Yes, that’s a young George Locus bent over the table above. Light & Magic, a six episode documentary, chronicles the birth and development of Industrial Light & Magic, the iconic special effects company Lucas established…and named.
When George Lucas was working on Star Wars he realized he needed special effects that were not technologically possible at that time. So Lucas hired John Dykstra who assembled a team of unusual but talented people who help him invent the cameras and the models necessary for George Lucas’s movie.
Director Lawrence Kasdan, who cowrote The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Return of the Jedi before launching his own career as a movie director, was on the periphery of Industrial Light & Magic’s birth, watching from the sidelines as the company brought to life the things he and Lucas wrote on the page. This is a documentary made by an insider who witnessed the development of this special effects company that would revolutionize film-making.
If you’re interested in movie making and movie history, Light & Magic shows how the special effects were developed and used. The transition from film to digital, painful and fatal to some of the artists at ILM, changes everything. GRADE: A
I used to be obsessed with special effects as a kid. I used to memorize the names of special effects artists and companies from television and film credits (L.B. Abbott, the Lydecker brothers, Howard Anderson and of course Doug Trumbull) and read everything I could get my hands on about the field (which wasn’t much at the time).
You can’t underestimate how much ILM changed things. By this point all of the studios had dismantled their effects departments and most effects pioneers had retired. On top of that, the New Hollywood era had all but killed off fantasy and science fiction so revolutionary effects driven films such as “2001” were pretty much a thing of the past. About the only people left in film were matte artists like Albert Whitlock and Matthew Yurcich with the really groundbreaking work being done in 7-Up and Levi’s commercials by Bob Abel. ILM effectively combined new and old by both refining lot of traditional techniques (matte paintings and blue screen) and pioneering new ones such as motion control. They really put their stamp on eighties films, for better and for worse, but eventually became something of their own worst enemies as artist after artist left to start their own competing companies that often underbid them for jobs. By 2000 much of their work consisted of saving films that had hired cheaper competitors who turned in unusable effects.
You’re right about how much CGI hit the business. I recall reading an interview with Phil Tippet, who was supposed to animate the dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park,” only to have the rug pulled out from under him by the CGI guys. He said hit went home that night, fell into bed, and didn’t get up for two weeks. Soon after ILM called him back begging him to teach their CGI animators who were all basically computer programmers with no animation training. This sounds like a good watch.
Byron, LIGHT AND MAGIC is terrific! I learned so much about how those great movies were made! Phil Tippet gave a moving interview about how he felt when ILM changed.
I always enjoy this sort of doc. Thanks for pointing it out.
Patti, I know you’ll find LIGHT AND MAGIC fascinating!
Now that you can do Anything in the Movies –Show the audience any image, any being or object or situation you’ve ever dreamed of — it comes down to who has the most fertile imagination. I still recall the SFX in Corman’s THE RAVEN, which are never convincing but always entertaining.
Dan, the early episodes of LIGHT AND MAGIC show George Lucas and his obvious frustration with the primitive special effects of the 1970s. It was apparent, even then, that Lucas saw the future of film making in the digital realm. That was the only way his fertile imagination could put on screen what was in his head.
Sounds interesting, though I haven’t watched too many of those “special effects” movies.
And now we’re having deep fakes everywhere so you can’t tell anymore what’s real and what’s not.
I don’t trust the media anymore!
Wolf, LIGHT AND MAGIC documents the transition from film to digital movies. Groundbreaking!