Oh Wimmo, Kelly Monk.
Six, We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Let me tell you about Thon Davis. He's been on the show a few times before, but I got to remind people how big a deal he is. He's the founder of FONC and creative director. He was a celebrity judge on ABC's Battle Bots, an instructor at the Stan Winston School on shows including Superfan Bills, Nerd Alert, Cake Masters, Starter Kit, Painters Guild, and Adam Savage Is Tested.
But Wait, there's more.
In his three decade career, Fon Davis has worked on over forty feature films countless music videos. I'm talking about Starship Troopers, Galaxy Quest, Pearl Harbor, as well as the Star Wars, Terminator, Mission Impossible, and Jurassic Park franchises. That doesn't include his work in visual effects, working in the art departments on Disney's The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, Christmas, Carol, Mars Needs Moms, and The
Matrix series. More recently, Fawn worked on Just in case You've never heard of these movies, Interstellar, Guardians of the Galaxy and Elysium, and they're probably another twenty that he can't tell us about because he's very secretive about his life. But it's always good to have Fawn Davison Studio, Fawn my friend.
Hey doing man, I'm doing a good.
I say that nervously because the entertainment industry is like a roller coaster as always.
Well, I know this.
The entertainment industry is always a reflection of how we feel about the economy, not how it is, but how we feel. If we're nervous about the economy, then a lot of companies will start to contract, They may lay people off, having nothing to do with the actual economic climate. But we know that entertainment usually is where we spend our disposable income.
Yes, and if we're worried about the economy, we're going to spend less. Yeah. Yeah.
Well and it's also right now, it's been you know, it's been all over the news, but the union negotiations that have been happening for like a year and a half now has affected a lot of what we do.
We're doing okay though, I mean uh fon Co studios.
Fortunately we don't just work in movies and television, so a lot of that has been really slow. That's starting to pick up just now because the unions have all ratified their deals. But we also work in theme parks and museums and education, all kinds of stuff.
So if I were to best describe what you did and have done in your career, I can list the titles and I can say it's special effects, practical and CGI. But what is it the best way to describe, I will say the breath and depth of your career.
I think it's the thread that kind of ties it all together as visual storytelling. You know, I specialize in unusual visual storytelling, but I specialize in visual storytelling. And I feel like that's like at the core of my being, you know. Even just walking through my studio, I feel like the space itself tells a story and it's designed that way, you know. So whether it's miniatures or creatures, or visual effects or even classes that I do, it's it's always visual storytelling.
Now there are classes.
You can go to the Stan Winston School and learn certain things you can you can learn about this in college. You can go to special trade schools and technical schools. I suspect when you started out there was none of that.
Oh yeah, absolutely none of that you would comb through, you know, all the different trade like books and things that teach you about carpentry or teach you about model making. But it was very rudimentary, hobbykind hobby grade stuff, you know, so nothing, nothing to the level that you can get.
Now.
What was the first big movie that you were able to work on? Remember before Christmas was the first feature film I ever worked on. I was the youngest person on the crew, and it was the best foundation for the rest of my career that I could possibly imagine. Because Henry Seleck, the director, wanted to do everything in camera and not use any computer graphics or compositing or anything like that. Practical effects, yeah, all practical and all
in camera, just optical. Like you know, if we wanted to add two different elements together back then there was blue screen, you could just composite those things together with optical printers. But we would actually rewind the film and shoot on it twice or three times, it depends on how many elements. So you would shoot a candle and then you would shoot a flame against black velvet.
So video layering, is that a way to describe it?
It's film, Yes, it's burning onto the same piece of film multiple times, once for each element.
I didn't think you could do that. I thought when you did it on film, it's done. There's nothing you can do to add to it.
Well, yeah, I mean, as long as you don't develop it, you can keep exposing the film. That's and that's but that's what I mean. That's so many things that we you know, that I learned from working on that movie that I probably would have never had an opportunity to do outside of that that mandate that Henry Sellig gave us. We're going to be jumping around. But there's so many things I'd love to ask you. What is it about film? It's staying power?
Why directors want to use it, you know, a different size of thirty millimeters or whatever.
