00:04George let me do a lot of stuff that wouldn't be acceptable for his movies or other theatrical
00:13films, but since it was TV, I can make a lot of full miniature sets.
00:18You can't help but every once in a while kind of have that epiphany of like, wow, this is
00:24the same Phil Tippett that did all this stuff for Star Wars and Jedi.
00:29He's in magazines all over the place, but on a very practical sense, there was so much
00:33to do and we were just trying to get stuff made so fast.
00:37It was more of a companionship of people who like to build monsters.
00:41I think we're all monster kids, so we watched monster movies Saturday morning, and so there
00:45was a little bit of that kind of brotherhood, we talk a shorthand.
00:48When I first started at ILM, Return of the Jedi was about a year and a half, two years
00:52away.
00:53And what was great about that is it gave me an opportunity to work in the model shop, establish
00:57relationships with people, including Joe Johnston.
01:00By the time Return of the Jedi came around, he knew what I could do.
01:03And so I was one of the first model makers who was brought on that show to help make prototypes
01:07and work with Joe to design some of the spaceships.
01:10I'm still talking about that movie, you know?
01:13And they're starting to call some of the things we did back then, because it was film, they're
01:18calling it the golden age of ILM because it was still kind of like the Wild West.
01:23It was very playful.
01:24By the time I left, it didn't feel that way anymore.
01:27It was around Howard the Duck, you know?
01:29Everybody was working on different things, and the camaraderie had definitely changed.
01:34And I don't know what it's like now, but I'll tell you, it was one fun place to work at.
01:38And that's where I pinched myself, where it was like, yeah, it was work, but we also knew
01:43we were doing something that was going to be cinematically lasting.
01:48But I was only 25 years old.
01:50I was really young, 25, 26.
01:58You just peel off the little label on the top, put it on the table, don't chuck it on the
02:04ground, it makes living.
02:05You take the little cap on it.
02:09Do you want to see right there, too?
02:12Eric, cool your head, kid.
02:16Yeah?
02:16It's not working, Mark.
02:18I know.
02:22I won't do it once.
02:23I know.
02:23I can't.
02:23It's not working.
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