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.