Why film? Why is it so special even today?
Well, when you think about movies, it's, you know, it's a combination of every art form imaginable. It's it's the ultimate and collaboration, and it moves you at so many different levels. When you think about the music, and when you think about the visuals, and you think about the actor's performance, and just there's so many different ways to express yourselves creatively in a in a movie that you know, it's even even the stuff that has happens behind the scenes.
There's a lot of concept art, there's a lot of costume design. There's just so many departments. I think that you can't help to feel the touch of every artist that worked on it.
When you're given a script or direction or an idea, how does it go from that idea to inception?
You do you have a director sit down with you and say, Okay, I need to have this starscape, I need to have these ships and this is what is happening. And do you take that idea and then realize it or you give it more information? It's it really, I mean, the answer to all these questions are usually it depends. But I would say frequently we we get a script.
Sometimes we were brought in while they're still developing the script, but they have certain story points they want us to help them with, and we have multiple departments at my studios. So sometimes it's the costume, sometimes it's creatures. Sometimes it's it is the visual effects. So you know, we start with just trying to get the director's vision. What does the director want to achieve? What is the visual storytelling?
We're trying to get a prop across, you know, what is the emotion we're trying to evoke from the audience. There's a lot of that kind of conversation that happens, and then we have to find a way to balance the schedule and the budget and physics to make that happens. Has there ever been a movie where you said, you came across the idea what they're asking the script? What have you? And you said, I cannot wait to bring this to life? Oh, all the time, All the time.
I feel very fortunate to have the job that I have. I would stop short of saying I'm lucky, because I really work my butt off to get where I am and I continue to. But I do feel very, very fortunate to look forward to going to work every single Day's I feel like not everyone gets to experience that. So it's a really great place to be. But you're a nerd too. You were wearing an Ultraman Rising T shirt. You have a Rebel Alliance necklace. You know, where does
it come from you? Personally? What is it you like to see? I like to be you know, when it comes to seeing movies, I like to be immersed in a movie.
I like to forget I'm watching a movie. That's how I know I'm watching a really good movie. If it's if I'm not thinking about the costumes and the sets and all the things that I deal with behind the scenes and my colleagues deal with behind the scenes, then I know it's a good story.
I know for me, when I'm listening to the radio, it's hard for me to not listen to it. As a radio professional, do you struggle with watching movies and not noticing the subtleties around the edges?
Yes, absolutely, you know.
It takes a lot of attention to detail to do the kind of work that we do, and I've delved into directing in more recent years, which is really overseeing every department. So when i'm I look for all the things that could be wrong, because that's what I do day in and day out. I'm looking for what is wrong, what is wrong so I could fix it and make sure that that doesn't end up in the final result.
You know.
So if there's something wrong in a movie, I'm gonna spot it.
It'll take me out of the movie.
And that's a bummer because I do go see things that I really want to enjoy.
Special effects Legend. Fon Davis joins us in studio. He's Fon co creator and create excuse me, Fon co founder and creative director.
He's joining us for two reasons.
He has a new educational series on technology and fabrication with the Stan Winston School, and also a new program called Lego Bot Battles, And I can't wait to ask him about that as well, because I know when you are a judge on BattleBots, I just know all the fun that you had with that, so I assume this is going to be more of that fun. More with Fon Davis in just a moment, Later with Moe Kelly caff I AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Fon Davis joins me in studio special Effects, Wizard and Legend. He's very humble. He probably wouldn't want me saying that, but I'm going to say it anyway. He has more than three decades in the business special effects in various positions and art departments on all of the top movies across genres, and he's probably working on movies city. He always teases me that he's working on movies city he can't tell me about right now? Are you working on movies right now that you can't tell me about?
Yes? See, but but I do.
There's I can talk about fly Me to the Moon that's coming out now that now that's out now. Yeah, we did the astronaut suits for that movie.
How involved was that? Trying to be as accurate as possible?
Oh?
It was. It was so many layers. The Ryan Nagatta came to us with the project. He needed help with it because he is an expert in making replica space suits, multiple different types. I've done all the research about NASA's history and the hardware and everything. He's gone to visit NASA, so he was He's probably the foremost expert in NASA space suits outside of the Space program.
