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.

FIVE thousand Sentinels, battle machines, gunfire, smoke, fire , debris and catch-all, general chaos.

This was the special effects list for just one of the scenes in Matrix Revolutions.

And Brighouse woman Janet Yale was at the forefront of making them happen.

The third, eagerly-awaited Matrix film opened at Huddersfield's UCI Cinema last week.

But viewers will have no idea there's a local link to this world-away Hollywood bombast.

Janet, 45, is executive producer of ESC Entertainment, a company set up specifically to find creative and technical answers to the challenges of the script on the Matrix sequels.

What began two years ago with five people in an empty building, set to handle a few computer-generated effects, turned into a workforce of 300.

Something that flashes by on the cinema screen in just a few seconds can take months of hard work to perfect.

Janet, who lives in San Francisco, says: "The workload just kept growing. Originally, five of us got together to do the bullet time shots in the first film.

"For Reloaded, we were just set to handle one scene, called the burly brawl, where Neo (Keanu Reeeves) fights multiple Smiths.

"But we ended up doing the freeway chase and the opening and closing sequences, among others.

"For Revolutions, we put together a scene known as the super burly brawl fought between Smith and Neo, we also took on the main siege sequences where humans battle the Sentinels in Zion's dock."