The Brief

Wilfredo Cruz went to the doctor in October of last year to have his brain scanned because he was experiencing vertigo — a dangerous condition when you’re a refinery worker like Cruz and your job entails climbing 200-foot towers and fixing heavy machinery.

While he waited at the doctor’s office, he picked up his phone and felt a moment of panic, seeing 100 unread text messages in the last hour.

The Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles had just said that it was going to close, and Cruz learned in that moment that he would eventually lose his job, along with nearly 1,000 other employees and contractors.

“It was a big shock, a gut punch,” said Cruz, who thinks his last day will be sometime in April. Workers say layoff notices will begin to go out in the next few months.

It’s just one of a handful of refineries that have closed or that intend to close in the coming months. For the workers — most of whom lack a college degree — it’s unlikely they’ll find another job that pays as well, despite recent efforts by the state to help. Though the Trump administration signed legislation creating billions of dollars in tax cuts for oil and gas companies, it’s not going to save these jobs or offer the workers any money to train for new ones.

“You have people earning between $80,000 to $200,000 a year, and almost everyone is a high school graduate and that’s it,” said Cruz. “To go out and look for another job that’s even somewhat comparable, it just doesn’t exist.”

When he isn’t at the refinery, Cruz is wearing a plain black shirt, shorts, and New Balance sneakers — anything that’s easy to clean if his 2-year old son throws food at him, he said. His vertigo is better these days, almost a year after the refinery said it would close, but he now has to find a job so he can support his family and pay his mortgage. The best bet, he said, is to go back to school and start a new career in cybersecurity.

Thousands of jobs lost

California has about 100,000 workers in the fossil fuel industry, according to an August report by the Public Policy Institute of California. That’s about the population of a small city, such as Merced or Redding. As the state continues its transition to renewable energy, many of those jobs may disappear — and some already have.

Refineries have been closing all across the U.S. in recent years, but California has been hit hard, especially in Contra Costa County, Solano County and parts of southern Los Angeles, near Long Beach. First it was the Marathon refinery in Contra Costa County in 2020, which put hundreds of people out of work before the plant converted to renewable fuels with a fraction of the former workforce. Then Phillips 66 began shifting one of its Contra Costa County refineries to renewables and closed an affiliated plant on the Central Coast. A Valero refinery in Solano County is also expected to close in the next few months, leading to more layoffs.

Publicly, oil companies have given vague justifications for the closures, though oil industry advocates, such as the Western States Petroleum Association, blame the state’s increased regulation and its renewable energy transition. Environmental groups point to the decrease in oil demand as more Californians turn to electric vehicles.

With thousands of jobs at stake, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-led state Legislature this summer tried to strike a deal with Valero to avoid the closure of its Solano County refinery. Those conversations are still “ongoing,” said Daniel Villaseñor, the deputy director of communications for the governor.

What the state has offered so far is a $30 million pot of money, which refinery workers can use to train for new jobs. The money went out to four different workforce organizations last February, and they have until 2027 to distribute it to workers in various ways, such as through scholarships.

Workers cross a street as smoke billows from a fire at the Martinez Refinery Company in Martinez in Contra Costa County on Feb. 1, 2025.

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Jose Carlos Fajardo

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Bay Area News Group

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A worker stands atop a tank car that carries liquefied petroleum gas at the Marathon Martinez Refinery on April 27, 2020.

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Jose Carlos Fajardo

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Bay Area News Group

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The United Steelworkers union, which represents many of the Phillips 66 refinery workers, received about a third of the money and recruited Cruz to help find eligible workers at his job. Some of his colleagues are trying to become truck drivers, emergency medical technicians, or radiologists, but the state money rarely covers all the training expenses, he said.

In his spare time, Cruz is enrolled in an online, year-long certificate program in cybersecurity at UC San Diego and is using the state money to cover the $4,000 tuition. He said he wants a remote job, something that would allow him to spend more time with his son.

The steelworkers union has pushed Newsom for much more, ideally “hundreds of millions of dollars per year” to help retrain the refinery workers it represents, said Mike Smith, the national bargaining chair for the union. The governor has yet to make any new promises.

Six-figure salary, no degree required

The average work day at a refinery might entail crawling into small spaces, withstanding searing heat, or operating heavy machinery with precision. And it can be dangerous: In 2006, the roof of a storage tank collapsed, killing one person and injuring four others at the Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles, which was then owned by an earlier iteration of the company.

