Newsy national correspondent Clayton Sandell got the
exclusive chance to speak with some of the people who
make the magic happen about their experiences. Clayto
where did this story take you Hey christian I want to
welcome you to the fabled Skywalker Ranch. This is of
course the famous filmmakers retreat that George Lucas
established after the success o Star Wars and Newsy is
the only network here and we're talking to a few
legends of modern movie special effects people who work
not just on Star Wars, but on hundreds of other movies
They are here to talk about a new Disney plus series
called Light and Magic. Visual effects create the magic
that makes people want to go to the movies. It's the
story of the cutting edge special effects company
almost as famous as the movies. It helps make
industrial light and magic. Or I L.M was founded by
George Lucas in 1975 when I was writing Star Wars,
there were no special effects houses in the world. So
how are we gonna do the effects Mhm. I realized that I
was going to start a company a new six part Disney plus
series, pulls back the curtain on the people and the
inventions that helped I L.M transform moviemaking. We
were departing from convention, we had to build
equipment from scratch. This wa a long shot light and
magic is directed by Larry Kasdan, a longtime
screenwriter with credits including the empire strikes
back what a lot of these people share and what the
company shares is this ethos, you will run into
problems, but we know we're gonna solve, we don't yet
have the tool to do this new thing but we will not give
up until we do stop motion animator Phil tippett he
Lucas fill the galaxy with strange new creatures. So I
spent a day just drawing like really quickly it could
be this could be that it could be this could be that
could be this could be that and Senator George and he
picked one. I think it'll be all right because it's
superimposed, there's snow blow in front of it and
all kinds of stuff. Joe johnston was there in I.L.M.
Early days to designing many now iconic characters and
ships. There you are. Look at that hair. I didn't
particularly know what I was doing and a lot of people
really didn't know what they were doing. They were we
made a lot of mistakes and we had a lot of failures and
we but we had a lot of successes and we we sort of
learned how to do it. George really gave us and I think
particularly me, he gave me a lot of freedom to design
this stuff and to experiment and see what worked.
Johnston went on to direct his own films Including
Marvel's 1st Captain America Movie recently johnston
and a few former colleagues reunited at Skywalke
The pastoral filmmakers retreat George Lucas built in
the hills of marin county California near san Fran
do you remember the first time you came here I do. What
was it like There was nothing here. I mean literally
nothing here. Georgia just boug the land and we had a,
we had a picnic, I think it was only like 15 of us
today. The victorian house where Lucas keeps offices
and a research library overlooks lake Ewok, there's
goats, chickens, even a dedicated fire department
Vineyards produce a skywalker brand wine. But what
looks like an 1880s winery is actually full of state of
the art, sound editing rooms, recording studios and a
theater. I first came out here with a gang led by
George Lucas in 1978 for decades. It's been the
professional home of Academy award winning sound
designer Ben Bert. We had a shooting range right in
this area where we are, where we did all the guns for
Raiders of the lost ark, all the machine guns, all the
bullet ricochets up the hill and the countless sounds
recorded at Skywalker Ranch helped complete the
illusions created by I elm the opening of the first
Star Wars movie people. I thought it came out fine and
that was, you know, we were excited to see it, but once
the sound was put in for that shot with all the lasers
flying. Okay, it just elevates it to something quite
different and that that's the magic of sound, which is
it It brings to life. The visuals. I L.M was always
evolving but nothing disrupted the company culture more
than the arrival of computer graphics Well what was
cool about I'll um was that they were just trying to
get the image on the screen. They were neutral about
this stuff because we weren't good enough. But when we
start to be good enough they were open to it. But
others, especially in the I.L.M. Model shop felt
threatened. Not everybody was happy about the digital
revolution. No I would say most of us were not that
were not part of it. It was really difficult. That w
really difficult. Model maker john goodson successfully
made the switch from plastic to pixels. Well I always
say that visual effects were visual liars And if we've
done our job well you don't realize you've been lied
And that's kind of the trick. You know it's to convinc
you something is real that doesn't exist. Doug Chiang
joined I.L.M. in 1989. I kind of grew up idolizing all
these guys. Now lucasfilm's executive creative
He says despite growing to thousands of employees in
five countries, the I.L.M.D.N.A Is still intact. The
way I look at it is like the old school of I.L.M.
Magnified by 10 but all the inherent qualities that
makes I.L.M. Is still there. It's the people, it's the
family over nearly 50 years. Much of I.L.M. Story has
been told. But at Skywalker Ranch joe johnston sa
there are still a few secrets literally buried aw
Has anyone told you about the time capsule in the
foundation of the main house There's a time capsule. Do
you remember what's in it All kinds of great stuff.
There's a there's one of my sketchbooks in it and a
bunch of other things including a $1 bill they wrote a
message on. You'll have to wait until they you're not
gonna tell us what the message was. You have to wait.
That's what time capsules are all about. Light and
magic is its own time capsule. Movies are specia
effects, a love letter to an origin story of innovation
and creativity. It was just a really special time that
I don't think could ever be repeated. I mean that
experience of bringing these people together who a lot
of people who have never worked on on films before. All
six episodes of light and Magic have now dropped on
Disney Plus. And if you're a Star Wars nut like me, you
will binge all six episodes in a row and go back and I
admit binge them again.