The Bearded Trio

"A return to practical effects" is a phrase I've heard numerous times in the lead up to The Force Awakens.  I wanted to show that the prequels were not all CGI.  Hundreds of miniatures, sets and props were made just for one of the prequels alone.  One of the prequels had more practical effects than all three of the original trilogy.  Here's a collection of photos just showing some of the practical effects used in the prequels Rob Wainfur @thebeardedtrio The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and John Williams THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+ THE BEARDED TRIO ON PINTEREST CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON STEVEN SPIELBERG CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON GEORGE LUCAS CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON JOHN WILLIAMS

Mark Hamill is to narrate a one off special on Industrial Light & Magic who see's their 40th anniversary this year.  The special will air in the U.S. on Sunday July 19th at 10pm ET/PT. INDIANA JONES, JURASSIC PARK, and STAR WARS -- perfect examples of Science fiction inspiring Science fact. For four decades, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a division of LucasFilm, has taken the impossible and made it possible. Magical cinematic milestones have become inspiration for real life scientific and technological innovations that have forever changed entertainment and the world. Featuring exclusive interviews with George Lucas, Joss Whedon, and an army of ILM masterminds, including John Knoll and Dennis Muren, Science Channel's RAIDERS, RAPTORS AND REBELS: BEHIND THE MAGIC OF ILM gives Science Channel viewers a secret glimpse behind the closed doors of ILM, where scientific and technological wonders unfold, on Sunday, July 19th at 10PM ET/PT. "We are excited to give...

The Bearded Trio are pleased to bring you a brand new clip from the upcoming disaster movie, San Andreas. After the infamous San Andreas Fault finally gives, triggering a magnitude 9 earthquake in California, a search and rescue helicopter pilot (Dwayne Johnson) and his estranged wife make their way together from Los Angeles to San Francisco to save their only daughter.  But their treacherous journey north is only the beginning.  And when they think the worst may be over…it’s just getting started. The action thriller “San Andreas,” from New Line Cinema and Village Roadshow Pictures, reunites Dwayne Johnson with director Brad Peyton and producer Beau Flynn, following their collaboration on the global hit “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.”     The film also stars Carla Gugino (“Night at the Museum,” TV’s “Entourage”),Alexandra Daddario (“Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters,” TV’s “True Detective”), Ioan Gruffudd (“Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer”),...

In the new series “Agent Carter,” Marvel expands its universe to the small screen with help from Industrial Light & Magic, working against grueling weekly delivery dates. The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and John Williams THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+ THE BEARDED TRIO ON PINTEREST CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON STEVEN SPIELBERG CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON GEORGE LUCAS CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON JOHN WILLIAMS

Here's a really interesting video from the official Industrial Light & Magic Youtube channel.  It shows the talented team's work on Captain America:  The Winter Soldier. We are proud to present a sampling of of ILM’s visual effects work for Marvel's blockbuster hit, 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' directed by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo.  THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+ THE BEARDED TRIO ON PINTEREST CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON STEVEN SPIELBERG CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON GEORGE LUCAS CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON JOHN WILLIAMS

Behind the scenes looks at Industrial Light and Magic's visual effects for 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End'. Interviews with John Knoll and Joakim Arnesson. THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+ THE BEARDED TRIO ON PINTEREST CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON STEVEN SPIELBERG CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON GEORGE LUCAS CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON JOHN WILLIAMS

Check out these wonderful behind the scenes photo showing close up shots of the work Industrial Light and Magic put in to bring us the magic that is Star Wars from 1977 - 1983. See more of these glorious close up shot from ILM here THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+ THE BEARDED TRIO ON PINTEREST CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON STEVEN SPIELBERG CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON GEORGE LUCAS CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON JOHN WILLIAMS

The doors were open yesterday on Industrial Light & Magic's new department in London.  They also revealed the new senior team to head the department.  They marked the opening with an opening ceremony.  Present were UK Chancellor George Osborne; Ed Vaizey, Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy; Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy; ILM president and general manager Lynwen Brennan; ILM chief creative officer John Knoll; ILM London’s director of operations, Sue Lyster; creative director Ben Morris; and animation director Michael Eames. The London studio is currently working on the highly anticipated sequels Avengers: Age of Ultron and Star Wars: Episode VII and will also service the UK market directly. Brennan praised London for its “fantastic visual effects industry and rich talent pool made”, which made it “an ideal location to expand our global footprint”. The studio’s most recent addition is art director and concept artist Kevin Jenkins. Ben Mo...

Although this video is three years old, its still worth watching to see the hardware ILM had and have to produce movies such as Rango.  Back in 2011 they had 8500 CPU cores!  I might be able to play Skyrim in full resolution with that. Arik Hesseldahl talks to Kevin Clark of LucasFilm's Industrial Light & Magic about the data center that serves the famously geeky and CGI-intensive company. Watch the video here.  Rob @thebeardedtrio  THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+ THE BEARDED TRIO ON PINTEREST CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON STEVEN SPIELBERG CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON GEORGE LUCAS CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON JOHN WILLIAMS

For all those budding Dennis Murens out there or those inspired by Industrial Light & Magic and want to know more about the creative talent behind the animation and visual effects then the BFX Festival is for you. The BFX Festival returns to Bournemouth this summer to celebrate British talent and creativity in animation, computer games and visual effects and inspire the next generation of people to enter the booming industries. Last year’s BFX Festival was a fantastic celebration of visual effects, animation and games and this year’s event is aiming to build that success, with experts and enthusiasts from across the UK and beyond presenting an amazing selection of material and leading a range of Festival activities that will appeal to all. Tickets are now on sale for the Festival, which will take place across four days from 24-28 September 2014 , hosted at the Bournemouth International Centre . Talks featuring movie titles such as The Lego Movie, Gravity, Maleficent, God...

