Scott Leberecht
This week on 8111, Scott Leberecht! Scott grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio the middle of three bothers. His dad was an optician and his mom was an elementary school teacher. Drawing was always something that he was interested in, and good at. He studied industrial design at University of Cincinnati with a goal of may be making toys for Kenner where he'd worked part-time as part of a co-op program. In school he met fellow ILM alum George Hull. And he discovered that ILM model maker Charlie Bailey had also attended his school years earlier. School set the path toward ILM. At 24 Scott became an intern in ILM art department. The internship turned into a job where he would work for the next six years. Scott's credits include films like Flubber, 101 Dalmatians, Spawn, an un-produced Hulk movie, and Sleepy Hollow. With friends at ILM Scott made a few short films including the infamous "Spirit of Spawn" which you can see on YouTube. Scott left ILM and moved to LA where he went to grad school at AFI. He kept working on film projects as an art director to make money. After AFI he made his first feature film, Midnight Son. He was working at Rhythm & Hues when the studio went bankrupt at the same time it won the Oscar for Life of Pi. Scott made the film "Life After Pi" that explored the effects of the commodification of visual effects and how it destroyed many people's livelihoods. Scott wanted to make another film and wound up crafting the film "Spaz" which follows the career ups and downs of ILM's Steve Williams. The film premiered at SXSW 2022 and is in the process of being sold. Today Scott works at Valve in Seattle. It was a total blast chatting with Scott and hearing about his journey and his new film. There's no doubt another film in the near future.