Industrial Light & Magic are celebrating half a century of innovation and creativity, solving problems and making magic in every corner of the cosmos, from the savagery of the Jurassic Park film to the oceans of Pirates of the Carribean, the tombs of Indiana Jones to the galaxy of Star Wars, and Variety take a look at all of that as well as what’s ahead for ILM as we enter the next 50 years of the company.
ILM has been working with bands to provide graphics for The Sphere. Says Lewin, “We intentionally have taken the step to converge all of our subbrands under ILM more intentionally, so our immersive brand is now really part of ILM, and that allows us to be more proactive in going out to our creative partners and offering end-to-end services.”
ILM has grown from a team of 25 artists working out of a warehouse in Van Nuys to a company that employs over 3,500 VFX artists across the globe. At any given time, they’re working on multiple projects. Next up is Guillermo Del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” which is headed to the Venice Film Festival.
Says Lewin, “We’re always inspired by a great, innovative and creative challenge like that of ‘ABBA Voyage,’ and it’s sort of become a calling card for us, for this, burgeoning new line of business.”
As for AI, Knoll says the threat of things becoming obsolete has always existed. “We’re a company that’s never been afraid of change. We were founded on the idea of new thinking, and is there a better way? And not being afraid or resistant to that because we’re often disrupting ourselves, and in that regard, I think that machine learning and AI are going to be another version of [finding a better way].”