The Michael Bay movie and fourth instalment of the Transformers franchise, Transformers:  Age of Extinction continues to be a huge hit in China and easily becoming the top grossing movie ever in the country.  With special effects by Industrial Light & Magic it seems the Chinese are lapping up the tyipcal Bay movie with big explosions and close up battle shots. According to LATimes : "Transformers: Age of Extinction” keeps extending its lead over “Avatar” as the top-grossing movie ever in China, dominating the mainland box office for a third consecutive week and taking in $52 million in the seven days ending Sunday. In its first 17 days in theaters in China, the Michael Bay film grossed $260 million, $36 million above the record set by “Avatar” in 2010, according to figures from Shanghai-based consulting firm Artisan Gateway. With two weeks left for the Paramount Pictures film in Chinese cinemas, it looks like it could reach the $300-million mark before it completes...

To celebrate the arrival of the much anticipated  Transformers: Age of Extinction film, Cineworld, the UK’s leading cinema, put on a surprise performance for eager fans ahead of the first screening, with two   oversized Transformers taking over The O2 Cineworld on Saturday 5 th  July 2014. The unexpected appearance, which included the  Optimus Prime  and  Bumblebee  characters,astounded and amazed cinema-goers who had booked to see the latest offering from the popular franchise.The seven foot tall Transformers were sat in the screen waiting for the Cineworld customers to enter and after the initial surprise, they posed for photos with fans and made full use of the cinema’s facilities as they attempted to help themselves to pop-corn, sweets and ice-cream! David Spence, Cineworld O2 General Manager , comments: “ We were delighted to have been able to provide such a special experience for Transformers fans. At Cineworld we believe it is i...

Jim Nelson, the veteran sound editor and post production guru who helped put together Industrial Light & Magic for George Lucas to create the original Star Wars, has died. He was 81. Hollywood Reporter write: Nelson, whose real name was James M. Falkinburg, died June 18, his family announced in a paid obituary in the Los Angeles Times. No other details about his death were immediately available. Since beginning his industry career at age 17, Nelson worked on 21 films, 38 TV series – worth more than 1,700 episodes – and many telefilms, documentaries and specials. He served as a sound editor or effects man on Rock Around the Clock (1956), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), Head (1968), The Last Picture Show (1971), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Lucas' American Graffiti (1973), The Exorcist (1973) and Badlands (1973), and he was an associate producer and unit production manager on The China Syndrome (1979).  "George brought in people meant...

It's nice when life brings you consistency and SFX magazine is consistent.  Every month the talented people at SFX bring us a quality magazine full of the latest Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror news, reviews, previews and more. Contributing to that consistent quality, this month James Clarke brings us a particular interesting article on Industrial Light & Magic veteran, John Knoll.  Knoll has worked on so many classics including Empire of the Sun, Hook, Lucasfilm's Willow and the award winning The Abyss.  James Clarke talks to the man who helped bring so much magic to the silver screen. SFX Magazine is on sale now and you can get your copy here Rob Wainfur @welshslider THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+

Industrial Light & Magic was tasked with updating the helicarriers in the new film Captain America: The Winter Soldier. FXguide's Mike Seymour talks to the visual effects company to find out what new details were added to the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircrafts, and how the effects team created a digital  modelling  environment for the epic helicarrier crash scene. THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+

The recently announced Vancouver branch of Industrial Light and Magic brings job opportunities for those talented and lucky enough to work in the FX industry.  70 new employees will have the opportunity to work for the FX giants and work on movies such as Jurassic World, Star Trek and a little movie called Star Wars VII. It’s great news for the Vancouver visual effects industry, but it might create shortages of qualified staff, said Brent Greening, senior instructor of visual effects at Vancouver Film School. “This is going to have an impact in Vancouver and B.C. because it’s showing that even the big boys want to play here. ILM has been around for 30 years or more. They did the first Star Wars and they’re pioneers in the visual effects world,” Greening said. So for them to set up shop here and to make a go of it using the talent from Vancouver is phenomenal.” “I can see there being a shortage (of qualified workers) in the future if we don’t do something about it,” Greeni...

ILM president Lynwen Brennan, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, ILM Chief Creative Office John Knoll, MLA Naomi Yamamoto, MP Ed Fast Industrial Light And Magic have opened it's latest studio.  This time in Gastown, Vancouver.  The site is an ex-Pixar 30,000-square foot studio.  Pixar vacated the building in October 2013. ILM president, Lynwen Brennan had this to say about the new building and to put fears to rest about the studio going the same way as previous residents, Pixar: "We're in very different businesses so the reason for Pixar leaving are very different than what would affect the visual effects industry," Brennan said at the ILM Vancouver office. "It's been well documented their reasons for leaving here was they wanted to consolidate production all in one place. So for us, we're actually needing more capacity. So what we're looking for at ILM is we need to grow, we need more artists, and we need talented artists." ILM chief c...

ILM are moving to Blighty!  The visual effects division of Lucasfilm are to open a facility in London to work on the effects for the new Star Wars movies and more. According to the Hollywood Reporter, its 200 staff will also work on other films produced in the UK. These include Age of Ultron, the follow-up to 2012's Avengers Assemble. Star Wars: Episode VII is expected to start shooting in May at Pinewood studios under JJ Abrams' direction. Roger Guyett will supervise the visual effects for the new Star Wars film, having previously worked with Abrams on his Star Trek films. Guyett also worked on Revenge of the Sith, the third of the three Star Wars prequels that Lucas directed between 1999 and 2005. The Hollywood Reporter quotes ILM president Lynwen Brennan as saying the new facility will be "a full service studio" with an "end-to-end visual effects and computer graphics pipeline". "We needed to expand, and London is a key place to find gr...