After two years of hard work at California State University, Long Beach, Barnes received an assignment to illustrate a short science fiction script. His instructor brought in the Sketch Book of Joe Johnston - one of the original Star Wars designers - and Barnes was hit by a revelation. "I discovered that I was studying in the same program where Joe Johnston, John Dykstra (visual effects pioneer and former ILM wizard), and Steve Gawley (current ILM Model Supervisor) had been," says Barnes, "working on that assignment, and hearing the stories from my instructor (Rob Westerkamp), who had been a schoolmate of theirs, made a connection between my childhood love for science fiction 'stuff,' and real life. I had always remembered seeing the very first "Making of Star Wars"' on television as a kid, and for the first time I realized that it was possible to actually make a living out of that."
But when the time came to make the jump, things weren't as obvious to Barnes as he might have liked. "My wife had to talk me into applying for an internship at Industrial Light & Magic," he recalls. "It was a daunting task, but I finally gave in - one day before the deadline! I put my package together overnight, sent it, and waited." The last-minute gamble paid off: ILM invited him to come aboard. "I was in the ILM Art Department, doing visual research, putting presentations together, building artwork catalogs and doing a bit of basic sculpting. I also got to work on an architectural model when the department moved, and that was a lot of fun," says Barnes. "This was my first experience in the movie business, and I got to see how things were done on the other side of the screen. I liked what I saw."
After his internship, Barnes went back to school in order to complete his training and get his design degree. Upon graduation, he promptly got an offer from ILM, which wanted to hire him as a production assistant. Barnes was happy to be reunited with his visual effects buddies. But after only two months, Episode I Design Director Doug Chiang called and offered Barnes a job as production assistant on the new Star Wars film. "I felt a bit bad about leaving ILM so early," Barnes says, "but this was too good an opportunity, and the people around me understood that. So I packed my things and moved to Skywalker Ranch."
