| John Dykstra | |
|---|---|
 Dykstra at the 77th Academy Awards | |
| 5 Nominations / 3 Wins | |
| Role | Visual Effects |
| Born | June 3, 1947 |
| Long Beach, California, USA | |
John Dykstra is an Academy Award-winning visual effects artist and pioneer in the development of the use of computers in filmmaking. In 1975, when George Lucas was recruiting people for the visual effects work on Star Wars, he approached Douglas Trumbull, but he was unavailable as he was about to start working on Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Trumbull pointed Lucas towards Dykstra. Lucas formed his own visual effects company, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), based in warehouse premises in Van Nuys, and appointed Dykstra to supervise the new team. This led to the development of the Dykstraflex motion-controlled camera, which enabled many of the film's groundbreaking visual effects to be produced. The system was made possible by the availability of off-the-shelf integrated-circuit RAM at relatively low cost and secondhand VistaVision cameras.
Wins[]
- 50th Academy Awards, 1977
- Best Visual Effects — Star Wars (shared with John Stears, Richard Edlund, Grant McCune and Robert Blalack)
- 77th Academy Awards, 2004
- Best Visual Effects — Spider-Man 2 (shared with Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier)
Special and Honorary Awards[]
- 50th Academy Awards, 1977
- Scientific and Technical Award (Class II) for the development of a facility uniquely oriented toward visual effects photography
Nominations[]
- 50th Academy Awards, 1977
- Best Visual Effects — Star Wars (shared with John Stears, Richard Edlund, Grant McCune and Robert Blalack)
- 52nd Academy Awards, 1979
- Best Visual Effects — Star Trek - The Motion Picture (shared with Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich, Robert Swarthe, Dave Stewart and Grant McCune)
- 72nd Academy Awards, 1999
- Best Visual Effects — Stuart Little (shared with Jerome Chen, Henry F. Anderson III and Eric Allard)
- 75th Academy Awards, 2002
- Best Visual Effects — Spider-Man (shared with Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier)
- 77th Academy Awards, 2004
- Best Visual Effects — Spider-Man 2 (shared with Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier)
Videos[]
