Industrial Light & Magic

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is a company dedicated to producing visual effects and computer-generated graphics for films. It was founded by George Lucas in May 1975, becoming owned by Lucasfilm Ltd. Lucas created the company when he closed the special effects department at 20th Century Studios, just after getting the green light for the production of Star Wars. The studio was originally established in Van Nuys, California and later moved to San Rafael. It is currently based at the Letterman Digital Arts Center, located in the Presidio of San Francisco in California. ILM continues to use part of the San Rafael building (built in 1991 specifically for ILM) for its model shop.

History

This venture arose from Lucas' desire to include never-before-seen visual effects in his film Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. 2023 2001: A Space Odyssey. He declined the position, but recommended John Dykstra, his assistant, for the position. Dykstra gathered a small group of university students, artists and engineers, who turned the Visual Effects department into A New Hope. Running the company alongside Dykstra were Dennis Muren, Richard Edlund, Joe Johnston and Phil Tippet.

During production of Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas reformed most of the team at Industrial Light and Magic in Marin County, California. Since then, they have generated special and visual effects for more than two hundred films, including all of Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park i>, Back to the Future, Star Trek and even for films whose use of special effects is much less intensive, such as Schindler's List, Magnolia and many of Woody Allen's films. They also collaborate regularly with Steven Spielberg, with Dennis Muren as Visual Effects Supervisor.

ILM began using computer generated graphics when they hired Edwin Catmull in 1979 from NYIT. John Lasseter worked for ILM in the early 1980s as an animator. The computer graphics department, currently known as Pixar, was sold to Steve Jobs, who commissioned it to create the first fully computer-generated feature film (Toy Story).

As of 2007, ILM had received 16 Oscars for best special effects and more than 20 nominations, as well as 22 more Oscars in other technical categories. In 2012, Lucasfilm (including ILM) is acquired by Disney, for a value of 4 billion dollars.

Jobs and innovations

• 1977: The ILM team resurfaces the use of VistaVision; first use of a motion control camera (Star Wars: Episode IV - A new hope).
• 1980: First use of animation technique go motion in the tauntaun and AT-AT The counter-attack empire.
• 1982: First sequence generated entirely with computer (the Genesis sequence in Star Trek II: The wrath of Khan).
• 1985: First character completely generated by computer, the gentleman of the window Young Sherlock Holmes.
• 1988: The first morphing is used in Willow for the scene where the sorcerer Fin Raziel suffers a series of transformations in different animals.
• 1989: First character generated with 3D graphics, the pseudopode The Abyss.
• 1991: First main character partially generated by computer, the T-1000 Terminator 2: the final judgment.
• 1992: First time the texture of human skin was generated by computer, in Death Becomes Her.
• 1993: First time digital technology was used to create complete and highly detailed living beings, dinosaurs Jurassic Parkwhich was also awarded the thirteenth Oscar for ILM.
• 1995: First film of computer-generated photorealistic animals, mainly used in monkeys and lions in the film Jumanji.
• 1996: First main character completely generated by computer, Draco en Dragonheart.
• 1999: First character created by computer with human anatomy, Imhotep in The mummy.
• 2000: Creation of the OpenEXR image format.
• 2006: For the crew of the Davy Jones ship Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, development of the IMoCap system (“Image Based Motion Capture Technology”), which uses computer-based visual tracking techniques by capturing the movement of actors that move on a decor.
• 2011: First animated film produced by ILM, Rango.
• 2019: first use of rendering in real time (with Unreal Engine) and digital LED screens as virtual scenario (known as StageCraft or The Volume), The Mandalorian

Selected ILM filmography