I love trains, grew up with them – and go out of my way to get on one. I’m also a realist. When I heard that legislators in Sacramento wanted to build a high speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, I did not rejoice because it didn’t make sense. Especially when I heard the estimated cost - ($100 Billion) - which was astronomical and only an estimate. Being a resident of California and suspicious of huge government projects, I decided to make a video that illustrated the relative costs of such an endeavor, in our car crazy culture.
To accomplish that, I needed to buy a train and build a model.
As a team member at ILM and Boss Film Corporation I was exposed to the best model and creature shops in the world. What rubbed off on me is that they were inventing reality. If they could, then so could I - albeit on a much smaller scale.