Bat Au Natural 

By Michael Goldman

Chat with director Chris Nolan, winner of the ongoing, eight-year sweepstakes to helm a new version of the Batman story with this month's Batman Begins, and he will repeatedly stress a simple theme behind his philosophy for making the movie: “a realistic, naturalistic, rich, high-quality look.” That meant that Nolan did not want to make the proverbial “big effects film.” Early on, in fact, he vetoed an opportunity to perform a digital intermediate...

NAB 2005 

By S. D. Katz, David Leitner, Dan Ochiva, and Bob Turner

Expect this NAB to be lively and bring some surprises. The show floor demonstrations will be driven by a steadily growing demand for HDTV, aided by a new generation of affordable HD production and post gear...

NAB 2005 — Digital Intermediate: Trends and Workflow 

By Michael Goldman

For major facilities actively engaged in digital intermediate work on major feature films, NAB is less of a watershed for us than it used to be, in the...

Exclusive: The Lucas POV  

By Michael Goldman

Even though he has received more than a few Lifetime Achievement awards, George Lucas isn't ready to view his career...

Making Samurai 

By Michael Goldman

If the devil is in the details, then there was plenty of devil in The Last Samurai. As director Edward Zwick explains, his decision to commit the film to historically accurate visuals at an epic-like......

Business of Effects Complex 

By Tim Sarnoff

Web-Expanded Version Related links For an essay by Garrett Smith, vice president of Digital Mastering Operations at Paramount Pictures, click here. The...

Using The Force: How ILM's Army Conquered The Phantom Menace 

Ellen Wolff

Eight weeks before the premiere of George Lucas' Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, things were surprisingly calm at ground zero, Industrial Light...

Director: Errol Morris 

D.W. Leitner

"Over the years I keep thinking: The whole idea of cinema verite did tremendous damage to filmmaking in general, and to documentary filmmaking in particular,"...

Eight Hours for Hollywood 

Marsha Scarbrough

After veteran line producer Robert Schneider budgeted a $40 million below-the-line studio feature film based on the usual 12-hour shooting day, he decided...

Sci-Tech Awards Online Gallery 

More images from Industrial Light & Magic's projects...