John Knoll

Actor, Writer, Executive producer

Born: Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

BIOGRAPHY

John Knoll (born October 6, 1962) is an American visual effects supervisor and chief creative officer (CCO) at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). One of the original creators of Adobe Photoshop (along with his brother, Thomas Knoll), he has also worked as visual effects supervisor on the Star Wars prequels and the 1997 special editions of the original trilogy. He also served as ILMs visual effects supervisor for Star Trek Generations and Star Trek: First Contact, as well as the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Along with Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and Allen Hall, Knoll and the trios work on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest earned them the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.Knoll has been praised by directors James Cameron, Gore Verbinski, Guillermo del Toro, and Brad Bird. Del Toro, who worked with Knoll for the first time on Pacific Rim, stated He basically has the heart of a kid and the mind of a scientist, and thats a great combination.A co-developer of Photoshop along with his brother Thomas Knoll, Knoll is also the inventor of Knoll Light Factory, a lens flare generating software inspired by his work at Industrial Light and Magic.Knoll was also the Computer Graphics Project Designer on The Abyss, an achievement which earned ILM its tenth Academy Award for Visual Effects, and worked on two Star Trek episodes: Star Trek: The Next Generation s pilot episode (Encounter at Farpoint) and the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode Explorers.Aside from his visual effects work, John Knoll helped pitch the story of Rogue One, an epic space opera part of the Star Wars anthology series. This earned him credits as writer and executive producer of the film.

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