Hal is an Animation Supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic, the visual effects company founded in 1975 by George Lucas to accommodate that doomed space opera called Star Wars that never went anywhere…

Hal has a refreshing philosophy of the movie business – positive, pragmatic and down to earth.

This is the first of two episodes where Hal talks about his influences (Ray Harryhausen, Universal’s monster movies, Star Wars...), how he got started in animation (a brush with Cal Arts) and his humble beginnings at Pixar where they had already started on an experimental feature called "Toy Story"!

To open the podcast Hal talks about how Star Wars (the series he's now heavily associated with through "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" and "The Madalorian") made an impression on him...

Hal also worked on the kinds of rare films that I will watch over and over, including:

Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean,

Marvel’s IronMan,

and Rango,

and most recently on Disney Plus’s The Mandalorian, which we’ll get into in part two!

Hal also shares a tonne of invaluable advice for anyone wanting to get into visual effects… from what should be on your showreel to sticking to your values and how you should approach the job.

You can find Hal on Twitter: @HalHickle

You’ll also find him on a tonne of DVD extras for the movies he’s worked on. I particularly recommend Disney Galleries on Disney plus which is a behind the scenes look at the making of the first two seasons on The Mandalorian.

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Look out for another pod very soon – Like, Comment, Subscribe!

This is OnTheFly with Jon Gill & Hal Hickle – Dial-up the pod!