Academy Winner John Knoll on Technology in Filmmaking
By kamla bhatt • Mar 27th, 2012Category: Entertainment, Featured, Hollywood, Ideas, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, Video
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Academy-award winner John Knoll works behind the scenes, but you have probably seen his visual effects magic in “Avatar,” “Rango,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Hugo,” Mission Impossible,” “Star Wars” and many other films.
Knoll is a visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic and in 2007 won an Academy award for Best Visual Effects for “The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”
In this interview Knoll talks about Photoshop, working in films like “Avatar” and ”Rango,” and Johnny Depp. He also shares about the legendary Italian director Sergio Leone’s work and how it influenced in the making of “Rango,” which won an Academy award for animated film in 2012.
We start off our conversation talking about Photoshop, which was originally written by his brother Thomas Knoll. It was John, who worked with his brother in further developing the product and demoing it in Silicon Valley and piqued Adobe’s interest. He talks about Silicon Valley’s role in filmmaking and “democratization of technology.” When tools become inexpensive then talent and time become crucial he points out in the interview.
This interview was recorded in Silicon Valley in September 2011 at the Palo Alto Internatinal Film Festival.
Photo credit: Jenny Elwick in the Official Celebration IV blog
Kamla Bhatt is the host and producer of an Internet Radio show where listeners can find stories about the new and emerging India and the global Indian community. As a pioneer of 'internet radio' format in India Kamla started her first show News about India, followed by TalkNewsIndia in 2005. In 2006 she premiered her new show: The Kamla Bhatt Show: Life, People and Ideas. 
