By Aharon Rabinowitz
Published on Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
Hi Folks – Next week, I’ll be flying out to San Francisco to interview John Knoll, for Red Giant TV. Unless you’ve been living in a cave free of VFX news, you know that John Knoll was ILM’s Visual Effects Supervisor for Avatar, Star Wars, and many other films. He is one of Hollywood’s most in-demand collaborators for VFX, having won many awards (including an Oscar) for his contributions to some of the biggest films of all time.
We’ll be talking about his film work, co-creating Photoshop with his brother Thomas, and the evolution and use of his popular software, Knoll Light Factory, in motion graphics and films like Avatar, Transformers, J. J. Abram’s Star Trek, and many others.
I’m incredibly excited. I’ve worked with and met a lot of cool people, but this is a whole other thing. His influence on what we do is so profound, I just hope I don’t forget my own name** when I sit down with him, let alone remember to ask him some worthwhile questions about his work. So I need your help…
If there’s anything you ever wanted to ask this visual effects master, post it here, and I may just ask it for you.
No promises – but make it good, and I’ll do my best.
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** That may or may not have happened to me when I worked with Director Frank Oz (a.k.a. Yoda). I can neither confirm nor deny.
Tags: After Effects, Avatar, ILM, John Knoll, KLF, Knoll Light Factory
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:45 pm
ask john about his recreation of the moon landings he was working on a long time ago. he was using form-z i believe to recreate the whole moon landing precisely and had written some crazy stuff to translate data from the original sources and vhs tapes.
i would like to know what ever happened to all that since we just went thru the whole thing again lately with the anniversary.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:17 am
Just ask him did hi watch tutorials or they look funny to him
January 7th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Ask him what he thinks of Andrew Kramer’s Optical Flares plug-in… and how KLF is going to fight back.
What does he think of the current state of Photoshop? (v1.0 was released exactly 20 years ago!)
And how did they make 3D lens flares for Avatar?
January 13th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
I think one of the greatest things to hear from him would be along the lines of how to start and build into a successful career in the VFX world. A lot of us are learning and building skills randomly and it would be great to hear him say “This is what I recommend to anyone trying to create a career in the field of VFX.” It would especially be great for the kiddies.
January 20th, 2010 at 5:50 am
I’d love to know how to begin a career in the motion design industry as well as to know if he’s hiring… (specifically someone with a video editing background)
And congratulations, John Knoll, on all your wonderful work, being an industry tour de force, and on developing such spectacular plug-ins!
And congratulations Aharon, on landing such an amazing interview! Can’t wait to see/read it!
February 5th, 2010 at 2:49 am
how long was he doing VFX for before he become a visual effects supervisor? And how much did he know about VFX on his first film as supervisor?
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Does John Knoll is the owner of Adobe inc. or he is just the creator of photoshop? I mean does he is own the company?, good luck with these amazing interview Aharon,
April 9th, 2010 at 5:29 am
Thanks Morsiii. No John Knoll does not own Adobe. He co-created photoshop with his brother, but day-to-day he is a Director of Visual Effects at ILM.