Long before green screens, motion capture suits, and computer-generated explosions, movie magic was built with sweat, skill, and steel cables. In his memoir Let’s Roll Some Film, David Childers gives us a front-row seat to that world—a behind-the-scenes era where special effects were real, tangible, and often dangerous.
David Childers didn’t enter the film industry with a background in cinema. In fact, his plan was to become an FBI agent. But a chance offer to work with the entertainment union in San Francisco led to a one-year trial that turned into a career spanning over four decades. And what a time to enter the business. The early 1980s were a golden age for practical effects, and David
was right there in the middle of it.
One of the most striking chapters of his career takes place at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the legendary special effects studio created by George Lucas. Back then, ILM wasn’t filled with
banks of computers. It was filled with model builders, machinists, grips, and
electricians—people like David—who had to figure out how to make the impossible look real without the aid of digital technology.
Take Poltergeist, for example. In one iconic scene, dozens of toys and objects swirl around a little girl’s bedroom in a supernatural frenzy. Today, a visual effects team would probably
animate the entire thing in post-production. But in 1981, David and his team had to shoot every single object against a blue screen, one by one. Each toy, each book, each stuffed animal was rigged with wires and carefully filmed in isolation. The footage was later layered together by the optical department to create the illusion of chaos. It wasn’t quick—and it definitely wasn’t easy—but the result was movie magic you could feel.
And when it came time to destroy the family’s haunted house in that same film? There was no CGI explosion. David describes how the crew built a scaled-down replica of the house—six feet long and four feet high—and then rigged it with tiny cables, air cannons, and a massive vacuum system. Cameras rolled at 360 frames per second as the entire model house was literally pulled apart, piece by piece, until it vanished into a pile of debris. The effect lasted seconds on screen. The prep took days.
That level of hands-on problem-solving extended across David’s career. On Return of the Jedi, he helped build walkways through dense redwood forests so a steadicam operator could shoot high-speed footage of the speeder bike chase scene—frame rate tricks and clever rigging standing in for modern digital effects. On Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, he stood in a sealed warehouse filled with 25,000 live cockroaches to film a scene in a bug-infested cave. No CGI bugs. Just real insects, real fear, and a lot of uncomfortable hours on set.
It’s not that David is against technology—he’s worked on modern films too. But Let’s Roll Some Film serves as a time capsule of a different filmmaking era. An era where you didn’t fix it in post—you fixed it with tools, tape, and teamwork. An era where every explosion was a risk, every effect a puzzle, and every shot a shared triumph.
What stands out most in David’s stories isn’t just the ingenuity; it’s the pride. Pride in getting the lighting just right. Pride in building a working set piece from scratch. Pride in being part of something real.
So, the next time you watch a classic film and find yourself wondering, “How did they pull that off?”—David Childers’ memoir has the answer. They pulled it off with grit, gear, and a whole lot of movie magic—the old-school way.