R2-D2

The serendipity of a backyard tinkerer The air in Adam Savage's cave feels heavy with the scent of sawdust and history as Don Bies stands before a set of reclaimed storage racks. These aren't just any shelves; they are the literal backbone of the old Industrial Light & Magic model shop, complete with Joe Johnston's signature hidden on the back. For Don, these sliders and laminate surfaces are a physical map of a career that began not with a master plan, but with a childhood fascination with a Boris Karloff film. While most six-year-olds would have hidden under the covers after watching Frankenstein, Don was busy asking his mother how they made the monster look that way. That curiosity led him to the legendary Dick Smith, the godfather of makeup effects. Don actually reached out to Smith as a young man, receiving feedback that was famously brutal but entirely necessary. It was the kind of honest mentorship that steered him away from a career as a painter—a skill he felt he lacked—and toward the mechanical and sculptural world where he would eventually find his home. From Chicago theaters to the Witches of Eastwick Don’s path into the industry was anything but linear. He spent his early years in Chicago immersed in theater, building sets and props while nurturing a secret obsession with a certain astromech droid. While he dreamt of Hollywood, he was already developing the resourcefulness that defines the best DIY makers. He built a full-scale, radio-controlled R2-D2 long before the R2 Builders Group existed, using whatever materials he could find. This self-taught mechanical prowess eventually caught the eye of Chris Walas, who was looking for talent for his shop in Marin County. Don’s entry into the professional film world wasn't as a lead designer, but as one of twenty-five puppeteers needed to operate a massive Jack Nicholson puppet for The Witches of Eastwick. His specific, singular task was controlling the tongue. It was a humble beginning, sitting in the California sun for a week, but it placed him in the room with future industry titans and mentors like John Berg. Engineering the galaxy with laser-cut precision One of the most defining shifts in Don’s career was his transition from traditional hand-modeling to becoming a "laser cutting consigliere." He and Adam Savage shared a mutual obsession with the efficiency of the laser cutter, a tool that allowed them to translate their understanding of XY coordinate systems into physical reality. Don recalls a pivotal moment when he had to build the "naked" version of C-3PO for Star Wars: Episode I. While others were struggling with complex armatures and vacuum forming, Don approached the head like a piece of IKEA furniture, slotting laser-cut pieces together to create a perfectly engineered structure. This method even impressed the stoic Lorne Peterson, a legend in the ILM model shop. Don’s ability to blend mechanical engineering with aesthetic design became his signature, whether he was figuring out how to cut a square hole in a curved surface for a Planet Hollywood model or perfecting the electronics for Darth Vader's breathing mechanism. Guarding the treasures of Skywalker Ranch The trajectory of Don’s career took a sharp turn when he was entrusted with the Lucasfilm archives. In the late 1980s, the company was in a "dark time" for Star Wars, with props and models crammed into unheated warehouses. Don was tasked with organizing this chaos, a job that grew from a two-week contract into an eight-year tenure. He became the "keeper of the key," overseeing the preservation of everything from the Ark of the Covenant to Harrison Ford's original fedora. This role gave him a unique perspective on the evolution of filmmaking, but it also afforded him some legendary moments of levity. He admits that in the early, looser days of the archives, there were times when the staff might have "played dress-up" with cinema history. It was during this period that he also mentored a young electronics engineer named Grant Imahara, convincing him to move from THX to the model shop where his talents would be better utilized. Mentorship and the open-source ethos Throughout his conversation with Adam, a recurring theme is the generosity of knowledge. Don reflects on how Dick Smith's willingness to answer letters from fans influenced his own philosophy: if you know something that someone else needs to know, you give it to them freely. This ethos permeated the halls of ILM, where veterans like Charlie Bailey and Steve Gawley would share trade secrets—like using salt instead of sugar for waterfalls to avoid ant infestations—without hesitation. Don’t see his career as a linear path, but rather a "latticed" series of connections fueled by passion and a bit of imposter syndrome. He views himself not just as a model maker or an archivist, but as a steward of a community. His ultimate goal is to see his tools and knowledge passed down to a new generation in a makerspace, ensuring that the resourceful spirit that built the Millennium Falcon lives on in every DIY project tackled today.