The biggest thing Muren learned from Lucas, Spielberg and other filmmakers he's worked with is how vfx is part of something much bigger. The technology comes from serving the story and not the other way around.

BD: Now they're talking about realtime.

DM: Well, yeah, realtime would be fine -- only for the reason that it would give you the chance to do more iterations to make it better. And you have to have time to try and react, try and react, try and react.

BD: What do you recommend that CG artists study?

DM: Well, I think a large part of it is studying the fundamentals of filmmaking and art and art theory and "The Golden Triangle," "The Inverse Square Law" and "The Gravity Point" and just observe things: open your eyes when you're sitting at a window and think about what you're seeing. And try to remember it. Not to ever copy it but there are a limited number of laws in this world and probably in the universe too, and you need to develop an observational skill to be able to see them and apply them. And it's easier said than done, certainly.

BD: In terms of the VES Lifetime Achievement Award that you'll be receiving on Sunday, you got your start with Star Wars and it's been quite a journey for you over the last 30 years. Talk a little bit about working with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and being part of this great transition into the digital age.

Muren enjoyed creating the big scale stuff in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It's one of the first shows that has what is now called set extensions.

DM: I did this low budget feature years ago called Equinox [which is available on DVD from The Criterion Collection]. If that shows anything, it shows perseverance. But it also shows, I think, the job of telling a story. And you learn when you make a film, especially a long film like that, how every scene adds up to a story, and whether you do it right or wrong is how talented you are or not. But, as an effects person, you tend to get tied up in the technical side of it and maybe tied up in the individual shot you're working on. And what I've learned most from George and from Steven and from all the other filmmakers I've worked with -- not the effects people -- is how what you're doing is part of something much bigger. And to serve that is, from my point of view, where the technology comes from, not the other way around. You need to know the story you want to tell, the style you want to tell the story and if the toolset you have will get the job done or if it needs a little twisting. If not, maybe we should make another toolset. So it's in the service of the storytelling of the movie, not the other way around. And I think that's what I came with the most. And George would say, "I want this background in there: just pan the star field by in 72 frames and have the space ship partly moving in the middle of the frame and we'll matte them together and it'll look like the ship's going 600 miles an hour." So I do a pan and he'd look at it and say, "It's too slow -- it looks like it's going 100 miles an hour." So literally you'd end up with this blur going by in the background, and being able to see that one shot eight months later in a movie theater -- and I did around 200 shots on that show [Star Wars] - -and you understand what he's talking about. My version was too slow and I made it faster, even though I didn't think it was going to work. And that's so important in your forté: being able to seamlessly fit that into the whole film and not just technically -- to have this emotional connection with the rest of the film. And part of what I try to do is add a sense of feeling that the director is after in a particular shot. You need all sorts of things to do that. You can cheat the lighting, you can cheat the performance, to give a moment that is bigger than if you had actually been there. But it fits in the context of the entire movie, which is bigger anyway. The actors are always overacting a little bit and the lighting is always dramatized a bit and the story's always exaggerated a little bit. Well, you can play that in effects. All those things fit into effects when you're laying out a shot.

BD: What was it like watching the digitally enhanced E.T.?

DM: I thought it was fine and the work did look more seamless. And Bill George and Steven were careful to maintain the tone of the shots we had done. That moment when the bikes fly off into the sunset I tried to make really magical, and with the colors and the light, that was all maintained. I'm real mixed about it -- as long as the two versions are available. I just hope the stuff doesn't get replaced. Some people are attached to all the clunky type of effects. Usually I'm not. If the shots aren't quite right, they're just painful. I wish we'd either had more time or had done it five years later when I could finally figure out how to do it.