Solar System by Smith, Tom
About the producer
Tom Smith graduated from Northwestern University in 1960. He studied film in Paris under a Fulbright Scholarship at the Institute of Higher Studies in Film, and in 1965 he joined Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation as a writer's director. In the next decade he made over 60 films. When George Lucas saw 'The Solar System' in 1979, he hired Smith to run his visual effects facility Industrial Light and Magic 'ILM'. From 1980 to 1986, Smith oversaw the visual effects for many block buster films including:'Raiders of the Lost Ark': 1981, 'E.T':1982,'Poltergeist': 1982, the 'Star Trek' movies 2 and 3 : 1982 and 'Return of the Jedi': 1983. Smith also wrote the bestselling book on visual effects 'Industrial Light and Magic'. The Art of Special Effects, now in its twelfth printing.