Matt Wallin

This week on 8111 the tables are turned and my hero/mentor Kim Bromley interviews me about my career and background. I grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs in the 70’s and 80’s skateboarding and going to the movies. In 1992 I earned my degree in Cinema from San Francisco State University.

That same year, I began my career at George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic where I worked for nearly a decade in the company’s computer graphics division. For over 25 years I have worked around the world at the top visual effects houses; Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital in New Zealand, Tippett Studio in Berkeley, Sony Pictures Imageworks in Los Angeles, Warner Bros. ESC Entertainment in California, Brainstorm Digital in New York, and the Moving Picture Company in Vancouver. My film credits include; The Mummy, Twister, Star Wars: The Special Editions, Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions, Hellboy, Constantine, King Kong, Watchmen, and Jurassic Park: The Lost World.

Outside of Hollywood, I served as the Visual Effects Supervisor for American artist Matthew Barney's five-part Cremaster Cycle and the follow up experimental film, Drawing Restraint 9 staring Icelandic pop star Bjork.

I am the host of the 8111 (Eighty-one Eleven) podcast. Each episode is a conversation with a guest who worked at George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic during its 40+ year history. Guests discuss their journeys and career paths, and how working at ILM changed them. I'm also the co-host of FX Guide's VFX Show podcast listened to by visual effects professionals, fans, and aspiring artists from all over the world.

Today I am the senior full-time faculty and Chair in the department of Communication Arts in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. I teach numerous courses specializing in 3D computer graphics, visual effects, and the creative application of emerging digital technologies. http://mattwallin.com/

Me and Kim Bromley at the Empire 40th VFX crew reunion at the old ILM

With the amazingly cool Jeff Mann

One of my favorite artists, Kim Smith…

With Ned Gorman and Marty Brennis

At my old desk in D-Bldg at ILM. Office mate Craig Hammack in the background. Marshall Krasser and Jeff Doran not pictured but always in the mix.

Reference photo for something in the Art Department during my internship. Photo by Mark Moore.

Stormtrooper costume fitting.

With Ty Ellingson and pal John Girodo. Our 90’s emo band photo…actually we made some films and music videos together.

With super pal Kay Rough on the lot at ILM. Jules Mann chillin’ in the bg.

1994 Lucasfilm AidsWalk team.

With old office mate and pal Andy Bronzo at a bar in the Mission circa 1996.

Drinks with Jaqui Lopez and Trish Schutz-Krause.

Chrissy, before we started dating on the Chrysler lobby set for Cremaster 3. Barney in the center.

Shooting at the Guggenheim with Matthew Barney and Richard Serra.

With my other mentor and good pal Dan McNamara at Siggraph 2019.

Siggaph 2019 with Russell Earl.

MARS 2019 in Palm Springs with Dennis Muren and John Knoll.

With Scott Leberecht at the Empire 40th party.

With Chrissy in her artist studio in Redhook Brooklyn 2001 right after we started dating.

My main man Thor as a little guy with Chrissy in Duck, NC.

At the Richmond Flying Squirrels game circa 2010…

My giant egg head.

Me and my lifelong hero, my sister Amie.

The millennial new year. Partying cause it really was 1999. Alamos, Mexico

Me and Chrissy on our honeymoon in the Orkney Islands, September 2001.

When I fell in love with my best friend Chrissy.

Amy Young

This week on 8111, Amy Young!! Amy grew up in Manhattan where her dad was a stage manager on Broadway. She spent a lot of time behind the scenes watching her father work and when he was busy, she was able to go see plays and musicals for free. At sixteen her dad landed a job as the manager of the Curran theatre in San Francisco. Amy’s mom was an emergency room nurse.

They moved out to Marin and Amy finished high school at Redwood High in Larkspur. After high school she enrolled at College of Marin in the drama department. There she studied lighting, stagecraft, and theatre stage management. After college Amy was in a bad accident that derailed her goals of heading out of town and she wound up studying further at ACT and working locally through IATSE Local 16.

She worked jobs all over town and eventually landed a long term gig on the electric crew at the San Francisco Opera. One day she got a call to head up to grip at ILM when they were working on Always. Brad Jerrell kept Amy gainfully employed for several years at ILM where she worked on many shows including; The Rocketeer (doing pyro), T2, multiple Star Treks, and costumes with Annie Polland on the Star Wars Special Editions.

