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...
