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From Star Wars to Star Wars: The Story of Industrial Light & Magic
Not Rated
DocumentaryScience Fiction
8.1/10(9 ratings)
The incredible evolution of George Lucas' special effects dream factory, including an inside look at "Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace."
06-15-1999
45 min
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Jon Kroll
Production:
Film Garden Entertainment, Industrial Light & Magic
Key Crew
Executive Producer:
Jon Kroll
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American actor and producer. One of the most widely recognized actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him the second highest-grossing actor of all time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an Academy Honorary Award in 2022 as "A cultural icon whose dynamic work has resonated across genres and generations and audiences worldwide".
Jackson started his career on stage making his professional theatre debut in Mother Courage and her Children in 1980 at The Public Theatre. From 1981 to 1983 he originated the role of Private Louis Henderson in A Soldier's Play Off-Broadway. He also originated the role of Boy Willie in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson in 1987 at the Yale Repertory Theatre. He returned to the play in the 2022 Broadway revival playing Doaker Charles. Jackson early film roles include Coming to America (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Patriot Games (1992), Juice (1992), True Romance (1993), and Jurassic Park (1993), Menace II Society (1993), and Fresh (1994). His collaborations with Spike Lee led to greater prominence with films such as School Daze (1988), Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Jungle Fever (1991), Oldboy (2013), and Chi-Raq (2015).
Jackson's breakout role was in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) which earned him a BAFTA Award win and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He further collaborated with Tarantino, acting in Jackie Brown (1997), Django Unchained (2012), and The Hateful Eight (2015). He's known for having appeared in a number of big-budget films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), A Time to Kill (1996), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), The Negotiator (1997), Deep Blue Sea (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000) and its reboot (2019), XXX (2002), S.W.A.T. (2003), Coach Carter (2005), Snakes on a Plane (2006), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), and Glass (2019).
He also gained widespread recognition as the Jedi Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), later voicing the role in the animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) and the video game Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2011). With his permission, his likeness was used for the Ultimate version of the Marvel Comics character Nick Fury; he subsequently played Fury in 11 Marvel Cinematic Universe films, beginning with a cameo appearance in Iron Man (2008), as well as guest-starring in the television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He will reprise this role in the upcoming Disney+ series Secret Invasion, which is set to premiere on June 21, 2023. Jackson has provided his voice for several animated films, documentaries, television series, and video games, including Lucius Best / Frozone in the Pixar films The Incredibles (2004) and Incredibles 2 (2018).
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and entrepreneur. Lucas is known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012.
After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure. His next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his youth in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful, and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.
Lucas's next film, the epic space opera Star Wars (1977), had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon. Lucas produced and co-wrote the sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). With director Steven Spielberg, he created, produced and co-wrote the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989) and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). He also produced and wrote a variety of films and television series through Lucasfilm between the 1970s and the 2010s.
In 1997, Lucas rereleased the Star Wars trilogy as part of a special edition featuring several alterations; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011. He returned to directing with a Star Wars prequel trilogy comprising The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). He last collaborated on the CGI-animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2014, 2020), the war film Red Tails (2012), and the CGI film Strange Magic (2015).
Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered a significant figure of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement.
Description above from the Wikipedia article George Lucas, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Ronald William Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American filmmaker and actor. Howard first came to prominence as a child actor, guest-starring in several television series, including an episode of The Twilight Zone. He gained national attention for playing young Opie Taylor, the son of Sheriff Andy Taylor (played by Andy Griffith) in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show from 1960 through 1968. During this time, he also appeared in the musical film The Music Man (1962), a critical and commercial success. He was credited as Ronny Howard in his film and television appearances from 1959 to 1973.
Howard was cast in one of the lead roles in the coming-of-age film American Graffiti (1973), which received widespread acclaim and became one of the most profitable films in history. The following year, Howard became a household name for playing Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days, a role he would play from 1974 through 1984. Howard continued appearing in films during this time, such as the western film The Shootist (1976) and the comedy film Grand Theft Auto (1977), which also marked his directorial debut.
