For the first time in five decades, Dennis Muren returned to the original home of ILM to not only celebrate the companys golden anniversary but to take a walk down memory lane. Clayton Sandell was there to accompany Dennis (and take some really cool photographs) for this memorable event.
For the first time in about 50 years, the nine-time Academy Award winner recently came back for a tour of ILM’s original home to help celebrate the company’s golden anniversary. A lot has changed.
“There’s a wall here I don’t even remember being there, dividing the two parts,” Muren points as he looks around the warehouse floor, a few steps from where the ILM model shop was set up back in the day.
The floor plan of the building today – now home to a commercial sign company – is roughly the same as it was in 1975. As Muren walks the halls with his wife Zara, one second-floor room in particular brings back a galaxy of emotions.
“That’s very memorable. Going back to the screening room,” Muren says. “It just brought back a flood of memories of the dailies. George would often come to the dailies, and he’d be looking at the shots over and over and deciding what’s going to work and what needs to be redone.”
Muren is also reminded of the stress that faced the ILM crew as they rushed to finish the visual effects shots on time.
“‘Are we going to get the show done on time?’” he remembers being a frequent worry. “We’d go over the storyboards there too, and the schedule was on the wall of the dailies room. We would say, ‘Look, we’ve got to get these shots this week or else we’re in trouble.’”
