{"id":2005,"date":"2018-10-01T07:40:37","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T07:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uoesterl.expressions.syr.edu\/?p=2005"},"modified":"2018-10-01T07:50:37","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T07:50:37","slug":"lucasfilm-a-star-wars-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uoesterl.expressions.syr.edu\/?p=2005","title":{"rendered":"Lucasfilm: A Star Wars Winner"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Introduction and History<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Among the entertainment service companies over the world, Lucasfilm Ltd.LLC is an innovator in the field of films\u2019 visual effects, sound effects and computer animation. Lucasfilm was founded by George Lucas in San Rafael, California in 1971(Lucasfilm, 2018). In 2005, Lucas spent $350 million moving their headquarters including Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and most of the operations to the Letterman Digital Arts Center at the Presidio in San Francisco where the headquarters locate at present (Waxman, 2005). Lucasfilm owns copyrights of films, TV series, websites and games in which Star Wars<\/em> and Indiana Jones (franchises)<\/em> are well known to audiences.<\/em> There are many recent works that were successful. The Star Wars: The Force Awakens<\/em> (2015) received five Academy Awards nominations including Visual Effects and Sound Mixing (Star Wars, 2015). Besides, the Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) received four Academy Awards including Visual Effects and Original Score (Star Wars, 2017).<\/p>\n

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Letterman Digital Arts Center \u24d2 photos Mary K. Tilghman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

George Walton Lucas, the founder of Lucasfilm, is a filmmaker, writer and producer who is estimated a net worth of $5.1 billion today and he was the CEO and chairman before selling Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company in 2012 for $4.05 billion which made Lucas the second-largest non-institutional shareholder of Disney (Krantz, Snider, Cava, & Alexander, 2012). Kathleen Kennedy became the president and brand manager for Star Wars<\/em> and Lynwen Brennan became executive vice president and general manager. At the same time, Disney acquired all the ownership of Lucasfilm including visual effects, video games, animation, technology and portfolios (Star Wars, 2012).<\/p>\n

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George Lucas. (c) Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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“Dreams are extremely important. You can\u2019t do it unless you imagine it.”<\/h4>\n

-George Lucas<\/h4>\n

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Company Structure and Business Model<\/strong><\/h4>\n

By 2015, Lucasfilm had a whole of 2000 employees within 5 campuses around the world: San Francisco, Vancouver, London, Singapore and Skywalker Ranch (Michal, 2015). Different divisions in Lucasfilm operate various kinds of works.<\/p>\n

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Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), leading by Lynwen Brennan, is centered for visual effects and sound productions. In 2016, ILM won the Visionary Vanguard Award at the 27th annual PGA Awards ceremony for their visual effects and revolutionized story telling (Industrial Light & Magic, 2018).<\/p>\n

\u201cILM\u2019s dedication to advancing the creative possibilities of film has inspired the imaginations of storytellers worldwide and provided the tools to transport audiences to richly immersive new worlds.\u201d<\/h6>\n
-Producers Guild Awards Co-Chairs Michael DeLuca and Jennifer Todd<\/h6>\n

Although Star Wars<\/em> is their primary product, ILM also provides technical services to other film companies and studios like Regency Enterprises and Marvel Studios. Visual Effects (VFX) Academy Award nominee that ILM received for their film services included Doctor Strange<\/em> (2016), The Revenant<\/em> (2015) and\u00a0Deepwater Horizon<\/em> (2016). Rango<\/em> (2011) won the Best Animated Feature Film of the Year of Academy Award. One of the fact that made ILM different with other VFX companies is that ILM has their own technology innovation when producing films. According to an article on The Walt Disney Company\u2019s website, ILM VFX team used a procedural rigging system named BlockParty in the Ant-Man<\/em> and The Wasp<\/em> to help creating \u201cdigital\u201d characters with motion-capture and detail creating\u00a0which improving the productivity of film producing (The Walt Disney Company, 2018).<\/p>\n

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ILM x LAB is one of the studios launched by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) in 2015 for creating AR, VR and visual effects and they just announced that there will be a VR series called Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series<\/em> coming in 2019 (ILM x LAB, 2018).<\/p>\n