A Tour of ILM

The Model Shop

After exiting the Art Department we found ourselves outside. To my surprise some of the buildings in the campus appear to be some sort of small business (not mentioned to protect the innocent). The campus included a few buildings across the street and now we were headed for the famed Model Shop. If the Art Dept. is the art bazaar, the Model Shop is every kid's dream toy land. The entrance consist of the offices and cubicles of the model makers, and is profusely decorated with models and maquettes from projects spanning the years. The Model Shop takes many of the final concept art done by the Art Dept. and turns them into physical models, which are shown to clients and used by supervisors in the early stages of the project. There were many maquettes from recent projects, in particular the Star Wars prequels. While the maquettes might be the main attraction the walls are also decorated with actual models. In one large section of a wall, several dozen model cars are displayed. This cars were used in the tunnel sequence of MIB, but they also contain one obscure ILM in-joke: inside each car there is a small cutout of a human to give the illusion of a passenger, but each cutout has the photo of one of the guys from the Model Shop. As we admire the area, Steve Gawley made a brief appearance. Before going to the main work area, Suzy showed us the animatronic head of one of the Scoleri brothers from Ghostbusters II, back in the heydays of the Creature Shop which was absorbed into the Model Shop after the decline of animatronic work by the mid 90s.

	Maquettes of the Blue Fairy from A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and the NSA Protector from Galaxy Quest.
	Steve and Duane pose with some display models of The Perfect Storm, the alien from Mission to Mars, a Star Wars Episode 1 battle droid, a Star Wars Episode 2 clonetrooper, and a Star Wars Episode 1 pit droid.
	Suzy shows one of the last animatronic heads from ILM's Creature Shop: one of the Scoleri brothers from Ghostbusters II.

We then stepped into the main work area where later on we were joined by model maker John Goodson. Apparently in a few days Al Roker (from NBC's the Today Show) would come over to do a brief report about ILM. The main work area just looks like any kind of workshop: many long tables, lots of tools lying around and a little bit messy. The real highlights were displayed on the walls. On one wall there were sketches of the Geonosis arena which barely fit the room when it was built. On one corner was a miniature house used for a commercial during the promo campaign for Casper. Certainly the centerpiece in the room was the huge Thade/Lincoln miniature which John Goodson and others built for the Planet of the Apes remake. Apparently it was one of the things they would show to Al Roker.

Most interesting of all though was what was lying in the tables. There were several Star Wars pieces, including an R2D2 head and a few pieces of the C3PO costume. But also on the table were a few pieces of wood and cloth which were going to be used for the upcoming Harry Potter sequel. The only way to actually tell it was for that project was because there was a small cutout of a kid in Hogwart's costume lying around. There was no clue about what it could be but it's obvious Harry Potter 2 will contain some sort of miniature work from ILM as opposed to just CG elements and creatures. After going around the area we went through a back door to something that froze me cold. Right there, almost inconspicuously, were sculptures of the aborted ILM Frankenstein animated film, probably never to see the light of day.

Turning once more we were in areas that looked like tool and materials storage rooms. Still around were the huge models used for the flooded New York sequence for A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. The models had wheel on the bottom so that they could be easily and quickly transported and placed where they were needed. The models were also pretty much detailed all the way to their base, even to what I assume much lower where the water line was. Back in the work area there were still several A.I. models, mainly from the underwater sequences, lying about.

	Rachel, John Goodson and Suzy pose in front the Thade/Lincoln miniature for the finale of Planet of the Apes.
	The Air Congo cargo plane from Congo.
	Duane can't stand seeing R2D2 gutted out.
	Just milling around the Model Shop.
	Duane below some non-descript destroyed building.
	Suzy in front of the miniature Casper set that was used for a commercial campaign.
	Steve points to E.T.!!!
	Rachel below the military cargo plane model from Die Hard 2. Notice also Draco's denture from Dragonheart.
	Duane posing with the magnificent flooded New York buildings from A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
	A model plane and miniature car bodies.

Finally we went into the Conference Room of the Model Shop, which is adjoining a kitchen, though it was not entirely clear to me if it was for cooking food of baking model concoctions. The conference room contains full size props of R2D2, a stormtrooper and a battle droid. The fascinating part was that the room was full of photographs of the many projects the model shop has tackled them. Some of the were hard to recognize as they were from a few commercials projects, even a few I didn't know. The conference room has a sunroof which they opened so we could take a better look (and pictures too). But the central attraction is the huge model of the ship from Deep Impact, the amount of detail, both structurally and in weathering and painting has to be seen to believe, which is probably why it looked so good on film. The model was at least 5 ft, long maybe a bit more. Even the kitchen had its share of models, including Slimer from Ghostbusters II and a model of only the command/landing module of the Deep Impact ship at a lower scale. There was also a tail that looked like Godzilla's but no one was sure where it was used, maybe the commercial with Charles Barkley. We finally came to the end of the tour.

	Posing with R2D2 in the Model Shop conference room.
	I surrender!!!
	Posing with a battle droid.
	The beautifully detailed model ship from Deep Impact hangs above the conference room.
	Duane, Suzy and Steve in the Model Shop kitchen, along with Godzilla's tail, a bigger model of the Deep Impact ship and Slimer from Ghostbusters II.

Afterwards we decided to go to lunch. Suzy, Rachel and myself went to this little place on the corner for a quick lunch and a bit of chit chat. And with that my visit to the place of wonder and magic came to an end.

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