Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an Academy Award-winning motion picture visual effects company that was founded in May 1975 by George Lucas and is owned by Lucasfilm. Lucas created the company when he discovered that the special effects department at 20th Century Fox was shut down after he was given the green light for his production of the film Star Wars. The studio originated in Van Nuys, California, later moved to San Rafael, and is now based at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio of San Francisco.
This is an Encore Special about how ILM changed cinema forever.
ILM - Industrial Light & Magic: Creating The Impossible
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Lucas wanted his 1977 film Star Wars 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 Star Wars. Alongside Dykstra, other leading members of the original ILM team were Ken Ralston, Richard Edlund, Joe Johnston, Phil Tippett Steve Gawley, and Jeff Mann.
When making 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 nearly three hundred films, including the entire Star Wars saga, The Abyss, the Indiana Jones series, the Harry Potter franchise, the Jurassic Park franchise, the Back to the Future trilogy, many of the Star Trek films, Ghostbusters II, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, the entire Terminator sequels, the Transformers films, the Men in Black series, and also provided work for Avatar, alongside Weta Digital.
In addition to their work for George Lucas, ILM also collaborates with Steven Spielberg on nearly every film that he directs, and for many that he produces as well. Dennis Muren has acted as Visual Effects Supervisor on many of these films.
Additionally, the company has created less noticeable effects - such as widening streets, digitally adding more extras to a shot, and inserting the film's actors into famous photos - in movies such as Schindler's List, Forrest Gump, Snow Falling on Cedars, Magnolia, and several Woody Allen films.
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 division, now known as Pixar, was eventually sold to Steve Jobs, and went on to create the first CG animated feature with Toy Story.
ILM, rather than hide behind barbed wire and high fences, operated from an inconspicuous property in San Rafael, California until 2006. The company hid in plain sight and was known to locals as The Kerner Company. In 2006, when Lucas decided to move locations and focus on digital effects, a management-led team bought the five physical and practical effects divisions of Industrial Light and Magic. The new company, home to the George Lucas Theater, retained the "Kerner" name as Kerner Technologies, Inc. and continues to provide physical effects for major motion pictures, often working with Industrial Light & Magic.
As of 2009, ILM has received 15 Best Visual Effects Oscars and 23 additional nominations. It has also received 23 Scientific and Technical Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in recognition of the critical role the company's advances in technology have played in the filmmaking process.
ILM is also the largest visual effects vendor in Hollywood with regards to workforce, with more than 500 artists. It also has the largest renderfarm currently available with more than 5000 nodes. ILM revolutionized the motion capture business when they invented IMoCap (Image Based Motion Capture Technology), which is the most advanced technique of motion capture currently available.
1975: 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: The Wrath of Khan)
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
1995: The first fully synthetic speaking computer-generated character, with a distinct personality and emotion, to take a leading role in Casper
1995: First computer-generated photo-realistic hair and fur (used for the digital lion and monkeys) in Jumanji
1995: First to put visual effects for live-action sequence into a 2D cartoon in Balto
1996: First completely computer-generated main character, Draco in Dragonheart
1999: First computer generated character to have a full human anatomy (done by being built from the inside out), Imhotep in The Mummy
2003: Used most extensive projects and animation techniques yet to create a large, human-like, green monster in Hulk
2006: Develops "iMocap" system, which uses computer vision techniques to track live-action performers on set. Used in the creation of Davy Jones and ship's crew in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
2011: First film animated completely by ILM, in Rango
(source Wikipedia)
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