In 1984, Howard left Happy Days to focus on directing, producing and occasionally writing variety films and television series. His films include the science-fiction/fantasy Cocoon (1985), the fantasy Willow (1988), the thriller Backdraft (1991), the historical docudrama Apollo 13 (1995), the Christmas comedy How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), the biographical drama A Beautiful Mind (2001), the biographical sports drama Cinderella Man (2005), the thriller The Da Vinci Code (2006), the historical drama Frost/Nixon (2008), Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), and the documentary Pavarotti (2019). For A Beautiful Mind, Howard won the Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Picture. He was nominated again for the same awards for Frost/Nixon.
In 2003, Howard was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2013. Howard has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions in the television and motion pictures industries.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ron Howard, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Dennis Muren, A.S.C. (born November 1, 1946) is an American film visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked on the films of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron, among others, and has won nine Oscars in total: eight for Best Visual Effects and a Technical Achievement Academy Award. The Visual Effects Society has called him "a perpetual student, teacher, innovator, and mentor."
He has been identified as "a pioneer in bringing a new wave of visual effects films to the public, opening the doors for screenwriters and directors to tell stories never before possible with a new realism through the use of his skills in cinematic arts and advanced technologies."
According to Spielberg, Muren "set the example at Industrial Light & Magic for visual effects excellence with effects that add strong, appropriate emotion to a shot and fit seamlessly into a movie."
Description above from the Wikipedia article Dennis Muren, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Legendary Hollywood Icon Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. His family history includes a strong lineage of actors, radio personalities, and models. Ford attended public high school in Park Ridge, Illinois where he was a member of the school Radio Station WMTH. Ford worked as the lead voice for sports reporting at WMTH for several years. Acting wasn't a major interest to Ford until his junior year at Ripon College when he first took an acting class. Ford's career started in 1964 when he travelled to California in search of a voice-over job. He never received that position, but instead signed a contract with Columbia Pictures where he earned $150 weekly to play small fill in roles in various films.
Through the '60s Ford worked on several TV shows including Gunsmoke, Ironside, Kung Fu, and American Style. It wasn't until 1967 that he received his first credited role in the Western film, A Time for Killing. Dissatisfied with the meager roles he was being offered, Ford took a hiatus from acting to work as a self-employed carpenter. This seemingly odd diversion turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Harrison's acting career when he was soon hired by famous film producer George Lucas. This was a turning point in Ford's life that led to him be casted in milestone roles such as Han Solo and Indiana Jones.
Since his most famous roles in the original Star Wars trilogy and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ford has appeared in over 40 films. Many criticize his late-career work, saying his performances have been lackluster, leading to commercially disappointing films. Ford has always worked hard to protect his off-screen private life, keeping details about his children and marriages quiet. He has a total of five children including one recent adoption with third and current wife Calista Flockhart. In addition to acting, Ford is passionate about environmental conservation, aviation, and archeology.
James Cameron was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, on August 16, 1954. He moved to the USA in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University but, after graduating, drove a truck to support his screen-writing ambition. He landed his first professional film job as art director, miniature-set builder, and process-projection supervisor on Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) and debuted as a director with Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981) the following year. In 1984, he wrote and directed The Terminator (1984), a futuristic action-thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, and Linda Hamilton. It was a huge success. After this came a string of successful science-fiction action films such as Aliens (1986) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Cameron is now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood. He was formerly married to producer Gale Anne Hurd, who produced several of his films. He married Kathryn Bigelow in 1989.
Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, writer and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spielberg is the recipient of various accolades, including three Academy Awards, a Kennedy Center honor, four Directors Guild of America Awards, two BAFTA Awards, a Cecil B. DeMille Award and an AFI Life Achievement Award. Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He moved to California and studied film in college. After directing several episodes for television including Night Gallery and Columbo, he directed the television film Duel (1971) which gained acclaim from critics and audiences. He made his directorial film debut with The Sugarland Express (1974), and became a household name with the 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws. He then directed huge box office successes Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the Indiana Jones original trilogy (1981-89). Spielberg subsequently explored drama in the acclaimed The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987).
