Industrial Light & Magic
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| Industrial Light & Magic
<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align:center; padding:16px 0 16px 0;"> | |
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Founded | May 1975 |
| Headquarters | Letterman Digital Arts Center at the Presidio of San Francisco, California, USA
<tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Key people</th><td>George Lucas, Dennis Muren, Chrissie England</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Industry</th><td>Visual Effects, CGI animation</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Parent</th><td>Lucasfilm, Ltd.</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Website</th><td>ILM.com</td></tr> |
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is a motion picture visual effects company, founded in May 1975 by George Lucas and owned by Lucasfilm Ltd. Lucas created the company when he discovered that the special effects department at Twentieth Century Fox was shut down after he was given the green light for his production of Star Wars. The studio originated in Van Nuys, California, later moved to San Rafael, California, and is now based at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in The Presidio of San Francisco in California. ILM continues to maintain and use part of its film studio building in San Rafael, which was built in 1991 specifically for ILM, for the Model Shop. It was in the late 1980s when Adobe Photoshop made its first appearance on the world stage. It was used at the Industrial Light and Magic studios as an image processing program.
Lucas wanted his 1977 film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope to include visual effects that had never been seen on film before. He first approached Douglas Trumbull, famous for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Trumbull declined, but suggested his assistant John Dykstra. Dykstra brought together a small team of college students, artists and engineers who became the Special Visual Effects department on A New Hope. Alongside Dykstra other leading members of the original ILM team were Dennis Muren, Richard Edlund, Joe Johnston and Phil Tippett.
When making Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas reformed most of the team into Industrial Light & Magic in Marin County, California. They have since gone on to produce special effects for over two hundred films, including the Indiana Jones films, the Harry Potter films, the Jurassic Park films, many of the Star Trek films, as well as less dramatic effects in films such as Schindler's List, Snow Falling on Cedars, Magnolia, and several Woody Allen films. ILM also frequently collaborates with Steven Spielberg, with Dennis Muren acting as Visual Effects Supervisor.
ILM established their use of Computer Generated Imagery when they hired Edwin Catmull from NYIT in 1979. John Lasseter worked for ILM in the early 1980s as a computer animator. The computer graphics department, now known as Pixar, was eventually sold to Steve Jobs, which went on to create the first CG animated feature with Toy Story.
As of 2005, ILM has received 14 Best Visual Effects Oscars and 20 additional nominations. It had also received 22 technical Oscars.
ILM has been considered by some to be one of the best visual effects studios in the world.
[edit] Early accomplishments
- 1977: Resurrected the use of VistaVision; first use of a motion control camera (Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope)
- 1982: First completely computer-generated sequence (the "Genesis sequence" in Star Trek II)
- 1985: First completely computer-generated character, the "stained glass man" in Young Sherlock Holmes
- 1988: First morphing sequence, in Willow
- 1989: First computer-generated 3-D character, the pseudopod in The Abyss
- 1991: First partially computer-generated main character, the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day
- 1992: First time the texture of human skin was computer generated, in Death Becomes Her
- 1993: First time digital technology used to create a complete and detailed living creature, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, which earned ILM its thirteenth Oscar
- 1994: The cartoony effects in The Mask
- 1996: First completely computer-generated main character, Draco in Dragonheart
- 1999: Second completely computer-generated main character, Jar-Jar Binks in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
- 2006: Created the entirely computer-generated main character, Davy Jones, often regarded as the most realistic CG character of all time in Pirates of the Caribean: Dead Man's Chest
[edit] Recent films
ILM worked on three major 2005 releases, George Lucas' Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds and Warner Bros. Pictures' Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Revenge of the Sith featured over 2,000 visual effects shots created over a three year span. War of the Worlds was completed on a much faster timetable, with Dennis Muren supervising. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was fueled by dazzling Special Effects from ILM. Industrial Light and Magic also worked on battle creatures for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; the wave and underwater effects for Poseidon, a remake of The Poseidon Adventure; the majority of (invisible) effects for Mission: Impossible III and Eight Below; and most of the creature effects for Lady in the Water and the film version of Eragon. The FX studio are planned to animate CG models in the up-coming film, The Transformers. ILM also did visual effects and animation in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest, as well as creating the burning oil towers in Jarhead.
[edit] External links and sources
- Official ILM website (with detailed information in PDF format)
- Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) at the Internet Movie Database
- ILM fan website
- Alternative credits list from the Unofficial ILM site
- OpenEXR Website, HDRI file format and related free code libraries produced by ILM
- Small entry at Lucasfilm's site
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