Amy returned to College of Marin where she enrolled in a fire science program and wound up lecturing around the area on fire safety. She worked with the Marin Shakespeare Company, ran the local space museum and solving problems at every turn. Today Amy is mostly retired and does volunteer work at schools, the local science museum, and in her community. It was incredible to talk to Amy and hear her story.

VFX Show 260: Love, Death, & Robots

In this special episode of the VFX Show we look at Love, Death + Robots with Blur’s Supervising Creative Director for the series Jerome ‘Jed’ Denjean from Los Angeles. We’re also joined by Autodesk’s Håkan ‘Zap’ Andersson from Sweden.

The Love, Death + Robots series is an adult animated streaming anthology created by Tim Miller for Netflix. The series is produced by Blur Studio, and it consists of stand-alone episodes in wildly different styles with varied stories connected in some way to the title. Each episode is produced by a different animation studio from around the world.

Mike Seymour in Sydney, Jason Diamond in New York City, and Matt Wallin in Richmond, VA talk with Jed and Zap about how the episodes are made and what makes this anthology series so compelling. Listen for free at FX Guide.

John Berton

This week on 8111, John Berton!! John was born in the midwest. His dad was a mathematics professor and his mother was a musician. John loved movies as a kid and, through his dad, had early access to computers. He learned Fortran in high school and was fascinated by the logic of programming. 

John attended Denison University and studied communications and even had his own radio program. For grad school he attended Ohio State and studied computer graphics with American artist and computer art pioneer Charles Csuri. His interest in film, music, physics, and programming led him down the path that would eventually lead to working in visual effects. 

After grad school John went to work with Charles Csuri at his new company, Cranston/Csuri in Ohio. They made some of the first early flying logos for HBO, CBS, Cinemax, and many others. John later went to work at Mental Images in Berlin. From there he made the connection to ILM where he came to work in 1989 on Terminator 2. John’s ILM credits include; T2, Men in Black, Star Trek VI, Hook, Death Becomes Her, Jurassic Park, The Mask, Casper, Star Wars: A New Hope Special Edition, Deep Rising, The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and Men in Black 2. 

Since ILM, he has continued to work on films and television creating visual effects in projects including; I, Robot, Charlotte’s Web, Bedtime Stories, Krrish3, Godzilla, 13 Reasons Why, and Deep Water. John taught for a while at Drexel in Philadelphia and left when he had a chance to come work at Lytro developing light-field rendering. Today John is back working in visual effects on a project for Netflix. 

John was my Visual Effects Supervisor on Deep Rising and The Mummy. Working on John’s teams are some of my favorite memories from my time at ILM. He is absolutely brilliant, and  approaches his work with equal parts technological prowess and thoughtful artistry. It was awesome to reconnect with him and hear his amazing story. 

Scott Leberecht

This week on 8111, Scott Leberecht! Scott grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio the middle of three bothers. His dad was an optician and his mom was an elementary school teacher. Drawing was always something that he was interested in, and good at.

He studied industrial design at University of Cincinnati with a goal of may be making toys for Kenner where he'd worked part-time as part of a co-op program. In school he met fellow ILM alum George Hull. And he discovered that ILM model maker Charlie Bailey had also attended his school years earlier. School set the path toward ILM.

At 24 Scott became an intern in ILM art department. The internship turned into a job where he would work for the next six years. Scott's credits include films like Flubber, 101 Dalmatians, Spawn, an un-produced Hulk movie, and Sleepy Hollow. With friends at ILM Scott made a few short films including the infamous "Spirit of Spawn" which you can see on YouTube.

Scott left ILM and moved to LA where he went to grad school at AFI. He kept working on film projects as an art director to make money. After AFI he made his first feature film, Midnight Son. He was working at Rhythm & Hues when the studio went bankrupt at the same time it won the Oscar for Life of Pi. Scott made the film "Life After Pi" that explored the effects of the commodification of visual effects and how it destroyed many people's livelihoods.

Scott wanted to make another film and wound up crafting the film "Spaz" which follows the career ups and downs of ILM's Steve Williams. The film premiered at SXSW 2022 and is in the process of being sold.

Today Scott works at Valve in Seattle. It was a total blast chatting with Scott and hearing about his journey and his new film. There's no doubt another film in the near future.