ILMfan Credits strives to be the definitive site listing the projects ILM has worked on and the people involved. The initial list was compiled by thefan and subsequently improved and expanded with the help of ILM's PR Dept., malducin and many site visitors. The site includes several ways of searching projects and people: projects by category, complete lists, etc. The Credits sites also includes new features like project notes and images and cross referencing credit information. And a news section (with RSS feed) will now announce when new projects and features are added to the Credits site. The site should be taken as a constant work in progress.
While we strive to be the most complete list there might be some discrepancies compared to other lists, notably the official one from ILM and IMDB. ILM's list doesn't include most commercial and miscellaneous work and has one notable feature film omission. Also since the list is updated once in a while, many recent projects are not listed.
IMDB on the other hand is very complete but tends to have mistakes in upcoming projects once in a while. Sometimes ILM is referenced in future projects because the filmmakers or the franchise might have had a previous relationship or connection. One notable example had listed both ILM and Digital Domain to work on Terminator 3 (at the time even James Cameron was rumored to be involved). Usually with some time you have actual VFX people listed during pre-production which makes it more reliable. We don't list such speculation outright until some sort of confirmation is possible like a Cinefex listing, reports from Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, and just the plain old grapevine.
ILM used to do quite a bit of work in commercials, mostly in the 90s and early 2000s at their Commercial Productions division (ILMCP). At times they could be working on a dozen campaigns per year, some with several spots. While we have a small list of some of their commercials, complete information is hard to come by, sometimes only an approximate year is known. Because of that commercials are not listed at the moment until more information is gathered or a way can be figured out how to present the current list of commercials we have.
Release dates are from general wide release dates in North America. For the most part this means the date when the film first opens. In a few cases big films might open a few days early elsewhere in the world before opening in North America. In these cases the date of the North American release is used.
For small, independent and foreign (non-American or non-Hollywood) films things get more complicated. In a few cases films might open on a limited releases first, usually Los Angeles and/or New York, before opening wide. In these case Academy rules are followed, meaning we choose the date the film opens in Los Angeles or starts its limited run. In other instances some films might only be shown at film festivals and selected film circuits. In general the date chosen is when the film is first shown in the world. Notes in the specific project page might indicate when the film was first shown in the USA, if at all.
People are listed as closely as possible as they appeared on the credits portion of project. This means people are grouped by their position and alphabetically by last name within the position. This means that for a few cases the actual order might vary, especially in earlier projects.
In many cases there were more people that worked on a project that were actually listed, especially nowadays when big films require hundreds of VFX artists from several vendors to complete the work. This means many people might not be credited at all. Since there is no good way to verify this data only credited people are listed with the exception of projects between 1977 to 1986 where dozens of credits were verified thanks to the first ILM book.
Where possible the number of shots ILM produced for a project is noted. Generally this number is taken from official ILM shot counts, usually quoted on such magazines as Cinefex, CGW and others. This number should not be taken as the actual number of shots shown on the film as editorial decisions might slightly change this number. Case in point, ILM produced one shot for the film The Bourne Identity, but in editing this shot was split into two in the final film.
The previous site listed VFX awards given to projects ILM has worked on. Since the system registers awards given to projects ILM worked on, the number of awards listed here is a bit higher that the actual awards ILM has won or been nominated for. This usually happens when ILM's contribution was small or the number of vendors is so large that ILM people were not among the nominees. Three notable cases are 1990's Total Recall (ILM had only a handful of shots), 1997's Titanic (ILM was one of the last vendors involved) and 2004's The Day After Tomorrow (while ILM's was involved early on and had a significant contribution a large number of vendors resulted in ILM not making the cut in nominees). When appropriate this is noted in the project notes. The main site might contain a more rigorous list. On the other hand it's usual practice for many facilities to tout they worked on a nominated or winning project even if they had no actual nominees.
The previous site also contained a section of related awards which listed people who used to work at ILM and whose contributions continued to have great impact in the industry. This section has been eliminated from this site since it may cause confusion. In particular the awards given for RenderMan have been removed. While much of the initial development (like the REYES architecture, stochastic sampling and shading trees) was done at the Lucasfilm CG Group, which later spun-off as Pixar and DroidWorks, RenderMan was established until 1998. For that reason, and to avoid confusion, we have removed these semi-related awards. They might still be referenced elsewhere in the site so as to indicate the impact research started at ILM has had in the industry.
A brief note about VFX awards since they tend to confuse regular moviegoers. Common VFX award rules, in particular the Academy Awards and BAFTAs, could be interpreted as to give the award to the best nominated film with VFX as opposed to give the award to the best VFX regardless of other qualities of the film. Oscar nominations are chosen by the VFX Branch, but the whole Academy membership votes on all awards. In contrast BAFTA nominations are chosen by the whole membership but the winner is chosen by a panel of experts. Saturns and Golden Satellite Awards nominations might have stranger considerations and winners. Something to consider during awards season.