Evaluating Books

The book’s full reference: Thomas G. Smith.: Industrial Light and Magic: the art of special effects. Virgin. 1986
New York : Ballantine Books, 1996.
The author is Thomas G. Smith. He used to work with industrial light and magic which is a visual effect company founded by George Lucas the creator and director of Star Wars. The company didn’t work just on Star Wars but produced special effects for a lot of movies such as Indiana Jones, Forrest Gump, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Terminator …
There is also another ILM book: Mark Cotta Vaz and Patricia Rose Duignan: Industrial Light & Magic : into the digital realm.


The book was published by New York : Ballantine Books, in 1996. The author works for ILM and this is an official book of the company that presents its creations and visual effects techniques. It cannot be taboo since it doesn’t deal with any subject that could be taboo. I will use it for both to see the evolution of special effects through the times (I’ll Focus on some specific movies). It is more for fans I think, because there are specific details and technical terms proper to Star Wars, Cinema and Industrial light and Magic special visual effects. However, there are also a lot of pictures with legends that help a person with a normal amount of knowledge to understand the concept a little bit. This is an official book of The Industrial Light and Magic Company. It illustrates the work and creation of Lucas’ company. It informs because it gives information about the company’s work in Star Wars and also in many other movies. Informing and reporting are somehow linked, since when you report you automatically inform. Then by describing, illustrating, quoting some producers and supervisors inside the company, and explaining how the company realized, and still realizes, its creations, it does a lot of reporting. The author got the information from the inside of the company. It is important to know the authors’ sources because to trust the information; so, it is a reliability’s issue. It is very useful. I spent a lot of time to find it since it is perfect for my subject. I could not have found something that deals more with my subject. It is a book of the company that creates special effects for all the great Hollywood’s movies. So there is no one with more information and examples.
I spent a pretty long time looking for a book that deals with new technologies in cinema. However, after hours of researches, in vain, I thought it would be easier, more intelligent, and more beneficial for my work if I narrowed my topic. Therefore, instead of looking for new technologies in cinema, which is a vast subject that spreads over a lot of vast fields like sound, picture, lightening, scenery, decors and costumes etc, I searched for specific cases in cinema. The most revolutionary cinema story in the domain of special effects is obviously Star Wars. Moreover, I also saw in Star Wars a possibility to compare between the past and the present. Indeed, the saga extends over decades, from 1977 when the episode 4 had emerged, to 2005 which marked the release of the last episode of the saga: the Revenge of the Sith. The interesting thing here is that George Lucas chose to direct and produce the episodes 4, 5 and 6 before the the first 3 ones blaming the lack of budget and also the limited technology back then. George Lucas is the one who created the Industrial Light & Magic for the special effect of his movies, but he later expanded his company to the projects of other movies.
There were two books named Industrial Light and Magic. The first one, the one I first found, was published in 1986 by Thomas G. Smith who used to work with the company. The complete title of this first book is Industrial Light and Magic: the art of special effects. The second one was published in 1996 by Mark Cotta Vaz and has the title: Industrial Light & Magic: into the digital realm. I only found this second book in the library of the University, so I picked it. Besides, to complete my case study on Star Wars, I found another book: Cinetech by Stephen Keane that had an analysis of two of the episodes of the saga Star Wars.