Word: lucases
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Special effects are hardly new to movies, nor are they an exclusively American invention. The ground-breaking special-effects movie A Trip to the Moon was made in 1902 by a French filmmaker named Georges Melies. Techniques were improved over the years in such landmark films as King Kong (1933...
; "It was a big adventure at the time," says Lucas. "We really took a plunge into the unknown." After the astounding success of Star Wars, his special-effects group, dubbed Industrial Light & Magic, relocated in San Rafael, Calif., just north of San Francisco, and became a permanent operation. ILM devised...
In one room, artists work on matte paintings that provide the fake backgrounds for many scenes (the outer-space vistas in Star Wars, for example, or the cavernous warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark). In the model shop, workers craft detailed miniatures of such objects as...
Yet some contend that hardware too often takes center stage in ILM films and that the familiar "ILM look" is too cold and technology-driven. Others claim that the spirit of innovation is waning as the company becomes bigger and more successful. "A lot of wild, rebellious enthusiasm seems to...
But to critics who fear that ILM-style effects are driving out more traditional movie values, like characters and plots, Lucas is unsympathetic. "Special effects are just a way of visualizing something on screen," he asserts. "They have expanded the limits of storytelling enormously. ILM is a wonderful tool that...