Check out this never-before-seen home video footage of ILM working on the effects of the first Star Wars movie:
I had this “Star Wars Behind the Scenes” magazine as a kid when A New Hope came out, and remember staring for hours at photos of the same scenes you see in this videoclip: the filming of Tie-fighters, the construction of the Death Star surface on a parking lot.. At the time, working at ILM looked like the best job in the world!
When you see the circumstances in which all these effects were filmed, and how dated everything looks, it’s quite spectacular how well the movie itself has withstood the test of time! – Except for Luke Skywalker’s seventies hairdo of course 
I know that there are many objectively bright and creative people in the effects/cgi world today; and their output undoubtedly looks and sounds better to modern eyes & ears. But, in my book, what they do doesn’t hold a candle to what these guys were doing back then. There is something tangible, tactile about having to work in the real world. … Read MoreMaking models, machinery etc to achieve a task never achieved before. The virtual world is simply not the same. Their work was, to steal a phrase, a workmanship of risk. While modern cgi is much more a workmanship of certainty. The difference between craft, and mass production.
In a sense the same can be said about my own business. Not that long ago guys in the audio world built their own gear. They relied on a combination of book learning, experience and gut instinct to get the job done. Concert audio today is a much more certain enterprise. Computers predict system behavior, digital processing ensures repeatability … Read Morein system deployment. Virtual digital work surfaces and software plugins take the place of analog consoles, cable, and outboard hardware.
Somewhere today, I hope, a workmanship of risk is taking place that we can look back on in a few decades and say “remember when”.
The problem is that once you see how things are made, it usually ruins the movie for you. It’s cool to see how ingenuity had to come about to make the movie a hit, but at the same time once you see behind the curtain the movie isn’t the same. It’s like watching a magic show already knowing how the trick is done.