After a brief hiatus, Spielberg directed the science fiction thriller Jurassic Park (1993), the highest-grossing film ever at the time, and the Holocaust drama Schindler's List (1993), which has often been listed as one of the greatest films ever made. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the latter and for the 1998 World War II epic Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg continued in the 2000s with science fiction films A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005). He also directed the adventure films The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and Ready Player One (2018); the historical dramas Amistad (1997), Munich (2005), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017); the musical West Side Story (2021); and the semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmans (2022). He has been a producer on several successful films, including Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future (1985) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) as well as the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001).
Spielberg co-founded Amblin Entertainment and DreamWorks, and has served as a producer for many successful films and television series. He is also known for his long collaboration with the composer John Williams, with whom he has worked for all but five of his feature films. Several of Spielberg's works are among the highest-grossing and greatest films all time. Premiere ranked him first place in the list of 100 Most Powerful People in Movies in 2003. In 2013, Time listed him as one of the 100 most influential people.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. (born October 26, 1942 – April 29, 2014) was an English actor, known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980), and Mona Lisa (1986), and lighter roles in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Hook (1991).
Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum (born October 22, 1952) is an American actor and musician. He has starred in some of the highest-grossing films of his era, such as Jurassic Park (1993) and Independence Day (1996), as well as their respective sequels, The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), and Independence Day: Resurgence (2016).
Goldblum also starred in films including Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Big Chill (1983), and Into the Night (1985), before coming to wider attention as Seth Brundle in The Fly (1986), which earned him a Saturn Award for Best Actor. His other films include The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), The Tall Guy (1989), Deep Cover (1992), Powder (1995), The Prince of Egypt (1998), Cats & Dogs (2001), Igby Goes Down (2002), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Adam Resurrected (2008), Le Week-End (2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Thor: Ragnarok (2017).
Goldblum has also starred in several TV series, including the eighth and ninth seasons of Law & Order: Criminal Intent as Zack Nichols. He directed the short film Little Surprises, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.
Description above is from the Wikipedia article Jeff Goldblum, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Richard McCallum (born August 22, 1954) is an American film producer. He is mostly known for his work on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles as well as the Star Wars Special Editions and Prequel Trilogy. He is best known for his frequent collaborations with American filmmaker George Lucas, though he was also a long-time producer for British television playwright Dennis Potter.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raymond "Ray" Harryhausen (June 29, 1920 – May 7, 2013) was an American visual effects creator, writer, and producer who lived in London, England, from 1960 until his death in 2013.
He created a brand of stop-motion model animation known as "Dynamation." His most important works include the animation on Mighty Joe Young, with pioneer Willis O'Brien, which won the Academy Award for special effects (1949); The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, his first color film; and Jason and the Argonauts, featuring a famous sword fight against seven skeleton warriors.
John Alan Lasseter is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, animator, voice actor, and the head of animation at Skydance Animation. He was previously the chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Disneytoon Studios, as well as the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering.
Lasseter's first job was with The Walt Disney Company, where he became an animator. Next, he joined Lucasfilm, where he worked on the then-groundbreaking use of CGI animation. After Lucasfilm became Pixar in 1986, Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer and he directed Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Cars, "Toy Story 3" and "Cars 2".
He has won two Academy Awards, for Animated Short Film (Tin Toy), as well as a Special Achievement Award (Toy Story).
Robert Hammond Patrick was born on November 5, 1958 in Marietta, Georgia, raised there and Boston, Mass., Dayton, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, and Cleveland, Ohio. The eldest of five children. He attended the Bowling Green State University in Ohio, but dropped out after he took a drama course and became interested in acting. After leaving college, he took a job as a house painter and continued as such until a boating accident in Lake Erie in 1984. He swam for three hours in order to save the others still stranded on the accident site, while he nearly drowned in his attempt. After the accident, he moved from Ohio to Los Angeles, California. He worked in a bar to supplement his income and even lived in his own car.
Patrick starred in various direct-to-video television movies, and had a short appearance in Die Hard 2 (1990). His breakthrough role came as the liquid-metal, shape-shifting T-1000 in James Cameron's blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). After that, he landed roles in various feature films such as Last Action Hero (1993), Fire in the Sky (1993) and Striptease (1996). His performance in Fire in the Sky caught the attention of Chris Carter, creator of the television series The X-Files (1993). After David Duchovny distanced himself from the series during its seventh season, Patrick was cast as FBI Special Agent John Doggett.
