John Knoll

• 1. Introduction

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  John Knoll, born on the 6th of October 1962, is an American visual effects supervisor and the chief creative officer at Industrial Light & Magic, better known as ILM. The director Guillermo del Toro, who first worked with Knoll on the film Pacific Rim, summed him up in one line. "He basically has the heart of a kid and the mind of a scientist, and that's a great combination." That pairing runs through a career with an unusual shape. Knoll helped create a piece of software that millions of people use to edit pictures. He also spent decades making starships, pirate ghosts and alien worlds look real on a cinema screen. How does one person end up on both sides of that line, and what did the people who hired him see in him?

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• 2. A Brother and Photoshop

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  Adobe Photoshop has two original creators, and John Knoll is one of them. The other is his brother, Thomas Knoll. Decades after the program first appeared, the film industry formally recognized what the two had built. At the 2019 Oscars, the brothers received a Scientific and Engineering Award for the original architecture, design and development of Photoshop. The award list names a third co-recipient, Mark Hamburg, beside them. Photography circles had honored the pair earlier. In 2016 the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum inducted both brothers. Knoll also wrote a second piece of software with a very different job. Knoll Light Factory generates lens flares, those streaks and halos of light that bright sources throw across a camera lens. He created it after seeing how such effects were handled in his daily work at ILM. His tools were therefore born from the same studio floor where he was making films.

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• 3. Learning the Craft

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  Knoll's film credits begin in 1986, and the first ones had nothing to do with software. He operated motion control cameras, the computer-driven rigs that repeat the same camera move precisely, on Captain EO and Jared: The Movie. The next two years added Empire of the Sun, Innerspace and Willow. He also worked the same kind of camera for the 1987 television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. A larger role arrived in 1989. On The Abyss he served as computer graphics supervisor, and the work gave ILM its tenth Oscar. Star Trek stayed close to him. He worked on the pilot episode of The Next Generation, titled Encounter at Farpoint, and later on a Deep Space Nine episode called Explorers. By 1990 he was a full visual effects supervisor, credited on Spaced Invaders and The Hunt for Red October. Hook and Hudson Hawk followed in 1991. Then came Baby's Day Out and Star Trek Generations in 1994, a film that opened the door to the next Trek feature, First Contact.

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• 4. Working for George Lucas

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  In 1997, the special editions of the original Star Wars trilogy needed visual effects supervision, and Knoll was among those who supplied it. That work led directly to the prequels. He supervised effects on The Phantom Menace in 1999, Attack of the Clones in 2002 and Revenge of the Sith in 2005. On the first of these films he also appeared on screen, in a brief cameo as a fighter pilot. The Academy listed him among the visual effects nominees for The Phantom Menace, alongside Dennis Muren, Scott Squires and Rob Coleman. Attack of the Clones brought another nomination, shared with Rob Coleman, Pablo Helman and Ben Snow. Knoll himself credits George Lucas for the chance. "I still feel like I owe George a lot to have been given that opportunity." He says the three films packed a whole career's worth of experience into eight years. He describes Lucas as a filmmaker who wrote scenes without limiting himself to what the tools could do, and who trusted the team to cope. In Knoll's words, Lucas's attitude was "I'm writing what I want to see, so you guys will figure it out."

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• 5. Pirates and the Oscar

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  Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean films gave Knoll his Academy Award for visual effects. He supervised The Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003, Dead Man's Chest in 2006 and At World's End in 2007. Each film earned him a nomination, always alongside Hal Hickel and Charles Gibson. Their co-nominees changed from one picture to the next. The first brought Terry Frazee, the third brought John Frazier, and the second brought Allen Hall. The second film, Dead Man's Chest, was the one that won. Verbinski is one of four directors named in the source as having praised Knoll. The other three are James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro and Brad Bird. Cameron's film Avatar appears in Knoll's credits in 2009, as does the animated western Rango in 2011. Brad Bird's Tomorrowland followed in 2015. Between those, Knoll supervised effects on Speed Racer, Hugo and Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol.

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• 6. Back to a Galaxy Far Away

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  Knoll did more than supervise effects on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016. He helped pitch its story, and he is credited as writer and executive producer. The film earned him another Oscar nomination for visual effects, shared with Mohen Leo, Hal Hickel and Neil Corbould. Star Wars television followed. He was an additional visual effects supervisor on The Mandalorian from 2019 to 2023, and senior visual effects supervisor on The Book of Boba Fett in 2021 and 2022. Skeleton Crew, from 2024 to 2025, carried his credit as visual effects supervisor. His credits also include Ready Player One, The Batman and Jungle Cruise, as well as additional supervision on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. He wrote about the saga as well, co-authoring a book with J. W. Rinzler titled Creating the Worlds of Star Wars: 365 Days. His list of credits runs to 2026, where The Mandalorian and Grogu names him as visual effects supervisor.

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