Truth and spectacle
It’s not many who have the opportunity, whilst still a teenager, to work on a Star Wars movie. That was Kevin Baillie’s rather spectacular professional starting point in visual effects. “Always have a goal, right?” Baillie notes. “Always have a trajectory. I knew that I wanted to help tell stories using craft and technology.” Having become local young filmmaking stars in the Seattle area back in the late 1990s, Baillie and his high school pal Ryan Tudhope had been spotted by Lucasfilm and were soon after invited by producer Rick McCallum to join the staff at ILM during their work for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
“For me, my experience working on Star Wars: Episode I was my first experience working in film,” Baillie recalls. “I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the best education I could possibly have asked for. I loved movies all my life.” Baillie goes on to describe the fateful moment when Lucasfilm came calling. “I get home one day and have a voice mail saying: ‘My name’s Rick McCallum, I’m the producer on a little movie you may have heard of called Star Wars, give me a call’. So, I call him back and he proceeds to invite Ryan and I down to Skywalker Ranch to see some of the work and meet George, and of course we said ‘Yes’ and had this amazing experience visiting Skywalker Ranch and ILM.”
“EVERYTHING WAS NEW AND EXCITING AND WE WERE FIGURING IT OUT ON THE GO”
Baillie continues: “We met some of our heroes, including Dennis Muren and Rob Coleman. They were our celebrities. We just bowed down to them and
