2. The Making Of A CTO

Plumer first worked as a cameraman for NBC TV at the White House and in sports. After that he moved onto a career in software development. He was a partner in Parallax Software. ILM was one of their first customers for the movie "Death Becomes Her." He later took worked at Wavefront Software.

"I discovered computer graphics at an NAB show in 1985-6, and thought that was the coolest thing in the world," he said.

As he spent more and time working with ILM developing their tools, he eventually found his way to the company and took on his first job there, managing the post production department and supervising people who were using his software.

"Having somewhat of a technical background, I was constantly a thorn in the side of the R&D department with requests and changes for our tools," Plumer said. "So they told me, okay, big mouth, fix it yourself! And five years ago I stepped into managing the department, which led to more and more problems to solve and eventually to my current position as CTO."

Plumer has a very demanding job, as you might imagine: "My job changes by the hour. Especially in the last couple of years, things have been very challenging, moving this campus to San Francisco, overseeing technology at ILM, doing R&D projects on tools to benefit the entire studio," he said. "Not to mention doing specific tasks on productions that we might have in-house."

In addition to the above, he is helping to support a new division for Lucasfilm Animation, supporting a new studio in Singapore, working with AMD and other vendors on current and future needs, and "doing an awful lot of testing of new technologies and working with them," he said. "That is five or six jobs right there!"