Industrial Light & Magic

Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM as fans call it, was born out of necessity in 1975. George Lucas wanted to make a space opera unlike anything audiences had seen, but the existing studio effects departments told him his ideas were impossible. So he assembled a ragtag team of engineers, artists, and dreamers in a converted Van Nuys warehouse. Led by John Dykstra, they invented motion-control photography on the fly, building cameras that could repeat precisely the same move over and over. The result was Star Wars, and suddenly every filmmaker wanted what ILM had.

After that first film, ILM moved north to San Rafael, California, and later settled into the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco's Presidio in 2005. The company didn't just rest on its practical-effects laurels. When digital effects started emerging, ILM dove in headfirst, creating the first fully computer-generated character in a feature film, the stained-glass knight in Young Sherlock Holmes (1985). Then came the water tentacle in The Abyss, the liquid-metal T-1000 in Terminator 2, and the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. Each milestone pushed the industry forward.

Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4.05 billion, bringing ILM into the Mouse House. But the company kept its identity and its hunger for innovation. In recent years, ILM developed StageCraft, a virtual production system that surrounds actors with massive LED walls displaying real-time rendered backgrounds. First used on The Mandalorian, it has transformed how television and film are made. The company now operates studios in London, Singapore, Vancouver, and Sydney, running a 24-hour global pipeline. With over 300 feature films and more than 20 Academy Awards, ILM remains the standard by which all other effects houses are measured.[edit]