Richard Edlund on AllMovie

Innovative special effects wizard Richard Edlund was a key member of Industrial Light & Magic for George Lucas, a company that has become a Hollywood powerhouse of cutting-edge movie technology. A native of Fargo, North Dakota, he loved taking photographs as a child. While serving in the U.S. Navy, Edlund studied photography and camera repair at the U.S. Naval Photographic school. He was stationed in Japan when he became fascinated by cinema, and after his discharge, Edlund began studying film at the University of Southern California. He then spent a few years dabbling in experimental films and working for a small visual effects company. Edlund got his big break in the mid-'70s when John Dykstra hired him to be the first cameraman on the special-effects unit of a new sci-fi epic, Star Wars. For his work he received a shared Oscar. He went on to receive the same honor several more times while working on the rest of the "Star War's Trilogy" and on other George Lucas films. In 1983, Edlund founded the Boss Film Corp. and went on to work on such major films as Ghostbusters (1983), Big Top PeeWee, Die Hard (both 1988), Ghost (1990), and Alien 3 (1992). Edlund has won two special Academy Awards in Scientific/Engineering for his technical innovations that include the development of the Empire Motion Picture Camera System.