Inside Industrial Light & Magic

Visiting ILM San Francisco

While anyone may visit the iconic Yoda Fountain, going inside Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Lucasfilm is limited to employees and their guests. While I can’t show you everything I saw inside, I can say that it is an extensive and fully operational workplace (with offices, meeting rooms, a gym, dining area, daycare, security, and two company gift shops (a Skywalker Ranch General Store and a Lucasfilm Company Store). It is also an inspiring museum of cinema history with props and art that film buffs will appreciate.

For me personally, visiting ILM SF was a very meaningful experience. I was able to bring my parents, who have never been able to visit a VFX studio. When I chose “special effects” as my research topic for a presentation in sixth grade, my father helped me restore an old wooden TV cabinet, attach Star Wars model toys, and construct an exhibit with interactive doors and lights. My mother lived in San Francisco for part of her childhood, before ILM moved into the Presidio buildings. She watched Star Wars: A New Hope multiple times in the cinema when it first came out in 1977. Before I turned 16, I was able to attend presentations by ILM employees in a different city only because she was willing to drive and go with me. And my 3 year-old son, despite not having watched any Star Wars films or shows, was excited to see statues of characters he recognized and learn about how movies are made. Our hosts had so much knowledge to share and were incredibly patient, generous, and kind. It felt like the coming together of multiple generations and experiences when we walked through those hallways, treading where great artists, engineers, and storytellers have brought so much technical wizardry and magic to life.

My Connection

I worked for ILM Vancouver from 2021 to 2022 as a Compositor, a dream come true that I wrote about in a previous blog post. Working for ILM was a very memorable experience and I’m thankful to be able to keep in touch with my former colleagues and supervisors. I hope all of my students who dream of working at ILM will have that opportunity (they already know and can do more than me was when I was in school). There are special pins created for every ILM project, and below are the pins for the ones I worked on (Lost Ollie and Obi-Wan Kenobi).

Context

ILM is an award-winning company founded by George Lucas in 1975 to create special effects for the original Star Wars trilogy. The company went to craft many of the most iconic effects shots in Hollywood history, shifting primarily into visual effects (VFX) with the development of digital technology. The original employees of ILM were true pioneers who launched an entire industry and the company remains one of the most respected and sought-after VFX studios even with an ocean of global competition.

From ILM’s rich history, you can trace the origins of Pixar, Photoshop, MythBusters, motion control cameras, digital compositing, the EXR file format, computer-generated characters, and real time rendering with Unreal Engine on LED displays to create virtual sets (a.k.a. Stagecraft or The Volume).

Today, ILM and its parent company of Lucasfilm is owned by Disney and has studios in San Francisco, Vancouver, London, Mumbai, and Sydney where over one thousand employees work on content for movies, television, streaming, commercials, and various attractions.

Resources for You

Lighter Darker: The ILM Podcast – Launches on September 3rd, 2024. Hosted by ILM Chief Creative Officer Rob Bredow and ILM Compositing Supervisor Todd Vaziri. Produced by Production Manager Jenny Ely. Featuring special guest filmmakers and behind-the-scenes stories.

8111 Podcast – Launched in 2020. Host Matt Wallin interviews different guests who have worked at ILM during its 40+ year history, focusing on their career paths and how working at ILM changed them.

The History of VFX – An excellent collection of presentation slides covering major milestones in special effects and visual effects from 1833 to the present, created by ILM Senior Visual Effects Trainer Matt Leonard . I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Matt give multiple presentations to students, and there is always something new and interesting to learn from him.

Light & Magic – 6 part series released in 2022 on Disney+ about the origins of ILM and its artists.

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