September 27, 2005

"You have to have some artist in your soul in order to do this stuff at any level, no matter how technical it is. In order to be in this business, you have to be a jack of all trades, master of some."
- John Dykstra

Academy Award®-winning visual effects designer John Dykstra is a perfect blend of art, animation and technology. After studying Industrial Design at Long Beach State, he began a career in still photography and was soon working in the movies, filming model effects for "Silent Running." He joined a team at University of California Berkeley where he worked on projects for the National Science Foundation, where he participated in designing sophisticated new technology for computer-controlled cameras and studied perception of reality, to determine whether architectural models could be photographed in a way that would appear realistic. Both proved to be valuable experiences he would draw on later to achieve stunning results in visual effects. Dykstra's unusual combination of talents led to his being recruited by George Lucas, who needed "never before seen visuals" to tell the story of "Star Wars". John pulled together a team and formed a company and a ground-breaking computer controlled camera system. The company became known as ILM and the camera was called the Dykstraflex. The first "Star Wars" film resulted in not only Dykstra's first Academy Award, but also the honor of a Scientific Technical Award for visual effects motion control photography. With his own company, Apogee, he created the effects for the original "Battlestar Galactica" and the first "Star Trek" film, among other projects. Dykstra continues to push the development of technology with his contributions to films such as "Batman Returns" and "Stuart Little." With his quest for knowledge for everything from animation to physics, he brought life to "Spider Man" and "Spider Man 2," the latter earning him his second Academy Award for Visual Effects.

Dykstra was the keynote speaker at the SIGGRAPH/IPAX dinner at Patina at Disney Concert Hall in August 2005. Following are highlights of his comments on how visual effects have developed since the start of his career, where he sees the industry going in the future, and the need for educators to keep pace with technological advances in visual effects -- while still conveying a passion for the importance of storytelling.

[When I first started working in visual effects], "I was convinced that I had the brains to figure out how to do it, or at least find the people who had the areas of specialization, and the means to communicate, so that we could achieve the results we were looking for. Don Trumbull, a camera designer who had worked on "The Wizard of Oz," knew how to design tilting lens boards on motion picture cameras. He not only knew how to design them but he also knew how we were going to use them. That made his communication with the rest of the people working on the project fluid and efficient. We created this environment where we learned from one another. And it was the most complete and utterly satisfying educational experience that I've ever had, because we all had a genuine belief that we could create this seemingly impossible end result. Our passion was doing the individual things that we did best in collaboration with the rest of the team. Nobody stopped to question whether we had the experience, the education or even the tools that we needed to do this. We just found them or made them.

Today, we have an embarrassment of riches. Anything you can conceive can be executed. When we were in the realm of "Star Wars," it was about process. We had to come up with the means to mechanically make a camera get close enough to make a three foot model look like it was a football field long when it approached the camera. We were really engineers, and we were lauded for our ability to create engineering solutions to technical imaging problems. With the advent of the computer, what's happened is that it's no longer about process. Now, it's about content.

We need to have an understanding of the real world. If we're going to create illusions for motion pictures, we have to understand what the world is about because the film will never be an effective illusion if the subject that you have made does not have the proper weight, or the proper tone, or the proper reflectivity. I really think that a critical component of education in the world of filmmaking is for people to get out more. I have pursued getting out, much to my physical detriment. I do an awful lot of crazy stuff. I ride motorcycles, fly airplanes, surf and do all manner of physical things, because I like the adrenaline rush. But it has served me well in the pictures that I've worked on.

It's critical that we instill the students, our filmmakers of tomorrow, with a real enthusiasm for the world as it currently exists. They need to have the ability to tell a story that evokes in the audience a realistic response. The illusions that they create need to be indistinguishable from reality.

Now we're coming to the part that I think is real interesting: Where are we going, and how do we prepare ourselves? As we sit here, we're going so fast, it's ridiculous. There are schools that teach visual effects. When I started in this business, there wasn't any such thing. The thing that I find really amazing is that with the advent of the computer, what imaging can do and the speed with which it happens, it's opening up the business of filmmaking to a vast number of people.

You will be able to produce a film and release it yourself on DVD or the internet. There's going to be terrific competition in visual storytelling, and people who don't ordinarily get the power to do that kind of stuff will have a forum to showcase some great stories. This will result in a lot more product. And, as a result, the stuff in the middle will probably get worse, and the bad stuff will be terrible. But the good stuff is going to be great. As educators, and as people who are in this business, I think we have to be ready for this change. It's going to appear faster than we want it to. And it's going to take directions that we don't want it to take. The trick is, to embrace it, and in fact, to figure out how to get in front of it.

On the professional end of things, digital theaters are going to mean that there's no more release print. You can go to a theater, and they can present seven different titles on the same screen on the same day. They don't have to necessarily run one picture over and over again. Theaters, and we, as filmmakers, are going to have to find a way to use this digital capability to present theatrical events that distinguish themselves from traditional film and what you can see in your home theater, or what you can see on the internet.

I believe that interactive film is in the future. The whole business of video games and high resolution, where people go and see real looking environments that they can affect, that's going to be part of the future. We're going to see multiple screens and multiple environments affected by audiences, so that films function just the way the internet works now. The key to all this, as far as I'm concerned, in order to make a contribution is to continually seek the undone, to find the thing that we haven't done before, and to embrace it.

The problem the educator has is that the only way you can create passion is by example. You not only have to have a passion for your area of expertise and a passion for teaching, but you have to be ready in this day and age to be adaptable, because what you're teaching is changing faster than you can teach it. You have to have as much enthusiasm as the students who come to it with fresh eyes. You're going to have to reinvent yourself, and continue to reinvent yourself until you decide to quit. Be flexible, be inventive, embrace that which is perhaps not the standard."