Industrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital Realm

So where'd they get the dinosaurs? I thought they were extinct...

• Industrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital Realm
• By Mark Cotta Vaz & Patricia Rose Duignan
• Del Rey
• $72.00
• Hardcover, Nov. 1996

ndustrial Light and Magic: Into the Digital Realm chronicles the work of the miracle-meisters of cinema, this era's Ray Harryhausens. Their body of work is both famous and overlooked: spectacular standouts like Jurassic Park's T-Rex, but also "invisible effects" like the overturned jeep the T-Rex made hash out of. Chances are, anyone who's been to even a couple of movies in the last 20 years has seen ILM's handiwork (Star Wars, The Last Temptation of Christ, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Forrest Gump, In the Mouth of Madness, and on).

The book's structure is ILM's filmography. All the ILM alumni are noted, the how-we-did-it explanations for the effects are detailed and the special, technical challenges associated with each effect are logged. Of course, high-tech computer-generated imagery or CG is the star, and effects break-throughs are lionized, such as esoteric-sounding applications like Particle-generating System (generates organic-looking particles capable of random movement; used in The Hunt for Red October) and DID (Dinosaur/Direct Input Device; coordinates movement between CG dinosaurs and actors).

Into the Digital Realm also knows how to play high human drama. One of its staffers, as a child, was a first-hand witness to the fiery collapse of the Hindenburg (used as a model for the dirigible explosion depicted in The Rocketeer). The staffer's father had been a passenger on the Hindenburg, happened to have a camera, and filmed the destruction of the airship while he was still on board before he leapt to safety. ILM used this unique, historical footage as an invaluable reference for the effect. How's that for an anecdote?

Although it has the look of a techno-geek coffee-table book, packed with fab photos and diagrams, Into the Digital Realm is more like a slick, Dick-and-Jane primer on the how'd-they-do-it magic of revolutionary filmmaking. A dense gem that can satisfy both effects enthusiasts and general movie fandom, it probably caters more to the former than the latter. It doesn't dumb down concepts but rather streamlines them, and it knows that non-technical doesn't necessarily mean stupid.

For the uninitiated, it has a glossary. It's simply, yet smartly, written. It's fun. Drawbacks? Faults? Virtually nil. This book makes a strong bid for a wide audience, and if it fails to capture an individual's interest, the subject matter is probably of negligible interest in the first place.

The only caveat may be a reminder: this is not a book about the actors, the plotlines, the directors, or the films themselves. It's perspective is that of special effects filmmaking. Want tips on the care and feeding of Banthas or another sound bite from Stormtrooper #2? This ain't the book. Want to peek into the lab of the modern-day Harryhausens? -- Yeah, this is that book.

ILM is sort of like Skunk Works for special effects, and the book pretty accurately conveys this -- it ain't Mark Hamill amiably describing how blue screen shots were done in An Ewok Christmas. Fer sure. -- Tamara

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