Pixar! ILM!

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Originally uploaded by macslost.

There are some sucky parts of my job. Stupid thinks like going to Hawaii for LOST or Las Vegas for SCRUBS and such. Well a few weeks ago I HAD to go to the Pixar Studios to promote CARS. On Halloween. Now, Pixar is a damn cool place anyway and people there LOVE their jobs, so getting to be there when they actually have a costume contest on Halloween was pretty dope. There were a lot of great costumes, but my three faves were the Tetris group...



...12 people that all shaved their heads and wore glasses, dressing and acting like a coworker (he didn't know ahead of time)...



...and Peter Pan's shadow, which was pretty ingenious.

After suffering through a miserable day at Pixar, I HAD to go to ILM, where we learned all about the FX for Pirates of the Caribbean 2. First off, I'll tell you this: ILM has the most kick-ass digital theater I have ever seen. MIND blowing. And their offices kick ass because they have all the random props and models from some of the hundreds of flicks they've made. My fave: The full-size bad guy in his mini-shuttle from Inner Space. Awesome.

The coolest tidbit was this:



Davy Jones ('played' by Bill Nighy) was ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CGI. NOTHING was real. Not the clothes, not the hat, makeup, not even his EYES. And I would swear a million times over that those were Bill's real eyes. Incredible stuff. Plus, they learned how to shoot without a green screen and still do backgrounds. Awesome.

Oh, right, like I said. My job blows.