As Light & Magic continues to delight and educate fans on the storied, Oscar-laden history of ILM, Lawrence Kasdan talks with the official site about the series and his own journey through the Star Wars galaxy.
Kasdan’s work on Raiders and Empire brought him into the orbit of ILM early in his career. Although he found their work exhilarating, tackling the documentary was the first opportunity he had to sit down and talk to his former colleagues at length. “I was around ILM, but ILM had just been created. I wasn’t watching how they did it, I was just casually meeting people and going to screenings and saying, ‘Wow!’ You know?”
After writing and directing narrative films for 40 years, Light & Magic is Kasdan’s second documentary, after making a short film about a favorite family diner sparked his interest in the genre. In collaboration with Imagine Documentaries, which had recently been founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, it felt like the right time to chronicle ILM’s history. Howard and Grazer loved the idea, and already had a working relationship with Disney and ILM. “And I said, ‘Well, ILM, that’s like asking me back to my old high school,’” Kasdan quips.
