Sep 16, 2015
Education
San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco Film Society has announced that it will present the The Art & Science of Lucasfilm: Jurassic World, the latest event in an educational series produced in collaboration with the local industry powerhouse, Wednesday September 23, 12:00 pm at the Premier Theater at the Letterman Digital Arts Center. Open exclusively to middle and high-school classes engaged in year-round SFFS Education programs, this installment will focus on Industrial Light & Magic’s (ILM) groundbreaking visual effects work on the summer blockbuster film Jurassic World. Now in its eighth year, the Art & Science series is designed to draw connections between the art, math and science being taught in Bay Area schools and the processes behind the mind-blowing special effects, creative character design and visual storytelling seen in recent blockbuster hits.
The Art & Science of Lucasfilm is a collaboration between the Film Society’s Education program and the Industrial Light & Magic Studio Talent Group. The SFFS Education program is facilitated by Education Program Manager Keith Zwölfer, and serves more than 11,000 students and teachers every year-from kindergarten through college-to develop media literacy, cultural awareness, global understanding and a lifelong appreciation of cinema. SFFS Education aims to cultivate students’ imaginations, prepare them for filmmaking careers and empower them to succeed in a media-saturated world. SFFS celebrates 25 years of innovative educational programming this year. The Studio Talent Group is ILM’s Technical and Artistic Education Department, supporting the studio’s learning programs in its four global locations: San Francisco, Vancouver, London and Singapore. Director of Talent Development, Danielle O’Hare, leads the Studio Talent Group.
“We are thrilled to continue our successful partnership with SFFS,” said O’Hare. “We are so excited to share how ILM creates amazing visual imagery with some of the Bay Area’s brightest young minds.”
“We are immensely proud of this innovative collaboration with our amazing partners at Lucasfilm and ILM,” said SFFS Executive Director Noah Cowan. “This educational event series is frankly one of the most inspiring presentations I’ve witnessed in a movie theater setting, and it’s immeasurably satisfying to participate in the cultivation of the next generation of filmmakers and cinephiles. You can almost hear the synapses being formed as these young students make the connection between what they’re learning in classrooms and the art and technology behind their favorite movies.”
In the Art & Science of Lucasfilm program, experienced professionals from the various Lucasfilm divisions share their knowledge with Bay Area middle- and high-school students in a series of behind-the-scenes, interactive multimedia presentations that demonstrate the intersection of art and science in the entertainment industry. Each event includes time for discussion, where students have the opportunity to ask questions of Lucasfilm directors, supervisors, artists and engineers. A curriculum guide will also be presented to teachers to bring additional lessons into the classroom.
In 1993 Industrial Light & Magic brought living, breathing dinosaurs back from extinction, a move that would help shape the future of cinema itself. In this fall’s program, Industrial Light & Magic’s VFX Supervisor Tim Alexander, Animation Supervisor Glen McIntosh and Creature Supervisor Kaori Ogino will discuss the new visual effects techniques developed for modeling and texturing, environment creation, and advanced motion capture retargeting technology that allowed ILM to breathe life into Jurassic World, the latest installment in the franchise which was directed by Colin Trevorrow. This program is recommended for grades 6-12.
Tim Alexander joined Industrial Light & Magic in 1996 and since then has rapidly ascended from the rank of compositor to acclaimed Visual Effects Supervisor. Alexander has twice been nominated for the BAFTA award, one resulting in a win for The Perfect Storm. He has also received a Visual Effects Society award nomination for Best Visual Effects of the Year for his work on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In 2011, his work as the Visual Effects Supervisor on Gore Verbinski’s and ILM’s first animated feature, Rango, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2012.
Glen McIntosh has been with Industrial Light & Magic since 1998. He has created animation for George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. His additional credits include Jurassic Park III, Hulk and numerous commercials including Pepsi’s “Playacting” which received a Clio Award for Outstanding Character Animation. McIntosh’s latest work can be seen in the summer blockbuster Jurassic World.
Kaori Ogino joined Industrial Light & Magic in 2006. As a CG Technology Supervisor at ILM, Kaori is responsible for working with the global Head of CG to develop, evolve and communicate best practices in CG techniques and workflows. Prior to assuming her position as CG Technology Supervisor, Kaori was a Creature Supervisor on several films, overseeing the creation of digital assets, creatures and the rigging necessary to animate them.
Recent Art & Science of Lucasfilm presentations have included Strange Magic with Lucasfilm Creative Executive Rayne Roberts, ILM VFX Supervisor Tony Plett and Production Manager Julie Peng (January 2015); Star Wars Rebels with Executive Producer Dave Filoni, Line Producer Athena Portillo and Art Director Kilian Plunkett (October 2014), We Build Cool Stuff with Lucasfilm Research & Development Software Designers Mike Jutan, Rachel Rose and Matthew Parrott (March 2014); The Animation of Pacific Rim with ILM Animation Supervisor Hal Hickel (November 2013); Assembling the VFX for Marvel’s The Avengers with ILM VFX Supervisor Jeff White, Digital Production Supervisor Jason Smith and Animation Director Marc Chu (November 2012); Skywalker Sound: Creating Sound for Film at California School for the Blind with Will Files and Jon Greber (February 2012); and Inside Motion Capture with ILM Digital Supervisor Michael Sanders (November 2011), among many others.
“Participating in the SFFS Art & Science of Lucasfilm program was awesome,” said Hal Hickel, ILM Animation Supervisor. “My dad was a high school English teacher, so I have a real appreciation for what the SFFS Education team is doing. I wish I’d had access to such great programs when I was a kid!”
“The SFFS Art & Science of Lucasfilm series is great because it starts with a topic that the students are extremely interested in-Star Wars-and then goes from there,” said Bay Area teacher Mary Vyas. “The value of these San Francisco Film Society Education events in my opinion is that you are giving the students some training in being more than consumers of film. It’s so great to see them take the time to think about the films as more than entertainment through the discussions and study guides.”
For complete and up-to-date information on all Film Society educational programs, including information about how to participate as an educator, visit sffs.org/education.