The Kerner Legacy

• A long long Time Ago...

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  A long long time ago, in an studio not too far away from Hollywood, a legacy was started by the legendary creativity of George Lucas. To learn about the Kerner campus and the amazing things that have taken place here over the last thirty years, Please scroll through the timeline above.

  

• A Legacy is Born

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  In the early to mid 1970s’ George Lucas started working on the screenplay for Star Wars. The concept was turned down by several studios until finally Fox decided to give it a chance. Ironically, Fox also closed their special effects department around this time leading George to assemble his own team of model makers and special effects artists and technicians.
  
  The movie, released in 1977, broke box office records and went on to win seven Academy Awards.

  

• The Kerner Campus

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  Following the outstanding success of Star Wars, George Lucas decided to relocate his production facilities to Northern California.
  
  He moved ILM into an unassuming property on Kerner Blvd. in San Rafael. Instead of constructing high walls and security gates to keep out the numerous wandering fans, he simply hid it in plain sight: he had a sign placed on the door for THE KERNER COMPANY.
  
  ILM would be known to insiders, suppliers and the local community as The Kerner Company for the next thirty years.

  

• The Empire Camera

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  The Kerner Campus has a long history of developing technologies and techniques that change the way films are made.
  
  For The Empire Strikes Back, George was after very specific shots that were not possible with any current camera. ILM’s engineers got to work designing and building the Empire Camera -- a super high speed camera that uses the Vistavision format. These cameras are still in use today.

  

• Motion Control

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  The Kerner Campus has seen the development of countless motion control techniques and rigs that created entirely new ways of capturing special effects. Motion control systems developed at the Kerner Campus have played a major roll in iconic movies including the Star Wars, Back to the Future and Pirates of the Carribean movies.

  

• Academy Awards

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  The Kerner Campus has seen some of the greatest innovations in entertainment, film production and special effects.
  
  ILM's spirit of innovation has resulted in 14 Academy Awards, and 13 BAFTA Awards, for visual effects and another 15 Awards for Scientific and Technical development.

  

• The GWL Theater

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  The Kerner Campus is home to the George Lucas Theater which is used as a screening room for dailies, screenings and the occasional public screening.
  
  THX, another Lucasfilm creation, first debuted at the Kerner Campus in The George Lucas Theater.

  

• Pixar Animation Studios

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  Another great Lucas innovation, Pixar started out at the Kerner Campus as the Graphics Group, one third of the Lucasfilm's Computer Division and started out at the Kerner Campus.
  
  The Graphics Group was later sold to Steve Jobs and became Pixar and was then, in 2006, sold to Disney.

  

• Mythbusters

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  Working with the Mythbusters team, some of whom used to work for ILM at the Kerner Campus, Kerner’s ‘works’ department helped design and build a massive paintball gun system that instantly painted the Mona Lisa in record time.

  

• Independence Day

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  In 2006, a year after ILM moved their digital effects team to the Presidio in San Francisco, Lucasfilm accepted an offer that would result in a management-lead acquisition that would create an independent spin-off.
  
  The new spin-off company would remain at the original Kerner Campus and included the studios, model shop, camera engineering and practical effects departments.
  
  The new management team chose to keep the "Kerner" name in recognition of ILM's long history as "The Kerner Company".

  

• First Kernercam 3D System

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  Following on 30 years of trend-setting, Kerner’s engineering team undertook development of stereoscopic camera rigs. This research led to the launch of Kerner’s first stereoscopic 3D camera rig system. Capable of working with almost any film or digital camera system, including IMAX, the KC1000 was a front-runner of the current 3D wave.

  

• First 3D Movie

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  Kerner’s first 3D film production was a short film directed by David Arquette. The film, The Butler’s In Love, was inspired by a painting by Mark Stock which hangs in Bix, the San Francisco restaurant where director David Arquette and his wife Courteney Cox held their rehearsal dinner the night before their wedding.
  
  The film was shot at Kerner studios on the first generation Kernercam stereoscopic camera system.
  
  The film debuted in June of 2008 at Mann’s Chinese Theater.

  

• VES Award

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  Building on the award-winning tradition created by ILM, Kerner has been nominated for 4 VES awards (Transformers, Pirates, Indiana Jones IV and Terminator Salvation) and won a VES award in 2008 for Transformers.

  

• Kernercam KC7000

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  Building on 30 years of camera and optical engineering, and the ground-breaking Kernercam KC1000 camera rig, Kerner released the smaller, lighter Kernercam KC7000. The KC7000 made its production debut capturing some of the practical special effects work KernerFX did for Avatar.

  

• New Ownership

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  Three years after leaving the Lucasfilm family, Kerner was acquired by entrepreneur Eric Edmeades.

  

• Hybrid Effects

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  Known among fans as the Ministry of Destruction, Kerner has been home to the crashing of planes, smashing of cars, destruction of buildings and entire planets. Destruction sequences are best produced with real elements. In 2010, with that in mind, Kerner started offering a fully integrated hybrid solution that gives clients the choice between physical, digital or hybrid effects. Kerner is committed to creating the most realistic looking destruction sequences to appear on film or on television.

  

• Kernerworks

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  From the pages of a Hollywood screenplay comes the birth of Kernerworks. Like Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks department, Kernerworks takes on a variety of challenging and interesting projects for government agencies and private sector contractors. Our projects include applied research, prototype development and advanced problem-solving.