And he was the worst pretty legit. Yeah. So we worked very very closely with him.
He would make sure that everything was accurate and everything was perfect for the movie.
Do you ever slip up every now and then?
Because I know you have to sign an NDA every single day, do you ever just slip up and say, oh, yeah, this happened today on the set.
Oh my goodness, I forgot I was supposed to say that.
No, no, that would never happen. No, yeah, I've never slipped because it is so ingrained in our culture to keep h you know, it's it's you know, even like when like the most extreme example I could think of when we work with Apple and you're working on commercial.
So we said that because the music we played at the beginning of the segment was used in the Apple commercial.
Oh right on, yeah, yeah, yeah, So so working for Apple, they're they're the most extreme. Like when if you're doing a commercial for say a new iPad, you would call it the device on set. You would never refer to it by its name, so that when you go out to lunch, if someone is eavedropping on your conversation, you don't slip and say anything about the device. You would just other than the device device, so you just talk about the device all the time. And and you know,
so that's the extreme that will go to. You know, we have code names for movies, you know, so, and I'm sure you've heard about that.
I know that.
I though usually the script will have a faux name, faux a fake name. Yeah, is that something that you just adopt then as on the crew. Uh.
Usually the production company will assign one and then and then that's the way you refer to it from there forward.
Do you remember any of them? Like the Matrix, you remember what that was called? I don't remember the I think it was burly Man. And then uh, oh man, I think one of the star treks was called the Corporation.
You know, there there are names that would you would never connect, and a lot of times there were there names or words that could mean a great many things, so you just would never you'd never be able to guess it. It's very smart.
Really.
One thing I love about what I do is I get the opportunity to talk to people like you, and they have this this uh, this treasure trove of stories and moments in their career which you may think nothing of, but it may fascinate me or anyone listening. Is there a particular moment which sticks out in your mind where something went very right or very wrong, or you had an interaction with an actor and special effects are something that would.
Probably blow people's minds.
Oh man, there are so many unfair Yeah, no, no, no, it's fine, it's fine. The one that I've been thinking about recently. I don't know how remarkable this is, but it's just kind of fun trivia. Uh is the is because core Line just hit its fifteenth anniversary and Henry Sealet got the band back together. We made core Line up at like US Studios in Portland, Oregon, and I was in the art department. My job was to design a great number of the miniature sets for that movie.
And one of the tasks I had was designing the portal, which was a very important element of the movie. And I just had one drawing of the portal that was
a bunch of colored swirls to create this tube. And I was trying to figure out how I can manifest that into something physical, and I built a phone core box in my office with a hole in it, and I would test different materials to kind of mock up what that portal could look like and everything, you know, Henry, and then I would show it to Henry the director, and everything either looked gross or too organic, or too mechanical or too fabric like. It was just everything didn't
have the right kind of ambiguous magic ice field. And so what I ended up doing was I wound some wire kind of in two transposing directions spiralink and attached it together and then sprayed it with a spiderweb gun, which is just hot glue. Because I was looking at the drawing and it was all swirly, so I just tried to achieve that in three D with sprayed.
Practical effects though.
Yeah, so the portal in the movie is is actually just hot glue, wow.
Sprayed on the wire.
It was the simplest solution in the end, but it took about nine months, I think, to arrive at that. Luckily we had the time, but it took me about nine months to land on something that looked good.
And it was it was hot glue.
Well, that is a perfect lead in when we come back, let's get into this new educational series on technology and fabrication with the Stan Winston School, and then also talk about this new program called Lego Bot Battles.
Sounds great. It's Later with mo Kelly.
My guest in studio is special effects wizard Fawn Davis, KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
My guest in studio is Fawn Davis, special effects wizard and legend. I'm talking about movies like Starship Troopers, Galaxy Quests, Pearl Harbor, worked on Star Wars series, Terminator, Mission Impossible, Jet, Jurassic Park, so many movies, so much history, so much expertise, and he's putting it all together. Faughn, you have a new educational series on technology, Yes, and fabrication with the stan Winston School. First tell me about the stan Winston School and then tell me about this series.
