Last Wednesday, I traveled to Denver Colorado to meet up with Sean Sides, Sean Corsini, and Ryan Comer – three of the most talented and friendly model makers that I am honored to count among my friends. Sean S and his kind and patient wife opened their home to us, and we hung out, caught up, ate some unique-to-me local fare, and got a little tipsy on Ryan’s home made Limoncello. That stuff is dangerous. That night, we got a hotel room by the airport, and in the morning flew to Los Angeles, where we met up with Gene Kozicki, Visual Effects Mover and Shaker™ and our GUIDE TO THE STARRRRS™! We of course made a beeline for IN-N-Out Burger, which by god, is amazing. Then a quick stop at Gene’s home (which is a shrine to refined geekiness), and then to the office of a certain Richard Edlund (!!!) who regaled us with tales of Leica before letting us gawk at his Oscars, Emmy, and filming artifacts! We were then whisked away to meet up with Rob McFarlane, as guests at the Visual Effects Society “Bake Off”, where the group gathers, screens 2 hours of the best visual effects from last year’s films, and then picks the five to be nominated for the Oscars. It was a who’s who if visual effects artists. John Dykstra, Lorne Peterson, John Knoll, Dennis Muren (!!), Greg Jein, and so many more ILMers from those Topps cards, books, and posters. Greg Jein told me that he had some spare McKinley Station parts I could have used in the restoration – can you imagine my surprise? Guess I should have asked, lol! It was a hell of a way to start the trip!