On the small screen, Robert was a series regular on Season Six of HBO's True Blood (2008) and also appeared in the final season. He had a memorable role in the final season of Sons of Anarchy (2008), did a cameo role on the sitcom Community (2009), and had a supporting role in Season One on Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series (2014) for the El Rey Network. In Spring 2017, it was announced that Robert would have a featured role in Gale Anne Hurd's highly anticipated Amazon series Lore (2017), based on the popular horror podcast. Recent film credits include Universal Pictures' Identity Thief (2013) with Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman, Warner Brothers' Gangster Squad (2013) in which he played Josh Brolin's squad member going up against Sean Penn as Mickey Cohan, Trouble with the Curve (2012) opposite Clint Eastwood, Lovelace (2013) opposite Sharon Stone and Amanda Seyfried, Universal's remake of Endless Love (2014) with Alex Pettyfer and Gabriella Wilde, Focus Features' Kill the Messenger (2014) opposite Jeremy Renner, and The Road Within (2014) with Kyra Sedgwick and Zoë Kravitz.
In addition to his acting success, Patrick is a lifelong supporter of the military and the USO. The grandson of an Army veteran who served during World Wars I and II and the Korean War, Patrick grew up with a profound respect for troops. Devoted to giving back, he regularly goes on USO hospital visits and has participated in four USO tours in seven countries since 2008, visiting more than 8,100 service members and military families. He is a passionate Harley-Davidson enthusiast and is co-owner of Harley-Davidson of Santa Clarita. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Barbara and their two children.
Rob Coleman is a two-time Oscar nominee for his animation work on Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999) and Stars Wars: Attack of the Clones (2002). He has also been nominated for two BAFTA Awards for his work on Men In Black (1997) and The Phantom Menace (1999). He spent 14 years at Industrial Light & Magic and Lucasfilm Animation working closely with George Lucas. He has built and supervised animation teams in Canada, the United States, Singapore and Australia. He was the Head of Animation on The LEGO Movie (2014) & Peter Rabbit 2 (2021), the Animation Supervisor on The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) and the Animation Director on Peter Rabbit (2018).
Ahmed Best (born August 19, 1973) is an American voice actor and musician. He rose to prominence in the 2000s for playing the character of Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars franchise. He later turned to television, where he reprised his role as Jar Jar Binks in the Robot Chicken Star Wars special. He also created, wrote, directed and produced his own TV show called This Can't Be My Life. He has collaborated with director George Lucas in three films and five episodes of the animated show, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. He has won the Annie Award for Best Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production.
Robert Lee Zemeckis (born May 14, 1951) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), though in the 1990s he diversified into more dramatic fare, including 1994's Forrest Gump, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director.
His films are characterized by an interest in state-of-the-art special effects, including the early use of match moving in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and the pioneering performance capture techniques seen in The Polar Express (2004), Beowulf (2007) and A Christmas Carol (2009). Though Zemeckis has often been pigeonholed as a director interested only in effects, his work has been defended by several critics, including David Thomson, who wrote that "No other contemporary director has used special effects to more dramatic and narrative purpose."
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Often described as "the best actress of her generation", Streep is particularly known for her versatility and accent adaptability. She has received numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including a record 21 Academy Award nominations, winning three, and a record 32 Golden Globe Award nominations, winning eight. She has also received two British Academy Film Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and six Grammy Awards.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Meryl Streep, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eric Brevig (born 1957) is a film director and visual effects supervisor known for his work in several major theatrical films and television shows. He was Visual Effects Supervisor and Second Unit Director on the 2001 Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay action drama Pearl Harbor.