So the stan Winston School is dedicated to the memory of Stan Winston, who's got a very very rich history of doing special effects for movies. His family, his children have put it together. And what they've done is they've the like the greatest minds in motion picture special effects and design and created this school where these professionals that have been in the industry for decades are sharing their knowledge.
In these lessons.
So it's it's pretty mind blowing when you see the If you go to the website stan Winston School dot com and you see the instructors, they all have these resumes very similar to mine, just lots and lots of big feature films, very successful careers and all willing to share the magic, the secret things that we do.
That wasn't the case probably back in the day.
Not only was there not the educational resource, I get the sense that people probably weren't as free with the information. Yeah, there was what we called trade secrets, right right, right, yeah, Yeah.
I feel like things have shifted.
You know, the Internet has changed a lot in the world, and I think one of the really positive things is the Internet is connected people in a way that it's more of a community of artists and you know, uh, I think that you know, it's it's considered shameful to hang on to trade secrets. Now it's really our duty to pass these things on and to share this information, so for one, so it can continue past our generation, but also just to inspire people in different ways to get creative.
You said Stan Winston's School dot com. Correct, Yes, who can be part of it? How can they get it? Give us some more information.
Anyone can subscribe.
They have deals all the time, discounts and things like that if you look for them and you just basically you subscribe to it and you have access to all the lessons on the website.
It's all that rich history, tradition, knowledge, wisdom.
Yeah, and it's it's animatronics, it's stop motion, it's sculpting, it's to make an eyeball, it's you know, it's like wow, it's that in depth.
Oh, it's very very in depth.
And it's and it's all professionals, you know, in front of the camera talking to you as if they're across the table from you. So it's a very personal way to get the information as well.
How do you think you mentioned iPhone, let's call it the device. How do you think these devices have changed, impacted or influenced what you do? We can, well, people can film a movie, not film, but record a movie on an iPhone tomorrow and with a sophisticated editing software it could be passable.
Yeah, in a large degree.
How is that the technology advancement impacted what you do?
Oh man? At every single level.
Technology has to improved the quality of our work, sped up the you know, the efficiency at which we can do the work, and made it more accessible to indie filmmakers and younger people.
You know, it used to.
Be that just just to get film and develop it was the bar to entry for making a movie, and it was so prohibitively expensive for most people that you did not have people making content, and now there's a multitude of ways you can create content and express yourself. Uh, and there are multiple uh, you know, mediums for distributing that. So it's it's it's really blown the lid right off the industry in that way.
You and I have known each other for a number of years, but I was more tickled than anything to see you be a part of the television show BattleBots, which I had watched since its very first show. It's bumped, it's jumped around on networks over the years, but I've always loved BattleBots.
I look forward to it like the fall football season.
So you got to actually see when I was competing, correct, And that leads me into the next part of our conversation. When I see that you have a new program called Lego Bought Battles with the Grant Imaharas Theme Foundation.
Let me just get out of the way so you can tell us about that. Yeah.
So, when Grant Imahara passed away, a group of friends and his mother created the Grand imahar Steam Foundation. There's been a lot of really really generous donations to the foundation,
and we've launched many programs. The two newest is actually Lego Bought Battles, which is probably the most exciting, and then steam Star, which is another it's a way to connect uh young kids with uh steam education to get them excited about careers in you know, engineering and different areas of that different I guess fields that use steam science and technical yeah exactly, Yeah, but also you know creativity. You know that the difference between stem and steam you
know is is uh the in between exactly. And this is all inspired by what Grant Imahara was uh uh interested in doing and what he did with his life, you know. So Battle of course one of those things
that he and I had done together. And this was actually the brainchild of Michael Pearl, the president of the Grand Imaharsteam Foundation, And it's a program that basically kids can get kits and they started one hundred to two hundred dollars and build these robots out of Lego and control them just like you would a video game with a game controller, and they can compete. And part of what the Grand Imoharsteam Foundation is doing is sponsoring a lot of the kids that can maybe afford to get
those kids. So if someone wanted to go to Grandemohara Foundation dot org and donate one hundred dollars or two hundred dollars. They can actually specify that they want to buy a bot kit for students, you know. So it's it's a really great program. It's a great way to get young kids.
