While the rest of the world was counting down the hours and minutes until the midnight premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens last Thursday, Ryan Clarke was comfortably ensconced in a Vancouver theatre watching the most-anticipated film of 2015 unfold on the big screen.
The Coquitlam resident had, technically, already seen the movie dozens of times but was able to enjoy the sneak peek on the big screen with his Industrial Light & Magic colleagues.
"It was great," Clarke said after seeing the film. "We had been in the process for a long time, seeing the movie from its early days…but to finally be able to see it up on the big screen with everything finalized, with all the final images to the sound to the music, just seeing the whole picture was quite exciting."
As a VFX compositor at ILM, Clarke has had the kind of up-close look at the latest Star Wars flick that millions of fans can only dream of, but he steered clear of dropping any hints or spoilers and would only say the ILM crew handled the majority of visual effects seen throughout the film — with help from LucasFilm offices around the world, including teams in San Francisco, Vancouver, London and Singapore.
Scenes that couldn't be shot on set were sent to the ILM office to have them built digitally, going from artists sketching out characters to animation, modelling, rigging, lighting, paint and more, before it heads to the compositors like Clarke.
"We take all these elements, from what was shot on set to what the artists were able to create, and we assemble and merge them together into the final image you see on the screen."
It's a long, slow road though, as even just two seconds of film can be poked, prodded and picked over by anywhere from five to 20 different artists. But having a hand in such a mega-blockbuster picture, particularly one created by the birthplace of visual effects, has been a dream come true for Clarke — even after working with director Ang Li on Life of Pi, followed by Man of Steel and, most recently, Jurassic World.
"Just being a part of the Star Wars film and the legacy they have…to grow up watching those films and watching their work to now play alongside them, and work on their films, it's been an honour not just for me but for every single person across the company."
Clarke admitted that he wasn't around for the original Star Wars films, which first awed movie audiences with A New Hope in May 1977, but growing up in the '80s the VHS tapes, along with the associated toys and merchandise, were in heavy rotation in the homes of his family and friends. None of them, Clarke assures, got any Force Awakens intel either, including his wife and two-year-old son — a fan of R2D2 and the latest incarnation, BB-8 (though his remote-controlled toy may have something to do with that).
The lure of Star Wars was a challenge even for fellow ILM staff who weren't working on the project.
"With this one, there were definitely a lot more people interested in finding out exactly what was going on behind our doors and the production doors," Clarke said. "But a lot of people…didn't want to spoil it for themselves and tried to be as distant as they could so they could experience it like they did the first time in the '70s."
Asked what he's working on now that Star Wars is firmly on its way to breaking box office records, Clarke is, not surprisingly, disinclined to divulge any details.
"It's another film I'm very excited to be a part of, with the director and just the production itself, but that one is still top secret," he said. "I can't imagine it getting any bigger or better than this one, but knowing how the track record has gone in visual effects in Vancouver in the past few years, I'm excited to see what the city can bring."
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