Inside ILM’s “Rebel Hideout”
Fantastic article by Lucasfilm historian, the appropriately named Lucas O. Seastrom, on creating an extremely detailed Star Wars-themed lounge at ILM:
An entirely original piece in the Hideout was an industrial-style fan in the ceiling, an idea that dated all the way back to Field’s original safehouse concept. “I really wanted to make sure that something was moving,” says DeBaun. “Most everything in the room is still, except for the fan.” Using a fan acquired by Hirschfield and a cover made by Johnson, DeBaun mechanized the piece to spin gently, adding tubing and related detail inside the fan’s housing. As an accompaniment, he went to even greater lengths to create a self-described “impossible shadow” on the floor.
“We can’t physically make that shadow in the space because of the height of the ceiling,” DeBaun explains. “So we project the shadow to spin in time with the fan’s rotation position so that it matches.” The result is a subtle but poignant accent that pulls the room’s many details together in a believable way. “It has a lot of capability to tell a story,” DeBaun notes, who hopes to incorporate a new passing shadow effect within the year. “No one talked about doing all of that,” adds DiComo. “Paul just dreamed it up and did it. A rudimentary sketch became this unbelievable thing.”
I read about this project a couple months ago and we talked about it on A Complicated Profession (my Star Wars podcast, which you should check out). It’s definitely become a bucket list item for me to visit some day.
But I think what I appreciate the most about this story, having recently finished season two of the Light & Magic documentary series on Disney+, is the vibe of this project—it’s just fun. Everybody is having a good time, they’re coming up with clever ideas, and they’re solving problems with a very detail-oriented mindset. There’s a lot of mention that it feels like “the old days” of ILM, and it’s nice to see that attitude and ethos persist.
[via Todd Vaziri on Bluesky]