Leah Anton

This week on 8111, Leah Anton. Leah was born on a dairy farm in Northern Minnesota and moved to the Twin Cities shortly thereafter where she grew up. Her mother worked as a nurse and also took art classes. At the age of five Leah’s mom took her to a life drawing class and it sparked a lifelong love for art and drawing. Throughout middle school and high school Leah was a self described “art kid”.  She experimented with painting on a large scale, doing murals, working with airbrush, and exploring photography. 

Leah attended Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) as an undergrad and continued honing her skills. While continuing to paint she began to spend more time doing photography. After college Leah moved to New York City, working at Grey Advertising and freelancing at a design studio doing photo assistant work connected to architecture. 

After a few years in New York, Leah moved back to Minnesota and landed a job working at WCCO on the PaintBox. Her ability to draw was the hook that landed her the gig and she quickly learned the technical parts of the system. From there she started freelancing in post-production houses around the country doing ad work and sports graphics. 

After a freelance stint in Portland, Leah was on her way to Baja for holiday and stopped to visit friends in San Francisco. She wound up landing an entry level job at ILM doing wire removal on Hook. After about six weeks, the job ended and Leah got a call from a friend at CBS to come work the Olympics in France. When she came back to California she worked for the start-up company 3DO and was later hired back doing painting and composting at ILM where she worked for the next 18 years. 

Today Leah lives in the Bay Area, continues to write, and working doing photography. It was so much fun talking with Leah and hearing her story. 

Leah, Diana Gorsiski and Catherine Tate. circa 1991

Goofing off on Smolin’s boat. Leah, Lincoln Hu, Steven Molin, and a friend.

Leah and one of her office mates, circa 1994

Leah at Moutiers, France, 1992.

Leah and Darth at LDAC, 2015

Leah, Self Portrait - Todos Santos, B.C.S. 2017

Endla Burrows

This week on 8111, Endla Burrows. Endla (whose first name is Estonian) was born and grew up in the Bronx. Her mother worked as a nurse and her dad worked in multiple jobs in the city including working as an elevator operator in a high rise. Endla loved watching tv as a kid and would often sit with an encyclopedia by her side so she could look up anything that she saw or heard and didn’t understand.

Endla’s boundless curiosity and thirst for knowledge served her well in school. She was often able to learn subjects quickly in an autodidactic modality. She attended the University of Pennsylvania where she earned an undergraduate degree in English. During her time at U. Penn, Endla also joined crew and became an avid rower. An injury sidelined her rowing activities and she soon discovered what would become a lifelong passion for rugby.

Endla attended film classes at Temple University (while earning an MBA) and loved the process of filmmaking. She made a number of films, including a documentary on women who play rugby. She landed an internship at WHYY and got an opportunity to work on a short film with Director Tamara Jenkins.

Endla moved to California and eventually landed a job working at ILM as an assistant to Charlie Clavadetscher. She absorbed everything and quickly made herself invaluable. She eventually became the head of the training department and changed the way ILM onboarded new employees and helped connect the dots across departments and programs within the facility. After about seven years, she moved on working at Digital Domain, the Jim Henson Company, and as a Producer at Mokko Studio in Montreal. She's currently earning her MFA in film and writing her own stories.

Endla is amazing. Her curiosity, intelligence, sense of humor, and passion have propelled her career forward at every turn. Through listening and observation her unique insights and empathy helped make ILM a success in those early days of massive growth. It was so much fun to catch up with Endla and hear her amazing story.

Daniel Jeannette

This week on 8111, Daniel Jeannette. Daniel grew up near Normandy. His parents both worked for the Dutch company Philips, where Daniel worked during the Summer to save money to buy a Super 8 camera. As a kid he was always interested in drawing, in part from his love of comics. While at the same time, he had a natural mechanical inclination born from his interest in motorcycles that he would both ride as well maintain. 

He attended the Gobelins school and studied animation. During his French military service, Daniel worked in the film/video division along with his other duties. Afterwards he got a call from an old school friend to come work doing animation cleanup on a television program. After a long five years working as an apprentice, Daniel finally got a chance to work as a full blown animator in Spain. 

A motorcycle accident in Paris kept Daniel from returning to Spain and led to an opportunity working for Disney. He then moved to London to work for Spielberg on American Tales until 1994 when he was invited to come work at ILM. 

Daniel’s credits include; Jumanji, Dragon Heart, Jurassic Park 2, Mighty Joe Young, The Mummy, Van Helsing, Happy Feet, Where the Wild Things Are, and many others. 

Today, Daniel lives in Los Angeles and works freelance as a VFX Supervisor, Director, Animation Supervisor, and consultant. It was a blast catching up with Daniel and hearing his amazing story. 

Corey Rosen

This week on 8111, Corey Rosen. Corey answers the question of “what would an 8111 theme song sound like”. Corey grew up in Rochester, NY. His dad is a children’s dentist and his mom is a teacher. He’s the middle child of three brothers. As a kid he went to sleep away camp in the Catskill mountains where they put on plays. Theatre became a permanent fixture in his life.

Corey gravitated towards filmmaking as a kid, remaking some of his favorite character driven films with friends from the neighborhood. He went on to study Radio, TV & Film at Northwestern University. Corey worked as a producer on a student comedy TV show called “Stinky’s Pub” and there he learned a number of skills. After his sophomore year he worked as an intern at Jim Henson studios and Comedy Central.

The following year Corey applied to the LucasArts internship program and was accepted, in part via a shared interest in golf by Lisa Vaughn. He interned in the scanning and optical department in the Summer of 1993. Corey was in a near fatal car accident on interstate 580 and kept working at ILM from his hospital bed. This led to a full time job that lasted for the next 12 years.

Corey and Scott Leberecht created their own short films at ILM including the Sprit of Spawn and the Sprit of Sleepy Hallow. These fun short films led to an opportunity to work as a writer developing original projects for Lucasfilm Animation. He then returned to doing cloth work as a TD and started to feel like it was time to move on.

Post ILM he has worked at The Orphanage, Image Movers Digital, and now at Tippett Studio writing theme park ride films. Corey recently wrote a book called, “Your Story Well Told” in connection with work he’s done on The Moth on NPR. It was great to reconnect with Corey and hear his story.

Corey Rosen in the orange shirt with the other creature TDs in the “House of Pain”.

Marty Brenneis

Marty Brenneis’ nickname, “Droid” comes from the following axiom; An engineer builds one and then you get a droid to build 99 more. 

Marty grew up in Berkeley attending Berkeley High School. He was part of the student stage crew helping put on full blown productions. He basically grew up in the business with his mom working doing hair and makeup, and his dad working as a still photographer. 

Marty saw Star Wars at the Coronet theater in 1977 and knew immediately that he’d one day work for Lucasfilm. He went on and earned a two year degree in electronics. His brother John was then working at American Zoetrope and they needed a wiring “droid”. So Marty came in to help, and that gig led to an opportunity to come to ILM wiring blue-screens. It quickly became self-evident that Marty was highly useful in the new growing Northern California studio. 

Marty’s credits include; Apocalypse Now, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dragonslayer, ET, Star Trek 2 Batteries Not Included, to name only a few. 

If you ever worked at ILM on Kerner, you knew who Marty Brenneis was. In many ways, Marty epitomizes so much of the ILM work ethos and culture. He’s a human Swiss Army knife and the ultimate creative problem solver. It was so much fun to chat with Marty and hear his story. 

Marty with Jessica Tandy on the set of Batteries Not Included.

Marty on set with the model for an Intel commercial.

Ned Gorman, me, and Marty Brenneis