You know.
We focus on historically underserved communities, but I feel like they this particular program and other ones like it, really are farther reaching than that. That is our focus, and that's what we're going to be doing with the donations.
But but I do feel like it's going to reach a lot more young people, you know, because the idea is to just get young people excited about steam and the different elements of steam and how you can you know, get your dream job, you know, u utilizing that that interest in that education.
I'm envious of young people today, not just kids, but just young professionals because they have these tools, they have these these uh vats of information. Where while I was coming out of college, I wanted to work in the music industry and there was really no resource.
There was no class to take, there was no school to go to.
It's kind of like you tried to hunt for an internship and make your way from there.
There was no roadmap or blueprint.
Now, if you can envision a career that you'd like to work in, there's probably something a resource which is available for you.
Yeah.
I'm really proud to be a part of this kind of program and there are a lot of them, and definitely not something that you and I had as children, No, not at all, especially as a minority growing up in America. It's like, and if you're not in one of these neighborhoods that has the better public schools that could afford the good programs and things like that, you were really disadvantaged.
You know, well, there was a cost of entry. Put it that way.
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, and that's one of the things that we're trying to eliminate.
When we come back, I want to finish the hour with you because I want to just pick your brain just a little bit more, get into some of the stories, the experiences, some of the wisdom that you can impart because I know someone is listening who wants to be the next Fond Davis, and I want to make sure that we do our part to make that happen.
You're listening to later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.
Fawn Davis closes out the show with Me in studio with me one of the legends in I would say special effects, visual effects, practical effects, and find I was prepping you during the break, I was curious if there were any moments which stick out in your career, maybe when I don't know, that time when Tom Cruise punched you or something like that.
I'm kidding, I'm kidding, No, he doesn't punch hert No, I'm kidding. No.
Actually, it's so funny because I was racking my brain trying to think of like, because we work really really hard and we test things. We test just redundantly until we know what when you show up on stage. You know, I always tell a story about a toothpick. A toothpick in the normal world is worth a fraction of a penny. But if you forget to bring that toothpick to set, it could be ten thousand dollars to send someone to
the store because everyone is going to be very money. Well, yeah, because basically, what you go the way you got to think about it, or the way you have to think about it is if you send a pa to go to the store to buy a box of toothpicks because Tom Cruise needed one in his teeth for a shot.
You forgot that toothpick.
Now, the entire film crew, all the camera gear, the stage, everything that's being rented, you're burning like ten thousand dollars a minute. So if it takes someone ten minutes to go get a toothpick, you've now burned one hundred thousand dollars. That's becomes the most expensive toothpick ever. So the stakes are high.
All right. Did you ever work with ILM? Yes? Yeah, ten years? Okay, for ten years. Not everything could have gone right all the time.
I do have a well it didn't, but there were really minor things because again the stakes were high. Working at ILM at that time was like working on the Golden Gate Bridge.
I'm sorry, Industrial lights, magic Lucas, go ahead, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't assume everyone knows sure.
So you know, when you were working on the Golden Gate Bridge during the depression, you could see everyone at the bay to the bridge who would take your job if you messed up. And that's what it felt like to work there. Seventy five percent of the visual effects work in the entire world was being done at ILM at the time, so.
Yeah, yeah, I would.
I have a whole a technique that I call failing in private, And what that means is if I was assigned to do a task and I hadn't done it before, I would actually go home in my home studio and I would practice it so I could show up to work and look like a pro.
So I'd fail in private. I was not afraid of failure. I just kept it to myself. How much time are you spending with directors? How much how much of a relationship do you personally develop with him or her?
A lot of times on you know, it really depends on the project. I would say. When I was at ILM, there was very little interaction with directors except for George Lucas because he owned the company and he would just be around and he like, say.
So cavalierly George looking just having me around. You know, he's kind of a legend in this business.
When you work there, he's the owner of the company, so you know he would be around. He liked to be involved in things, he liked to see progress, so you would you would uh interact with him, but you know, I would say the later I get my career, and the more high high level, the more kind of pre production work that I do planning for movies, the more interaction I have with directors.
