John Knoll

"No matter how technologically advanced moviemaking instruments have become, they remain tools. And as tools, they will always need artists to wield them, and their creative visions to lead the way. To us, there is no greater example of such an artist than John Knoll. Whatever the problem we throw at him, he'll never fail to come up with a solution that not only meets the technical requirements or limitations of the project, but also makes sense within the overall storytelling. Hand the impossible to John, and he'll crack it."

―Rick McCallum^[1]

John Knoll is Chief Creative Officer/Senior Visual Effects Supervisor of Industrial Light & Magic, having been promoted to that position on May 23, 2013, after serving as the company's visual effects supervisor. He joined ILM in 1986.^[2]

Knoll is an Academy Award winner, and has been nominated five times overall for his work on visual effects. In addition to his extensive visual-effects work on the prequels, Knoll created the opening crawls for all three films on his personal computer.^[3]

He made cameo appearances as Rya Kirsch in Episode I and as Tannon Praji and the Coruscant firefighter pilot in Episode III.

His first book, Creating the Worlds of Star Wars: 365 Days, was released on October 1, 2005.

He also worked with George Lucas on the 1988 film Willow, on which he served as ILM's animation camera operator.

In 2016, Knoll announced that the film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is based on an unproduced script that he wrote for the Star Wars live-action TV show. He is also one of the members of the Intellectual Property Development Group.^[4] Knoll worked in creating The Mandalorian, making a motion control rig used to film shots of the Razor Crest.^[2]

Besides his film work, he co-created the digital image-processing program Adobe Photoshop.