Lucasfilm
Employees from Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and friends from around our campus, gather together into teams of four, each comprised of professional artists and skilled amateurs alike. Inspired by Star Wars, Disney, and other elements of pop-culture, they create magnificent pieces of chalk art along the sidewalk promenade at our San Francisco campus.
The vibrant community and culture here at Lucasfilm yields ripe opportunity for inspiration, as ILM Compositor Dan Enstrom describes, “When you’re working with some of the greatest artists and content in the world, inspiration is impossible to avoid.” The annual Chalk Art Festival provides an unusual outlet for this teeming creative atmosphere.
Some teams stay well into the night as different team members focus on certain areas in the design. “The non-permanence of chalk makes it both fun and challenging. It’s great because you can clean up, redo, and fix things relatively easily,” describes ILM Technical Assistant Carol Payne. “But at the same time, you can mess up that perfect blend you’ve been working on for hours with just one touch.”
Come Festival week, teams are assigned their sidewalk chalk square and given their chalk supply on Thursday afternoon. Employees from different areas of the company soon find themselves creating together and playfully competing against each other. As ILM Technical Director John Doublestein says, “I love this event because it’s a chance to see art and creativity in a lot of people we don’t normally interact with.”
By Friday afternoon the Festival goes into full swing, with food vendors serving light bites and passersby excitedly inspecting each creation as the teams hastily make last-minute touches. Family and friends soon gather to see the finished masterpieces. Guests cast their votes throughout the afternoon and the big moment comes the following day when the winners are announced!