You know, so it really depends on the project. Okay, let me just ask you. Yes, no, because I know you can't do specifics. Uh, Marvel movies in your bag? Yes, d C movies in your bag. No, you haven't done a DC movie?
No? Interesting, Yeah it is.
It's funny because I have a toy habit, so I buy toys and I what I used to do is I'd limit myself to only franchises that I've worked on. But now I've worked on so many franchises and you just happen to pick one of.
Four that a really big franchise.
D I have not worked on anything having to do with the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, you know.
But that's about it, though the big franchises you've done Transformers, right, yeah, okay, Yeah.
You know what breaks my heart is I actually haven't had a chance to work on any Tron projects.
Now.
See, I'm a huge Tron fan, and these guys in the studio don't appreciate Tron like I do.
It's a special effects dream. Yes, well it's just beautiful. Yeah, it's visually it's beautifully beautiful.
It's stunning. I would love to I'm just putting that out in the universe. I would love to wat.
I mean, you know some folks over at Disney I'm guessing yeah, but it's it's a very, very large company.
You know, there's no one I can call and say, hey, hook me up? Can you like cant you like call George Lucas?
I know he sold Star Wars, but I'm quite sure he knows like.
Kathleen Kennedy or somebody over there.
Yeah, I mean I've I've done work with Kathleen Kennedy, but I don't think I would.
I would feel say no more. I don't want to get you in trouble. I would not feel comfortable calling. And also, like, if you want to call in a favor to someone that big in the industry, I feel like it should be bigger than hey, can you get me a job? No, but look, you have a lot of history in this business. It wouldn't be hey, could you get me a job? It's like, look, I know the getting ready to do tron aries, Tron three, I want in Yeah, well I think I yeah, I don't.
I don't think I'd go straight to the top with that request. And I'm working on it.
I am, I'm asking around, but I like to just state it because I was at a convention once and they asked someone in the audience asked during a panel, what franchise haven't you worked on that you really wanted to? And I said Godzilla and no joke. Within three weeks, I got a call okay, wait, and I got to work on Godzilla here on caf I.
Okay, because I know at least one hundred thousand people are listening ca IF I can be heard in fourteen different states terrestrially at night. It's the number one stream station on iHeartRadio app. I know someone's listening right now. Who can make this tron dream happen? Who's gonna speak it into existence? Von Davis Tron?
And then I want some.
Sort of finer speed when it's also oh yeah and we're ready.
I mean, if they do anything like Tron Legacy. We just did costumes for a band called Living Tombstone that's on tour across the United States right now.
Look it up.
Their costumes illuminate in different colors, and we've I've I've got a proprietary wiring schematic that helps them be able to perform do action without breaking the connections. It's actually a bigger feat than it sounds like. I want to see you ready can do with a with a light cycle? Oh man, Yeah, me too.
Fon Davis, we could do this all night very quickly. How can people reach you up? And want to make sure that they go uh and find out all this great information at the stan Winston School and also the grant Imahara Steam Foundation.
Yeah, so stan Winston School dot com if they look at Von Davis. I have a seven course lesson that is a new chapter will be dropping every six weeks and it covers CNC, three D printing, laser cutting, three D scanning, every type of technology we use in fabrication today. And it starts all the way. It starts from bidding all the way through how to budget, how to schedule into doing the actual green screen shot, and how it's
composited in with CG. So it's a very very it's the biggest course that the stan Winston School's ever done. And then grant Imahara Foundation dot com is where you can find out about different programs that the Grand Imahar Steam Foundation is involved in, and you can donate to to not just buy battle battle kits for kids, but you can also donate to the foundation itself and just help with the scholarships and the different programs that we're doing with them.
Uh.
And then if you want to just see what I'm up to, I'm at faun H Davis.
That's f O n H d A v I s.
On all platforms, and then at fun Coast Studios also on all platforms.
Faun I Love You. We gotta go obviously, can't wait until we get to do this again. Awesome. Yeah, it's always a pleasure. Kf I am six forty live everywhere the iHeartRadio app.
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