Twelve-hour shifts are the norm, including many night shifts, and overtime is common. Nearby residents complain that the Phillips 66 facilities have a foul smell and that they pump cancer-causing chemicals into the air, creating health risks for the entire community. Workers are required to wear full-body fire retardant uniforms each day because fires are a constant risk, such as last week, when an explosion rocked a Chevron refinery in El Segundo. There was no major damage.

Flames and smoke from a large fire rises from the Chevron refinery in El Segundo on Oct. 2, 2025.

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Daniel Cole

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Reuters

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Though the work can be physically demanding, the rewards are plentiful. Union workers at the Phillips 66 refinery complex make about $115,000 a year, plus a pension and an 8% match on 401k contributions, said Smith.

Together, the Phillips 66 refineries in Los Angeles and the Valero refinery in Solano County produce about 17% of the state’s gas. Without these facilities, Californians could see higher prices at the pump, according to an independent analysis by the federal government.

Laurie Wallace, a self-described artist, never wanted to work in oil and gas, but the money was a big draw, she said. For years, she was working as many as three different jobs, saving up money for punk and ska concerts while flipping burgers at In-N-Out, helping customers at Ace Hardware, or working shifts at a local cafe. Her husband at the time learned about a training program for refinery workers. He said he was going to apply and when she said she was interested, he told her she would never get in.

“I took the test and got the better score,” Wallace said. “I don’t do well with people telling me not to do something.”

In the nearly 18 years since that exam, she’s worked at the Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles, handling the heavy machinery that transports California’s oil and gas. Wallace often earns over $100,000, especially with overtime, allowing her to achieve what many might consider the American Dream: a four-bedroom house in the Long Beach suburbs with an affordable mortgage and family vacations every year, including cruises to Mexico and trips to Las Vegas.

She’ll likely see a pay cut in any future job. In a 2023 study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, UC Irvine professor Virginia Parks helped survey those who had been laid off by the Marathon oil refinery in Contra Costa County in 2020. She found that roughly a quarter were unemployed or no longer looking for work over a year after losing their jobs. Some workers found opportunities at other oil refineries, though they made less money because they lacked seniority or a union. Others found jobs at utility companies or chemical treatment plants, and a few started working in health care or retail.

“I don’t think (refinery workers) need long training programs but they do need some sort of reskilling,” said Parks, who wants the state to provide workers more financial help. She’s especially interested in state grants that give workers income support while they search for a skilled job. “Otherwise they’re just going to find whatever (job) they can.”

Her study found that workers who did find a job after getting laid off made about $38 an hour — $12 less than before.

Lots of experience but few ways to prove it

Since the layoffs at the Phillips 66 refinery complex will happen slowly over the next few months, Wallace still has a job for now. Her department is responsible for receiving and shipping the oil and gas that arrives at the Port of Los Angeles, work that is so essential that she thinks she’ll be one of the last people laid off, potentially in 2027.

Over the years, she’s driven the trains that transport tons of oil and gas, operated cranes to carry pieces of pipelines and climbed on top of the massive fuel storage tanks that line the 110 Freeway. Often, she said she worked six or even seven days in a row.

Laurie Wallace at the end of her overnight shift in front of the Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, Los Angeles, on Oct. 1, 2025.

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Stella Kalinina

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CalMatters

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In April, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and got a modified schedule. Now she works night shifts and only two or three days in a row. After finishing her radiation therapy around 2 p.m., she changes out of her usual attire, a punk T-shirt and jeans, and gets into her work uniform. She then has to get through Los Angeles traffic, bypass the plant’s two layers of security, and travel across the refinery, which takes up multiple city blocks, or about 650 acres. Her shift begins at 4:30 p.m., where she spends 12 hours in a room, alone, under fluorescent lights, actively monitoring 16 different computer screens for changes in pressure or chemistry.

After so many years, staying alert during a night shift is second nature, she said with a laugh. “I’m a little high strung. I have no problem staying awake.”

The stakes are high. If she isn’t paying attention and a machine fails or a tank has the wrong pressure, fuel leaks can occur. In 2014, a hole burst in an underground pipeline near the refinery, pouring 1,200 gallons of oil into a residential street.

Although Wallace has used many cranes over the years, she doesn’t have a crane operator’s license. In fact, all of the training that she’s done happens on-site, and her employer isn’t required to track it or give her any credential, such as a license or certificate, that could transfer to another job. After the Marathon refinery in Contra Costa County closed, former workers struggled to substantiate their skills when looking for new jobs, the UC Berkeley Labor survey found.

