GEORGE LUCAS 

Owner:  Property of the Artist / Medium: Pencil and Colored Pencil on heavy, acid free paper / Year: 2005 / © Copyright: Mark Raats

During the 1960s, Lucas studied cinema in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, one of the earliest universities

to have a school devoted to film. There he made a number of short films, including an early version of THX1138, later to become his first full-length feature film.

After graduating, he co-founded the studio American Zoetrope with Francis Ford Coppola, hoping to create a liberating environment for filmmakers to direct in

outside the perceived oppressive control of the Hollywood studio system. American Zoetrope never really succeeded, but from the financial success of his

films American Graffiti and Star Wars, Lucas was able to set up his own studio, Lucasfilm, in Marin County in his native northern California. Besides his

directorial and production work on movies, Lucas is the most significant contemporary contributor to modern movie technology. In 1975 Lucas established

Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) in Van Nuys, CA and through ILM, Lucas spurred the further development of computer graphics, film laser scanners and the

earliest use of 3D computer character animation in a film, Young Sherlock Holmes. Lucas sold his early computer development unit to Apple's Steve Jobs

in 1988, which was renamed Pixar. Lucas is responsible for the modern sound systems found in many movie theaters and although he didn't invent THX, he was

responsible for its development. Lucas' companies: Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light and Magic, have become among the most respected firms in their fields.

Lucasfilm Games, later renamed to LucasArts, is highly regarded in the computer games industry. Lucas has also spearheaded the use of digital technology

for the motion picture industry.

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