwest. As a kid he loved art, movies, cars, and airplanes. He attended University of Washington as an undergrad where he studied industrial design. He moved to San Francisco after graduation to be closer to ILM and found work in the city building architectural models and toys.

A mutual colleague led to a friendship with John Bell, who was working as an art director at ILM, and they shared a laugh corresponding for a time via FAX machine. Mark soon landed a gig at ILM where he worked for the next 13 years as a storyboard/concept artist, visual effects art director -- and eventually in 1996 as the ILM Art Department Creative Director -- Mark has worked with many top Hollywood filmmakers including: John Carpenter, Nicholas Meyer, Frank Oz, Tim Burton, Stephen Sommers, Rob Cohen, Brian De Palma, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Ang Lee.

In 2002, Mark went freelance, moved to Texas, and has since worked on films with directors Robert Rodriguez, Mike Judge (on Idiocracy!), Jonathan Liebesman, Jon Favreau (on Ironman), and Jeff Nichols (on his incredible indie film Mud). In 2012, Mark began consulting with 900 lbs of Creative in Dallas on a variety of projects for feature films and interactive museum exhibits.

Mark is one of the funniest and most positive people I've ever worked with. His boundless energy and enthusiasm is infectious and he always makes me laugh. Thanks to Mark for an inspiring conversation. By the end of this interview you have to ask yourself one question, "are you pushin' it...or are you milking it?"

Ellen Poon

Ellen Poon grew up in Hong Kong in the 1960s. She was a middle child out of five and her mom loved going to the movies. From a very young age she was motivated to excel, and was always an independent thinker. A great teacher at university got her interested in graphics by challenging students to make images and patterns using Pascal. She realized that computer science was an area where she could be super creative. She went on to earn a PhD in computer science from the University of London.

Ellen is a founding member of MPC's Computer Graphics department. During her tenure at ILM, she was the first woman to be made Visual Effects Supervisor. Ellen has won two Hong Kong Film Awards for her work on Hero and Monster Hunt. Her film credits include: Jurassic Park, Disclosure, Star Wars: Episode 1, Jumanji, Frozen, and Raya and the Last Dragon.

Within minutes of meeting Ellen you know you are talking to one of the kindest, coolest, and smartest people you’ll ever meet. It was great to reconnect and hear her story.

Neil Lim Sang

Neil Lim Sang was born in Jamaica. His family emigrated to Canada when he was six. His dad was diagnosed with ALS and passed when Neil was only fifteen. He was partnered with a Big Brother who had a strong influence on his interest in making art. 

He attended art college and worked with all kinds of traditional media. After finishing there he continued on at Sheridan where he studied both computer graphics and animation. His first jobs were in New York City and Mexico City doing animated flying logos. 

He came to work in Berkeley in the early 1990's  at Rocket Science Games. He later landed a job at ILM in the commercials division where he forged his skills and what he calls his "vfx tourettes". Commercials ran at a breakneck speed and taught Neil how to do great work fast. After seven years Neil left to pursue other opportunities including Sony where he worked on Polar Express doing motion capture, and a tour in Australia on Happy Feet 2. 

Today he works as a senior artist on all kinds of projects. Neil's passion for music fuels his creative drive. He’s an incredible colleague and friend with a positive work ethic and an amazing story. It was so much fun to catch up with Neil and talk about his genuine zest for life.

Habib Zargarpour

Habib Zargarpour was born in Iran. He moved to Belgium at an early age (4th grade), moved to the south of France for high school, and Vancouver for university.

For a time Habib was interested in airplane design but later gravitated towards architecture. Attending Art Center to study industrial design he honed his skills and interests. One of those interests took the form of doing a 3D design for a lawnmower on the computer. His work in the digital space continued to grow. After school he worked for numerous clients doing designs for things like a camcorder for Panasonic.

Before graduating Habib landed a gig doing visual effects for “Adventures in a Dinosaur City”. He and a group of friends wound up doing three and a half minutes of CG effects for the project by developing their own tools. He later did work on the Roger Corman “Fantastic Four” creating the fire effects for Johnny Storm.

Some time later, an opportunity to work at ILM came up on “The Mask”. For the next ten years he worked at ILM developing key tools on additional films including; “Twister”, 2 “Star Trek” films, “Star Wars: Episode 1” (the pod race sequence), “The Perfect Storm”, & “Signs”. In 2003, he left to work at Electronic Arts for the next seven years doing realtime rendering for games. He spent some time at Microsoft working on the Xbox team where he began work on the Photon project doing development work for James Cameron and Joe Letteri. He later landed a gig developing realtime previs tools for “The Jungle Book” and “Ready Player One”.

He worked on “Blade Runner 2049” and “Greyhound” with Digital Monarch Media, which was later acquired by Unity. Today he’s working at Unity developing new techniques and realtime tools for virtual production and working on his own film “Squadron”.

Habib is absolutely brilliant and one of the nicest people in the business. With every project he’s worked on he’s made an indelible imprint on the industry with boundless enthusiasm and excitement for the medium.

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