The mind behind the Matrix

Nov 13 2003 By Jenny Parkin, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

So just how did Brighouse woman Janet Yale end up jetting all over the world with film stars such as Keanu Reeves? She explains her amazing career in special effects to JENNY PARKIN.

Janet took a temping job, answering phones and somehow never got out of the industry. She has been involved since computer-generated images first took off.

In 1993, she was working for a London company called CFC, now called Framestore CFC - one of the biggest effects companies in London.

Janet says: "We decided to open an office in Los Angeles and I went out to help set the place up. I never came back."

Janet, whose partner is an animator and writer in the movie industry, returns to Brighouse to see her mother every Christmas.

Working on follow-up films to such a massive hit was daunting.

Janet says: "Everything is difficult, from living up to expectations, to the security issues.

"Most movies take between 12 and 20 weeks to shoot. The Matrix sequels shot for three months in California then 10 months in Australia."

Movies with a high quota of special effects are hard on actors - it means they do a lot of "acting against nothing" where computer creations are to be added.

"There's also a lot of extremely boring nonsense where we gather vast amounts of technical data," says Janet.

"For the Revolutions end sequence, where Neo and Smith fight in the sky, they had to be rigged in complicated flying harnesses that allowed them to twist and tumble as if it was a combined fairground ride and flight simulator!

"It was very, very painful for them, not to mention great fun for motion sickness.

"Plus the whole sequence involved constant torrential rain so it was a pretty wet and miserable experience."