Drawing directly on the study, and with support from the steelworkers union, longtime labor activist and state Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat, proposed a bill this year that would require employers to provide their workers with proof of any on-the-job training or education. The governor has until Oct. 12 to sign or veto the bill.

It’s only “a first step” though, said Parks, a co-author of the study. Long-term, she said refinery workers should have the option to acquire independent certificates or credentials, such as a crane operator license, that prove their skills and don't rely on an employer at all.

“It’s not ideal but it’s temporary” 

So far, only a fraction of the oil and gas workers who are eligible for state support have actually received it.

“We just started enrolling members,” said Rosi Romo, who coordinates the grant program on behalf of the steelworkers union.

Though the steelworkers union received the money last March, only about 100 people have participated so far, said Romo, most of them in Southern California. She said the program can fund 650 scholarships, offering up to $15,000 in tuition for each worker

In Kern County, where the oil industry is a major employer, the local job centers received over $11 million from the state, which they’ve used to help nearly 370 former oil and gas workers retrain in new careers, including trucking and nursing. The job centers have enough money to serve around 750 people, said Danette Williams, who works in marketing for the centers, known as the Employers’ Training Resource.

Unlike the steelworkers union, which is only giving out scholarships, Williams said the Employers’ Training Resource is also offering to reimburse 50% of wages during the first 480 hours of the workers’ new jobs. Romo said she wasn’t aware that was possible under the union’s contract with the state, but if it is, she said she’d try to offer the same benefit.

The other organizations who received the grant money did not respond to CalMatters' questions.

The Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, on Sept. 30, 2025.

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Stella Kalinina

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CalMatters

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Romo, along with other representatives from the steelworkers union, said the work schedule at the Phillips 66 refinery complex is one reason why workers have yet to use most of the money. As of August, about a quarter of union employees have already left the facility for other opportunities, said Smith, the national bargaining chair for the union. The remaining employees are left working overtime.

Once layoffs begin in the coming months, Romo and Smith said they expect an uptick in the number of workers taking advantage of the scholarship money.

Phillips 66 did not respond to multiple requests for comment about its overtime policies or other ways it may be supporting workers’ job transitions.

Cruz said he’s working six days a week now, 12 hours each day. To make progress on his cybersecurity course at UC San Diego, he tries to listen to lectures and audiobooks during his commute or while eating lunch or dinner during his two, 30-minute breaks. After he puts his son to sleep around 9 p.m., he has a few hours to study, though he has to wake up at 5 a.m. to make it to his shift on time. “It’s not ideal but it’s temporary,” he said.

Wallace has a slight advantage, since she started taking online classes in 2020 to complete her associate degree. She’s still one class short, but she hasn’t had the time to finish it. Between her radiation therapy and the 12-hour night shifts, she said it’s unlikely she’ll be able to study for at least another year while she works with the skeleton crew that’s closing the refinery.

If she had time, she said she would finish her associate degree and use the state training grant to help offset the cost of a bachelor’s degree. But because the state tuition grants expire in 2027, it’s quite possible she won't be able to use the tuition money at all.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Federal officers handle security screening at all but a small fraction of U.S. airports, but the Trump administration is hoping to change that. Under the Transportation Security Administration's new program called TSA Gold+, private companies would play a much larger role in airport security than they have in decades.

The TSA is set to host officials from airports and security contractors to an "industry day" at its Springfield, Va., headquarters on Thursday, as it looks to develop TSA Gold+, a public-private program that the agency calls "transformative."

The agency is billing the program as an update to the Screening Partnership Program, or SPP, in which 20 U.S. airports currently use private security screeners rather than federal workers.

"TSA Gold+ marks a significant evolution in the agency's approach to aviation security," a TSA spokesperson told NPR via an emailed statement.

The agency says airports that opt into the program would be able to tailor security systems for their facility — and avoid the TSA staffing shortages that became a very public headache at airports during the recent government shutdown over Homeland Security funding.

It also says the program would bring "the latest technology" such as AI tools to airport screening operations, to increase capacity and cut wait times, although the agency did not specify how those gains would be achieved. From the details shared so far, the equipment would be the contractors' responsibility — a departure from the current SPP system, in which TSA controls the equipment and oversees the security contract. The TSA says it would perform the oversight role it currently does.

"Industry partners can manage equipment and introduce innovations, while travelers enjoy a smooth, predictable, and bespoke experience," the TSA said as it unveiled TSA Gold+.

