Clockwise: Stan Winston, Scott Ross, James Cameron, Kathleen Earley (IBM)

With Jim and Stan in place as partners, it seemed that it might be easier to secure financing for our new company. I was tasked with finding the investor or investors. Jim Cameron wasn’t the household name he is today, but even in 1992 he was, as far as directors go, pretty much a star. He wasn’t yet the self proclaimed “king of the world” of TITANIC proportions but he was at least a duke, or maybe even a prince. With films like TERMINATOR, ALIENS, THE ABYSS and TERMINATOR 2, he was an ascendant to the throne. Additionally, two of his films won Oscars for Best Visual Effects. He did have a bit of a reputation, but his films won Oscars, and a few made some big money. All in all, while the vision for DD was mine, Jim was the bait.

Armed with bait, I started to chum. There was the ill fated Electronic Arts effort but there were also others… Intel, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Carlton Communications, Phillips, Virgin, Nintendo, SEGA, SGI, Viacom, Turner, TCI, Comcast, the Baby Bells, Autodesk, NTT, AT&T, Apple, Next and so on. You get the picture. There were hundreds of phone calls, letters and airplane trips. The meetings and discussions of 20 years ago seem like a blur today, but one stands out for several reasons.

The first reason was that Jim and Stan were actually in attendance that evening, a rare occurrence. It was a dinner meeting at the Ivy at the Shore. Our dinner was with the then President and COO of Motorola, Chris Galvin ( whose papa was Chairman of Motorola and whose grandpa was Motorola’s founder). I was prepared for a rather stodgy old dude…but it turned out that Chris was just a year older than me, and was very loose and personable. Interestingly enough, at the time of this meeting, there was a lot of hoopla about the possibility of cell phone radiation causing brain cancer. Being the 60’s counter culture person that I am, I decided to, unbeknownst to Jim and Stan, pull a little prank. At this point, I had been turned down by dozens of folks and I started to get a little cynical about this whole entrepreneurial crap. As dinner progressed, I was getting the vibe that Mr. Galvin was much more interested in talking about his new global satellite cell phone coverage scheme (Iridium) and much less interested in being a part of DD. When dessert finally came, I pulled a wad of aluminum foil from my briefcase, fashioned it into a helmet, pulled out my Motorola Star Tac cell phone and started dialing. I turned to Chris and said ” One can never be too safe”. Stan waved at our waiter and yelled ” Check!”

Some have said that Digital Domain was the brainchild of Jim Cameron and that he and his partner, Stan Winston birthed DD ( in fact, Jim Cameron seems to say this often). There is no doubt about the fact that Jim was instrumental in the company, attracting investment and artists. There is no question that Mr. Cameron gave the company instant credibility because of his stature or that Mr. Cameron gave DD its first big project, TRUE LIES ( which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, AND was severely discounted). Jim Cameron was an important component in the launching of DD. But one of the most important things that Jim did for DD was to allow me the use of the incredible mind of Rae Sanchini.

Rae Sanchini was a force of nature, one of the most gifted and strategic attorneys I’ve ever met. I first met Sanchini at Carolco Pictures. Rae was the head of business affairs. I had spoken to Rae’s assistant, Kim, a number of times and she had arranged for me to meet her boss just after Cameron had shown interest in joining me and my ILM cronies in forming this new VFX company. Cameron and Carolco, headed up by Andy Vajna and Mario Kassar, had in movie speak, “a deep and meaningful relationship” (TERMINATOR 2… i.e. they made lots of money) and I guess Cameron had tried to convince Andy and Mario that Carolco should fund DD.

I flew to Burbank, rented a car and drove to Carolco’s offices on Sunset just across from Tower Records. I took the elevator up to the top floor of this swanky Sunset Strip building. I was very impressed by the digs…. my ILM strip mall office palled in comparison. The elevator doors opened, I walked to the receptionists desk and there to greet me was a 30 something, stunningly beautiful blond women attired in a black skin tight skirt with a white semi see through business blouse… wow!

I was not in NorCal anymore!

She went to shake my hand and I said ” You must be Kim, I’m here to see Rae Sanchini”. And she said, ” I’m Rae Sanchini”. Up until then I thought I was going to meet Ray Sanchini… and in my mind my Ray was about 60, an Italian American from NYC, about 30 pounds overweight, that went to CCNY and talked like Jimmy Hoffa. Was I ever wrong!

