Just about a month ago, Disney announced the closing down of the Singapore branch of ILM (Industrial Light & Magic), the visual effects studio created by George Lucas during the making of the first Star Wars film, citing ‘economic factors affecting the industry’. I read this with a heavy heart as I worked at ILM Singapore from 2009 to 2015, and it was the place where I really honed my visual effects skills and grew to became a VFX artist, not to mention making great friends.

The photograph above is one I took of the Sandcrawler ( so named and shaped like the Jawa’s desert vehicle in Starwars ) building while it was still under construction, and which was to house the ILM Singapore studio from 2014. Prior to the move ILM Singapore was located at the Signature building in Changi.

And it was a fantastic place to work; the studio was filled with movie props from some of Hollywood’s most recognizable franchises, and heck, we even had our own Yoda statue in the garden on the ground floor that was open to the public. ( see photos below )

(image below ) And here’s a photo of me with some of my friends during the official opening of the Sandcrawler building some time in 2014, as well as a blurry photo of George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson, both who were guests during the official opening.

With the closing of ILM Singapore ( and also the closing of another big visual effects house Double Negative in 2016 ), it is truly an end of an era for the visual effects eco-system in Singapore ( if ever there was one ).