Airports currently using the private Screening Partnership Program range from San Francisco and Kansas City to Sarasota, Fla., and Atlantic City, N.J., along with smaller facilities in Montana, Wyoming and other states.

Calls for privatizing airport security screening have come from President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, echoing a recommendation in the conservatives' Project 2025 handbook for a second Trump term. But there are also signs of bipartisan interest in some level of private control over airport security, as seen in Atlanta, where city leaders recently voted to explore joining the Screening Partnership Program.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, touted that bipartisan interest on Wednesday during a hearing on TSA Modernization. But Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees union, which represents TSA officers, said he opposes further privatization — including the TSA Gold+ program, warning that it would hamper accountability and transparency.

Under the new program, Kelley said, contract workers would earn less than TSA officers. He added that while many transportation security officers hold security clearances, under the new plan, the government "would be ceding direct operational control of the most sensitive technology in the aviation security enterprise to private vendors."

The White House budget released last month promises to save some $52 million by privatizing airport screeners and requiring small airports to enroll in the SPP.

But officials at the hearing urged lawmakers to preserve airports' ability to choose.

Chris McLaughlin, CEO of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, noted that the SPP has been in place since aviation security underwent drastic changes following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which led to the creation of the TSA and the SPP system.

"We've had federalized screening for 25 years, almost," McLaughlin said. "Large airports like San Francisco have had an SPP program for 25 years."

Both airports' arrangements work well for them, he told Garbarino.

"The system has been safe for 25 years," he said. "It's important that airports have options."

The new "Gold+" program echoes the Trump administration's promise to bring a "golden age of travel" to the American public. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy touted those plans earlier this week, as he unveiled $970 million in funding to improve passengers' experiences at airports, from adding family-friendly security screening lanes to improving restrooms and children's play areas.

The money for those projects comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a Biden-era law aiming to update airports' aging infrastructure.
Copyright 2026 NPR

A marine layer will cover mostly the coastal areas today, lowering temperatures a degree or two. Otherwise expect a sunny afternoon elsewhere across SoCal.

L.A. County beaches will see temperatures in the lower 70s today, whereas Orange County could reach up to 79 degrees along the coast.

More inland, the valleys will see highs in the mid 80s. The Inland Empire will see highs from 83 to 91 degrees. In Coachella Valley, temperatures are expected to reach up to 100 degrees.

Happy long weekend! The Late Show with Stephen Colbert plays the funnyman’s swan song tonight, so my calendar is booked to stay up past my bedtime. Closer to home, the Yoko Ono exhibit (which comes to us straight from the Tate Modern in London) opens just in time for Memorial Day weekend, so watch this space for more on that.

There’s music for lovers of every genre this week, according to our friends at Licorice Pizza. On Friday, Yungblud and special guests Warning rock the Greek, and Dethklok plays the Palladium; jazz trumpeter Chris Botti begins his residency at the Blue Note.

Saturday, Bright Eyes performs I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn in their entirety at the Hollywood Bowl with openers the Moldy Peaches; American Football is at the Wiltern; Belgium’s Ultra Sunn plays the Belasco; Italy’s Mina is at the Echoplex; DJ KSHMR plays the Palladium; and then, for a different sort of “Kashmir,” Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening takes over the Greek.

On Sunday, brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack for the millennial dance party of the week at the Forum with Kesha, Chromeo and Sizzy Rocket. There’s also the big Day Trip afternoon concert at L.A. State Historic Park with Joseph Capriati, Toman and Cole Terrazas. For a more mellow Sunday, singer-songwriter Katelyn Tarver is at the Echoplex, R&B singer-songwriter Eric Bellinger plays the Novo, or classic crooner Paul Anka is doing it his way at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can check out four new food halls, wander around a favorite new Sundays-only bookstore, and yes, I’ll remind you again — make your upcoming Election Day picks with the help of our Voter Game Plan.

Events

L.A. Fleet Week

Through Monday, May 25
Pacific Battleship Center
250 S. Harbor Blvd., San Pedro 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy L.A. Fleet Week

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Tour the U.S.S. Iowa and check out the three visiting battleships at San Pedro’s Pacific Battleship Center during L.A.’s annual Memorial Day weekend Fleet Week on the waterfront. Plus, there are exhibits to walk through, food stands to try and music for the whole family. Not to mention those cute sailors in their whites.

