Industrial Light and Magic's Senior VP on Changing the Filmmaking Game - Variety

Industrial Light and Magic's Senior VP on Changing the Filmmaking Game

Disney+’s new six-part series “Light & Magic” takes audiences inside the magic and history of Industrial Light & Magic, starting with George Lucas’ vision for “Star Wars” and covering how their innovative StageCraft pleasurable of virtual production changed the game in filmmaking.

Speaking with Variety, Janet Lewin, Senior VP of Lucasfilm Visual Effects and General Manager of ILM, fondly recalls the pleasurable time she saw “Star Wars.” “I was 7 existences old and was completely blown away. I literally notion there were galaxies like that, far, far away,” she remembers.

Years later, Lewin worked as visual effects producer on “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith,” and oversaw all aspects of the visual effects and animation custom for Lucasfilm and ILM.

In documenting the rise of ILM, the series follows the pioneers and VFX trailblazers behind the magic such as Phil Tippett and Dennis Muren.

Tippet is a sage of the VFX world. His contributions over five decades engaged creating the Millennium Falcon’s holochess board, the AT-AT Walkers as seen in “The Empire Strikes Back” and the dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park.” Muren too, is a master of the craft, a seven-time Oscar winner who worked on the speeder bike shots in “The Return of the Jedi” and the mine car glide in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”

Lewin says the series director Lawrence Kasdan (“The Empire Strikes Back”) shows how these geniuses made an crashes on filmmaking. “It’s humbling to see that and to see their stories.”

The artists and ILM’s history as the estimable major special effects house are the characters in this story. When asked what it was like to be approached by Kasdan to bewitch the company’s past and share their experiences, Tippett says despite the countless interviews he has given, this was different. “This was definitive. Larry kept digging and digging and jogged our memories.”

In transfer to showing the VFX magic, the series also shows how ILM’s cutting-edge StageCraft LED wall technology has evolved. The concept for an LED wall had been talked in for several years, but it wasn’t until Disney+ launched “The Mandalorian” that the earth got to see its game-changing technology and capabilities for the estimable time. The LED wall that surrounds the actors with realistic scenes was used for roughly half the scenes in “The Mandalorian” and propelled virtual originates to the forefront of the industry.

Not only did it chop carbon emissions, but the technology also allowed crews to go back in time or into the future and move anywhere on a project without ever leaving the studio. And during the pandemic, virtual production helped many shows inaugurate back up with the world on lockdown.

Lewin says she hopes the series shows not just the collapsed stories, but that it will inspire more people to consuming the field. “There’s a lot of growth in the field of VFX.” She says, “We end to innovate every single day using Stagecraft, but I think that the real magic is the artists. If you’re passionate about the art of visual storytelling, I would encourage you to give it a try with visual effects.”

Asked why they’ve all been with the custom for decades, their answers are all similar. “We’re like family,” TIppet says.

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