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Published on 11/30/1998 All articles from this issue

Los Altos High grad on the cutting edge with animation work

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Where are they now?

Town Crier Staff Report

Los Altos-area native Eileen Jensen started out with a degree in anthropology when she graduated from Stanford in 1985. Now she's absolutely loving it working with cutting-edge computer animation on big budget Hollywood movies, she said.

Her latest project, "Babe - Pig in the City," the sequel to 1995's Oscar-winning "Babe," has been a flop at the box office. But it appears the problem had more to do with bad timing (opening alongside "A Bug's Life" and "The Rugrats Movie") and production delays than the actual movie itself, which opened to generally good reviews. And the dazzling special effects introduced in the first "Babe" returned, new and improved, in large part to Jensen and her computer animation company, Rhythm and Hues.

She worked for 10 months on the movie, directed by George Miller, whom she described as "an inspiring person. He always made good suggestions."

Jensen worked with scenes Miller set up involving the live animals. Then she would take the images into the computer and add mouth movements for dialogue.

She said more than 200 pigs were used for the movie. "They only have a three-week window when they look like Babe," she said.

Jensen, 35, daughter of Paul and Sonja Jensen of Los Altos Hills, has worked on a wide range of projects for the Hollywood-based Rhythm and Hues, including work on the two "Babes." Her talent is in creating the computer lighting, textures and environment that make the images seem real.

As a computer graphics supervisor, she helped introduce innovative techniques in the 1995 movie "Babe" which won Rhythm and Hues an Oscar for Babe's visual effects.

When she heard rumors of a sequel, she was reluctant to repeat the original work. However she changed her mind after a trip to Australia to talk with director Miller and an offer to work as the lighting director for the 1998 sequel.

At Rhythm and Hues, Jensen and a team of 130 people worked to create 185 scenes in which more than 200 animals appeared to talk.

Building on the experience from the first film, the crew was able to refine the techniques so that the new cast of talking pigs, dogs and monkeys looked realistic. The sequel proved it was possible for animals to carry most of the dialogue for a film.

Jensen grew up in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, graduating from Los Altos High School in 1981.

She started out working in advertising in New York, then decided computer work "was more fun in 3-D," she said.

Jensen has been with Rhythm and Hues since 1992, and currently makes her home in the Los Angeles area. She returned to the Los Altos area last week to visit relatives.