Rae was exactly what I needed to further the founding of DD. A UCLA trained attorney that had been the head of business affairs of a mini major and had the ear of Jim Cameron! As an employee of Carolco, I understood her involvement since Mario and Andy were possibly interested in funding DD. But after Carolco had decided that given their financial constraints, they were not interested, I was a bit confused (yet overjoyed) why Rae was still involved. I was finally set straight. Rae had left Carolco and made a deal with Lightstorm. She would help me with DD legal issues and then she would be involved as a Producer on upcoming Cameron projects. So in effect, Cameron was lending out Sanchini to help DD ( as an aside, she was not being compensated beyond the promise of Jim attaching her as a Producer on his films) with our legal issues.

And help she did! She was organized, smart and strategic. At times she would get frustrated as Stan and Jim were rarely available and were slow in making decisions. Legally, Jim, Stan and I were known as the Founders but Rae would always refer to them as the “Flounders”.

A year or so before I decided to start DD, IBM had pulled together a group of about 10 Hollywood Industry “thought leaders” to discuss the application of story telling and creativity to this new fangled thing called the internet. For some reason, not only did they think I was a “thought leader” but they continued to contact me to see if I might be interested in heading up a “laboratory studio” in Armonk NY.

Hah! Armonk! IBM! Big Blue!

Counter culture ex hippy, Woodstock Nation Scott Ross ? …. Never!

Up against the wall! Power to the People!

A year later and after a multitude of turn downs, I agreed to visit Armonk. After all I was already in NYC giving a speech at Lincoln Center. IBM sent a car to pick me up. I almost didn’t get in… I had the Jefferson Airplane’s “Volunteers of America” playing in my head and walked away from that black sedan three or four times. Finally, I was freezing standing there in the cold NY November air…

I got in.

The drive to Armonk took forever. I was born and raised in NYC but I had lived in California for 20 years. Yet somehow the parkways, littered with orange, red and yellow leaves, the gray sky and the black trunks of the maple and oak trees comforted me. Grace Slick and Marty Balin faded away as I was found myself seated opposite the smiling faces of Lucie Fjeldstad and Kathleen Earley, IBM Vice Presidents. We talked for a few hours and it seemed that they were very interested in funding a digital production studio… in Los Angeles.

We had a funder. I informed Jim and Stan. Now we had to negotiate the damn thing. Jim told Rae to do what she does best, Stan wondered if he could finally deliver his SGI’s and move some of his “CGI staff” over to DD payroll and Rae and I started the long and arduous process of negotiating a deal with one of the biggest corporate giants on the planet.

After about two months of “negotiations”, the countless crossing of T’s and dotting of I’s, the unbelievable minutia that concern lawyers, we had a document that everyone seemed to be happy with. A final meeting with IBM’s law firm Cravath, Swaine and Moore was set to take place in NYC at the firms headquarters. Cravath is the second oldest law firm in the country, founded in 1819 and consistently ranks first among the world’s most prestigious law firms. The meeting took place at the Worldwide Plaza, on 50th Street and Eighth Avenue in Cravath’s glass enclosed conference room on the one millionth floor overlooking all of NY…

I could see for miles and miles and miles and miles, oh yeah!

I Can See For Miles

I’d never seen so many white male WASPS wearing blue suits with white shirts in my life (I’m from the South Bronx). Rae and I were ushered into this aquarium situated in the clouds. The two of us sat down at the conference table which could have comfortably seated 50. On one side was about 15 Cravath dudes, all white and pasty…. and on the other side, an ex-hippy in jeans (wearing real shoes) and a 105 pound blonde bombshell. The Cravath guys sorta smirked when they saw the two of us. They must have figured ” we can kick this hippy and dumb blondes butt”.

Well, I was a push over, intimidated by all that Goyishe power. But Rae, on the other hand, sharpened her gaze, sat down, rolled up her sleeves and blew them away. She knew every part of the agreement and had answers for every question they had. The Opposition on the other hand, were ill prepared and because they were so segmented into various disciplines ( IP, corporate, tax, estate, etc.) , the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing.

And so, we walked out later that day, victorious. Grace and Marty Balin’s voice slowly came back into my head…

Hey now it’s time for you and me
Got a revolution got to revolution
Come on now we’re marching to the sea
got a revolution got to revolution !

We are Volunteers of America, Volunteers of America!

Gotta Revolution

Rock on! The Digital Revolution was underway…