Since his film school days at UCLA Brevig had been fascinated with the potential of 3D for live-action movie production, and he learned everything he could about it. During the production of 1986's Captain EO short for the Disney theme parks he was substantially responsible for supervising the technical aspects of the 3D photography. After several second unit director's assignments in special effects-heavy films like Men in Black and Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, Brevig's previous 3D experience and expertise turned out to be the factor that helped him get his first full-blown director's job when he was offered the chance to direct the 2008 film Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D (a New Line Cinema release), the first narrative feature shot entirely in digital 3-D. He next directed Yogi Bear, another 3-D movie, for Warner Bros., and he is attached to direct a 3-D Korean War drama, 17 Days of Winter, about the 1950 Battle of Chosin Reservoir. 17 Days of Winter, expected to cost $80–100 million, is scheduled to shoot in Korea and New Zealand over the winter of 2010-2011 for 2012 release.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Eric Brevig, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Willard Carroll Smith II (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor and rapper. Known for variety of roles, Smith has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award and four Grammy Awards.
Smith began his acting career starring as a fictionalized version of himself on the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–1996). He first gained recognition as part of a hip hop duo with DJ Jazzy Jeff, with whom he released five studio albums and the US Billboard Hot 100 top 20 singles "Parents Just Don't Understand", "A Nightmare on My Street", "Summertime", "Ring My Bell", and "Boom! Shake the Room" from 1984 to 1994. He released the solo albums Big Willie Style (1997), Willennium (1999), Born to Reign (2002), and Lost and Found (2005), which contained the US number-one singles "Gettin' Jiggy wit It" and "Wild Wild West". He has received four Grammy Awards for his rap performances.
Smith achieved wider fame as a leading man in films such as the action film Bad Boys (1995), its sequels Bad Boys II (2003) and Bad Boys for Life (2020), and the sci-fi comedies Men in Black (1997), Men in Black II (2002), and Men in Black 3 (2012). After starring in the thrillers Independence Day (1996) and Enemy of the State (1998), he received Academy Award for Best Actor nominations for his portrayal as Muhammad Ali in Ali (2001), and as Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness (2006). He then starred in a range of commercially successful films, including I, Robot (2004), Shark Tale (2004), Hitch (2005), I Am Legend (2007), Hancock (2008), Seven Pounds (2008), Suicide Squad (2016) and Aladdin (2019).
For his portrayal of Richard Williams in the biographical sports drama King Richard (2021), Smith won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor.
John Knoll (born October 6, 1962) is an American visual effects supervisor and chief creative officer (CCO) at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). One of the original creators of Adobe Photoshop (along with his brother, Thomas Knoll), he has also worked as a visual effects supervisor on the Star Wars prequels and the 1997 special editions of the original trilogy. He also served as ILM's visual effects supervisor for Star Trek Generations and Star Trek: First Contact, as well as the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Along with Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson, and Allen Hall, Knoll and the trio's work on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest earned them the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
Knoll has been praised by directors James Cameron, Gore Verbinski, Guillermo del Toro, and Brad Bird. Del Toro, who worked with Knoll for the first time on Pacific Rim, stated, "He basically has the heart of a kid and the mind of a scientist, and that's a great combination."
Knoll is also the inventor of Knoll Light Factory, a lens flare-generating software inspired by his work at Industrial Light and Magic. He was the Computer Graphics Project Designer on The Abyss, an achievement that earned ILM its tenth Oscar, and worked on two Star Trek episodes: Star Trek: The Next Generation's pilot episode ("Encounter at Farpoint") and the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Explorers."
Knoll had a cameo appearance in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace as a fighter pilot and helped pitch the story of Rogue One, a feature film set in the Star Wars series, for which he also worked as a writer and executive producer.
John Knoll reflected on his work with George Lucas on the Star Wars prequel trilogy: "I still feel like I owe George a lot to have been given that opportunity. On those three films, I feel like I got a whole career’s worth of experience packed into eight years. George never constrained his thinking to what he knew for sure the tools were capable of; his attitude was, “Yeah, well, I’m writing what I want to see, so you guys will figure it out.” I loved that he would constantly throw those challenges out with the confidence [that] you guys would figure it out. That was great."
In 2016, John Knoll and his brother Thomas were inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum.
At the 2019 Oscars, John and his brother Thomas were awarded a Scientific and Engineering Award for the original architecture, design, and development of Photoshop.
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