Topanga Days

Saturday to Monday, May 23 to 25, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
1440 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga
COST: ADULTS $31.80; MORE INFO

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Fadeout Media

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Topanga Days

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Topanga Days is the easiest way to time-travel back to a simpler time when folk musicians roamed the hills, winning a yodeling contest was the biggest bragging right and you spent all year coming up with your parade costume. Those days are here once a year at Topanga Days, headlined on Saturday by New Orleans icon Cyril Neville and peppered with cherry-seed-spitting and bubble-gum-blowing contests, tons of other music, food, and, of course, the parade.

Exit the King

Through Sunday, May 31
A Noise Within
3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena
COST: FROM $49.75; MORE INFO 

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Craig Schwartz

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Lucy PR

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The name of this Eugène Ionesco classic alone — Exit the King — should give you some sense of where the always-on-point folks at A Noise Within were going when they chose it at this moment. The political satire borders on the absurd, with the L.A. Times likening the vibrant characters to “those in a deck of wild cards designed by Salvador Dalí.”

K-Expo

Saturday and Sunday, May 23 to 24
L.A. Live 
1005 Chick Hearn Court, Downtown L.A.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy BLND PR

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K-Pop fans will flock to the K-Expo at L.A. Live, where you can see free exhibitions and events featuring 100 Korean brands and companies across content, beauty, food and technology all weekend long. Stick around Saturday night and grab a ticket (from $47) to the mega K-Pop concert at the Peacock Theater, featuring Jay Park and P1Harmony.

MAINopoly 

Sunday, May 24, 1 p.m. 
Main Street, Santa Monica 
COST: FROM $28.01; MORE INFO

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Courtesy MAINopoly Santa Monica

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Eat your way down Main Street in Santa Monica at the annual Monopoly-themed food festival, which this year will allow drinks while you walk and eat thanks to a new city permit. The popular food-and-bar stretch near the beach is experiencing a little revival with the reopening of dive bar favorite Circle Bar, plus newish hot spots like Triple Beam Pizza and June Shine. I also heard a rumor that something new is finally coming into the old World Cafe space (!!).

Arroyo Secodelic Festival

Friday to Monday, May 22 to 25
Various locations, Highland Park
COST: VARIES; MORE INFO

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Courtesy Arroyo Secodelic

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As LAist's Robert Garrova reports, a new four-day music festival takes over Figueroa Street in Highland Park this weekend. The Arroyo Secodelic Festival will feature 65 bands, with acts hailing from Los Angeles, Mexico and as far as France and Holland. Highlights include Flamin' Groovies, Fear and Adolescents.

Angel City Chorale Spring Concert 

Sunday, May 24, 4 p.m.
Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center 
1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Redondo Beach 
COST: FROM $17; MORE INFO 

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Mel Stave Photography

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Angel City Chorale

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Enjoy the healing sounds of Angel City Chorale as they perform a new show with the theme "The Red Thread" as “a tribute to the beloved age-old parable and celebration of the invisible threads that connect as humans, our hopes, joys, resilience in the face of adversity, connection to nature and a shared planet Earth.”

Kevin Morby

Friday, May 22, 8 p.m.
The Wiltern
3790 Wilshire Blvd., Koreatown
COST: $50-$60; MORE INFO 

Kevin Morby plays the Wiltern on Friday.

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Jim Bennett

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Getty Images

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The nouveau bard of Kansas City returns to his once-adopted hometown of Los Angeles on the heels of his newest release, Little Wide Open. Morby's latest effort might be his most realized, fully embracing the Technicolor sweep of his indie-Americana sound — striking the sonic equivalent between a Terrence Malick film and Robert Frank's roadside photographs, seen through a passenger car window of a cross-country train. This time, Morby tapped Aaron Dessner of The National to serve as producer — who has most recently done the same for Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams and Sharon Van Etten — alongside a constellation of collaborators, including Justin Vernon, Lucinda Williams, Katie Gavin, Mat Davidson and Meg Duffy. Brooklyn-based Liam Kazar opens. –Gab Chabrán

UCLA JazzReggae Festival

Monday, May 25, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
UCLA Wilson Plaza
COST: $26.14; MORE INFO 

Three little birds told me to get down to the UCLA JazzReggae Festival on Memorial Day. The yearly music fest draws students and neighbors alike for a full day of sunshine, food, music and jammin’. The fest is fully organized and run by student volunteers, and has been since its founding 40 years ago.

