"Banned from the Ranch"

Maybe this has been linked before? Anyway, some very interesting inside stories on what went on behind the scenes at ILM in the early '90's from former ILM'er, Scott Ross on his blog: http://scottaross.com/2011/05/ 

beginning with "Banned from the Ranch".

Lucas didn't even recognize the General Manager for his own Visual Effects company. :) Also, the responses by other ILM'ers there are priceless.

Thanks for the article. I've only communicated with one person that used to work for ILM (I bought some 70mm film cels from him) and he said that he wasn't paid very well there. FWIW.

Baronlando said:

Good stuff there. GL remains a fascinating weirdo. It's like he wants all the hassle and spreadsheets of being an exec and none of the fun! Bizarre. 

Indeed, what this woman mentioned in the comment section sounds pretty weird to me.

Katrina:

"Surprised to hear that even the veeps were held at arm’s length. When I started as an intern, we got a big speech about turning around and walking the other way should we ever see the man. I thought it was because of where we were on the food chain, though. Confirms my theories about the disconnect between director and audience. And Jar Jar."

But I can understand it, but the wall that was between Scott Ross and Lucas sounds pretty f***ing weird to me, hope things have changed for the better around there in later years.

Very fun reading.  Although I have to say, the author comes off rather self-righteous, like he would be a tough employee to deal with.  And if I were George, I'd probably have been a little irked at that Timothy Leary party too.

SilverWook said:

 

I have trouble believing some of the imagery in THX 1138 wasn't chemically inspired.

Same. THX1138 was made by a very different man.

That blog is full of interesting reads. Thanks for sharing!

funny stories.

i heard about the office break in.  the version i heard was steven williams broke into lucas' liquor and ciagr cabinet and was smoking cigars and drinking brandy!! bwaaaaaaaaahahaahahahahaha

its interesting the punishment was no work on star wars movies.  I wonder how much of a draw that was back in the day?  arguably the most anticipated projects in the movie business.  think of what kind of talent they were possibly able to recruit on that alone?  I know things have chnaged since then and much of the work is strictly short-term and contract based.

I remember reading some story about how george harrison was a fan of monty python because he felt that after the beatles broke up, the 'spirit' left the band and went into monty python.

thinking back to some of those great lucasarts games from the 90's - it almost seems like after lucas stopped making movies in the 80's, the 'spirit' of the LFL movies and type of entertainment they provided were truly reflected in a lot of those games - like monkey island, full throttle, fate of atlantis...wasn't Zombies ate my neighbors a lucasarts game?