This week on 8111, Eric Brevig. Eric grew up as an only child in West Los Angeles. He loved going to the movies growing up and he made his own short films with kids from the neighborhood. His mom worked at a bank near 20th Century Fox and one of her clients got Eric a set visit to The Towering Inferno on the day they blew up the building. It was an eye opening experience. He went on to attend UCLA for film school and earned a Master’s degree where he made a complicated short film involving stop-motion monsters and live action.
After school Eric worked as an intern for the camera union. The internship exposed him to all kinds of opportunities working for a short stint at Apogee and Universal Heartland which was doing work on the TV series Buck Rogers. He worked for a time at Doug Trumball’s while they were working on Blade Runner. While there he met Rocco Gioffre who went off and started Dream Quest Images (with Scott Squires, Hoyt Yeatman, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and Bob Hollister). They needed a matte cameraperson and Eric was the right fit for the job. He worked on Lost Boys, Scrooged and other films as VFX Supervisor.
After working on Total Recall for Dream Quest, Eric was hired by ILM to come work as Supervisor on Hook for Steven Spielberg. Eric worked at ILM for fifteen years on some massive projects. Over the years he's worked with filmmakers like Spielberg, Michael Bay, Roland Emerich, Barry Sonnenfeld, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, James Cameron, and Frank Oz (to name a few).
Eric’s visual effects credits include; The Abyss, Total Recall, Hook, Disclosure, The Indian in the Cupboard, Men in Black, Wild Wild West, Pearl Harbor, The Island, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and many others. As Director he’s made the films; Journey to the Center of the Earth and Yogi Bear. Eric’s enthusiasm for filmmaking and visual effects is infectious. Along the way he’s been helped by others and he’s payed it forward helping people he’s worked with, promoting colleagues on films where he’s been a key decision maker. It was great fun to talk to Eric and hear about his amazing career.