Forest Lawn Memorial Day remembrances

Monday, May 25 
Various locations 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

Forest Lawn in Glendale is one of several locations hosting Memorial Day events.

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David McNew

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Getty Images

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Honor veterans across Los Angeles as Forest Lawn hosts Memorial Day remembrances at each of its six Southern California locations: Cathedral City, Covina Hills, Cypress, Glendale, Hollywood Hills and Long Beach. The parkwide events will celebrate the lives of those who served, with patriotic music, wreath layings, presentations and retirings of the flag, keynote addresses, presidential proclamations, invocations, giveaways, coffee and sweet treats. All events will include American Sign Language interpreters.

You could call it a fulfillment of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous promise from the first Terminator movie in 1984: “I’ll be back.”

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the bigger budget, multi-award winning follow-up to that first film is coming back to theaters in Los Angeles starting this weekend, in celebration of the film’s 35th anniversary.

Considered one of the best action films and best sequels of all time, it’s also celebrated among film experts for its groundbreaking use of CGI visual effects — most notably for the T-1000 character, a liquid metal cyborg masquerading as an LAPD officer, played by Robert Patrick.

Where to watch ‘T2’ on the big screen

While the American Cinematheque’s first two 35th anniversary screenings of Terminator 2 are already sold out, as of this article’s publishing time, tickets to screenings on May 29 (at Los Feliz 3) and May 30 (at Aero Theatre in Santa Monica) are still available.

Tickets for screenings on May 22 at The Ojai Playhouse and June 6 and 7 at The Vista in Los Feliz are also still available, and Rialto Pictures also lists screenings on July 2-5 at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana.

And while the screening at The Academy Museum on May 27 (with the film’s Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren in person) is sold out, we have you covered with some highlights from Muren’s interview with LAist below.

Making the impossible possible with CGI

Terminator 2, director James Cameron’s follow up to his surprise 1984 hit, The Terminator, was the first (and still only) movie in what would become the six-film Terminator franchise to earn an Oscar win or nomination.

Ultimately, the film took home four Oscars — for visual effects (for Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Gene Warren, Jr. and Robert Skotak), makeup, sound, and sound effects editing — and also earned nominations for cinematography and film editing.

The visual effects studio responsible for the T-1000 character’s CGI effects was Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), founded in 1975 by Star Wars creator George Lucas. Dennis Muren headed up their Terminator 2 team, which consisted of about 35 artists.

Muren remembers first being taken with visual effects at the age of 6 or 7, watching The War of the Worlds (1953) in Los Angeles. He made his first film — a “creature feature” called Equinox — the summer between his freshman and sophomore years at Pasadena City College, and would go on to work for ILM on visual effects for movies like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, and (fittingly) the 2005 version of War of the Worlds.

A scene from 'Terminator 2' (1991).

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via film-grab.com

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ILM and Muren began development on the CGI techniques that would be needed to pull off Terminator 2’s T-1000 character in movies like 1985’s Young Sherlock Holmes and 1989’s The Abyss, which was also directed by James Cameron.

“ILM has been so good at being able to really do the impossible,” Muren said. “And we kind of joke about that, but we've got many different ways of doing things.”

When the opportunity for Terminator 2 came up, Muren had also just returned from a year-long sabbatical he spent studying computer graphics, and said he was confident ILM had the tools needed to make the T-1000 character a reality.

“We were ready to input the film digitally,” Muren explained. “[To] do all the manipulation in a computer instead of with optical film running through printers and going to labs for processing.”

And when ILM got that digital system for “compositing” — combining live-action images, practical and CGI effects — working seamlessly, Muren says, “That was an incredible tool.”

But that didn’t mean that pulling off a shiny, shape-shifting, liquid metal character successfully would be easy.

“It's just complicated,” Muren explained. “You've just got this reflective material [and] how are we supposed to be able to see depth or shape when it's deforming?” But at the same time, Muren said, “that's what was exciting about it.”

Muren says the trickiest scene for the team to figure out is when the T-1000 walks through a cell door made of metal bars. While it happens in a matter of seconds on screen, it amounted to 14 to 16 weeks of work for the visual effects team.

“I always said that shot, even as we were doing it, and we got close to finishing, I said, ‘This is an absolutely impossible shot,’” Muren explained. So when they got it right, he said, “It was like a new world.”

Today, while he says Jurassic Park (1993) is the film he’s now asked about most often, he always reminds people: “T2 was really the breakthrough film.”