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…

It was quite a privilege having several hours just chatting about influences and getting insider knowledge from Hal’s – his philosophy of being in the movie business is very refreshing – positive, pragmatic and down to earth.

This episode is a real indulgence for me because I grew up fascinated with the same influences as Hal – Ray Harryhausen, Universal’s monster movies and of course Star Wars – which I saw as a 6 years old and it stayed with me…

Hal has a much better story of how it stayed with him and he opens the podcast with it.

Hal also worked on the original Toy Story as an animator at Pixar and has since been the animation supervisor on the kinds of rare films that I will watch over and over, including:

Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean,

Marvel’s IronMan,

Rango,

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

and most recently on Disney Plus’s The Mandalorian, which we’ll get into next week because this is an epic two parter!

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.

Please subscribe to make sure you keep up to date and never miss an episode!

And better still, leave a review..!

I hope this podcast if worth your time… if it is, remember and share with people – the best recommendation is a personal one!

You can find me on:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OnTheSuperFly

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onthesuperfly/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madeonamobile/

And most importantly the website – www.PlayfulCommunications.co.uk

Home to #MadeOnAMobile – Where you can the mobile revolution and learn to shoot edit and share – a smartphone or tablet is all you need.

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

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