The company threw a party for ILM's thirtieth anniversary tonight. Earlier in the day we all received a gift - matted prints of two pieces of bookending Star Wars history; an early concept piece by Ralph McQuarrie of Luke looking at Mos Eisley, and the last shot of Episode III when baby Luke is handed to his Aunt and Uncle. If you're a Star Wars fan it's a gem. We knew the party would be something with alcohol (yipeee), food, and a few special things, but I and others were surprised at how big of a celebration it turned out to be. There was a ceremony to honour people who had been there twenty years, and the entire thirty years. Aside from the usual ILM luminaries, Dennis Muren, Lorne Petersen, Steve Gawley, etc, old ILMers like Phil Tippett showed up too. For an ILM geek like myself, when at the tender age of 13 I pored over every page of 'ILM: The Art of Visual Effects', and could barely imagine a day when I might have a chance to see, perhaps visit the facility, to be standing there amongst these guys nearing my own 5 year anniversary with the company, it was a special moment.
In the hall was a display showing a timeline of ILM's history from the original Star Wars until the last one, marking major moments in the company's history, the Oscars, the movies that have made an impact. We were asked to sign the timeline next to the date we joined the company, which was a nice way to put our mark on things.
There was a table with two of ILM's many oscars, one for 'Jurassic Park' and the other for 'Return Of The Jedi'. 
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You could stand there and grab them and take your picture with them just looking shocked or maybe giving a tearful emotional speech thanking your agent's accountant and hairdresser.
Outside by the Yoda fountain there was bar, a cake donated by Pixar, and a microphone. There were a few 'go team' speeches, concluding with George going up there and addressing everyone. The last time I'd heard George address us as a company it was during contentious union-contract negotiations, so this was much warmer. He's never been an eloquent speaker, yet I've always found him to be sincere and express genuine warmth for the people of ILM and the work we have produced. He spoke of how ILM nearly gave him a heart attack on 'Star Wars' when they spent half of their budget getting their equipment together without shooting a single piece of useable film, leaving them almost no time to complete the work. The work got done with a lot of sweat and tears, as they still are today. How they grew beyond just his movies, to Steven [Spielberg]'s movies, and then onto other people's, into a legitimate business that flourished without him needing to do anything about it. Until he realised he could realise his ideas for a new bunch of Star Wars movies, but they're done now, and the company ('your company' much more than 'my company' he stated) would continue to make movie history in San Francisco and flourish well into the future. He concluded by leading a toast to ILM, met with much enthusiastic applause.
Back inside, I caught a funny 15 minute piece showing in the Premiere theatre that had been compiled of many behind-the-scenes pieces done at ILM through the years. Much of it focused on the antics of people stuck at work for too many hours pouring over too much fine detail and subsequently going a bit mad; Steven Spielberg talking about our many eccentricities; the original 'videomatic' with simple models and figures of the speeder bike chase in 'Return Of The Jedi'; geeks being interviewed and freezing in front of the camera, to mention just a few highlights.
And the 80s are a great decade to have footage of people when they had hair, because, well...
Despite having had a conversation earlier that evening about what the protocol would be to talk to a fellow worker whom you had idolised as a kid, if you could even talk to someone like that without seeming like a complete dork, I seized my chance to chat a little to Steve Gawley. He was so sweet and touched by what I had to say, and wanted us to sign several copies of John Knoll's 'Creating the Worlds of Star Wars' that he is giving to his friends and family. It didn't seem right for me to be signing his book but I did it anyway.
I don't know what my future is here, but I feel very lucky to have been able to fulfill more of my childhood dreams than I ever thought possible at this point in my life, and I felt very priviledged to have been there tonight.
Photo | ILM | Star Wars| San Francisco
