This month I had chance to read two interesting books on George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic, pioneers in special effects.

- Industrial Light & Magic: The art of special effects. Amazon Link here (http://www.amazon.com/Industrial-Light-Magic-Special-Effects/dp/0345322630)

This book published in late 80’s gives an inside look into various FX scenes for the movies from that period. It was an eye opening experience to read through and look through various matte paintings and to see famous scenes from various popular movies where the line between reality and models, props blur. This book mostly focuses on Star Wars saga, Indiana Jones and few others.

- Industrial Light & Magic: Into the Digital Realm. Amazon Link here
(http://www.amazon.com/Industrial-Light-Magic-Digital-Realm/dp/0345381521)

This book can be considered as a continuation of “The art of special effects”. Published in late 90’s it chronicles the paradigm shift from traditional model making, painting, props, optical compositing etc into the digital realm. This book covers Jurassic Park, ET, Terminator 2 and few others, and also gives a good idea on proliferation of tools like XSI, Maya, Photoshop etc.

Some interesting tidbits from the above two books.

- The one which caught me by surprise was the photos of actual models, paintings for the last few minutes from “Indian Jones: The last Crusade”.

Seek to 6:48 and can you believe the whole thing is a miniature model?

- Berlin Airport

Scroll to about 0:45 which shows front of Berlin Airport. Can you believe that it is matte painting created and filmed somewhere in San Francisco?

If movie special FX fancies you, you shouldn’t miss the above two. If you are Star Wars or ILM fan, the above two and the “Droidmaker” are worth owning.