Based in Marin, California, The Kerner Group, the 30-year home to George Lucas’ original Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), and today a collection of innovative companies and divisions that offer award-winning creative services to the major motion picture studios, independent filmmakers, television studios and production companies, has restructured.
The restructuring of The Kerner Group comes one year after the
company’s acquisition by entrepreneur Eric Edmeades, and is the result of a year-long analysis and R&D efforts by new senior management aimed at driving the Kerner brand forward. Concurrent with this anniversary, The Kerner Group has launched a number of new brands with services available to its diverse array of clients.
The “New Kerner” is now positioned to be a leader in the area of 3-D production and technological expertise, with facilities, camera rigs and expertise that afford unparalleled opportunities to content creators across the entire media spectrum. Today’s announcements were made jointly by Eric Edmeades, CEO, Majority Owner, and Tim Partridge, President, The Kerner Group.
As a result of its restructuring, The Kerner Group now also counts among its client base corporations large and small and private section contractors. For these clients, the company provides highly realistic special effects, emerging 3D technologies and production services, model creation, and a variety of problem solving, applied research and prototyping services.
In 2009, entrepreneur Eric Edmeades became the CEO and Majority Owner of The Kerner Group. Previously the co-founder of The ITR Group, a mobile computing and wireless networking firm based in Bristol, England, Edmeades ran that company, as its Managing Director, for nine years, parlaying it into an industry leader with multiple offices around the U.K. and servicing clients located worldwide. The ITR Group was sold to private buyers in 2006.
Edmeades then hired Tim Partridge as President of The Kerner Group. Before Kerner, Partridge was a key executive at Dolby Laboratories where, for over 20 years, he stood at the forefront of the entertainment and entertainment-technology industries, and led the development of “Dolby 3D.” For 10 years, Partridge worked as a Dolby surround sound consultant on over 100 films, including “Goldeneye,” “Highlander,” “Shadowlands,” “Willow,” “Absolute Beginners,” and “The Fisher King,” to name some. He served the company in a number of major posts, including that of Dolby’s Executive Vice President of Products and Technologies.
Regarding The Kerner Group’s restructuring, Mr. Edmeades said, “There are very few companies, if any, that can offer their clients the same level of creativity in the areas of production, 3D technologies, realistic visual effects, and model design that The Kerner Group can provide. Our team has a 30-year history of producing the highest quality content and technology possible for the entertainment industry. We are now leveraging that expertise and success to further expand The Kerner Group as an exciting company with a bright future.”
Adds Mr. Partridge, “Some of the most famous—and most financially successful—movies in history were — in some part — made here. While we are physically based in Northern California, we have now positioned ourselves as a national—and international—motion picture and television resource for filmmakers, directors, producers and advertisers. Our remarkable team includes award winning, former ILM members Brian Gernand, Greg Beaumont, Geoff Heron, and Rose Duignan, each of whom has tremendous experience in the industry.”
Key personnel within The Kerner Group include:
Brian Gernand, Senior Creative Director: Award winning Brian Gernand oversees the newly formed KernerFX unit (see below). Gernand began working for ILM in 1986 as a model-maker, with his early projects including contributions to “Willow” and “Ghostbusters II.” Since that time, he has worked on over 40 major studio feature films, including “Ghost,” “Die Hard 2,” “Backdraft,” “Star Trek 6” and “Star Trek Generations,” “Star Wars: Episodes 1 and 3,” “Pearl Harbor,” “Terminator 3 & 4,” “Evan Almighty,” “Indiana Jones 4,” “Transformers” and “The Last Airbender.” The winner and/or nominee for numerous industry honors, including VES, Saturn, and Satellite Awards, Gernand has also been involved in the production of dozens of high profile TV commercials.
Greg Beaumont, Engineer, Kerner 3D Technologies Unit (see below). Greg Beaumont has played a key role within ILM’s camera engineering department for
25 years. Beaumont is the co-designer of the new Kernercam 3D System.
Geoff Heron: Practical Effects Supervisor: For more than 20 years, Geoff Heron has been one of the leading practical effects supervisors (and earlier in his career, special effects technicians) in the motion picture industry. His credits include such major hits as “Avatar,” “Transformers,” “The Last Airbender,” “Terminator Salvation,” all three “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, “Star Wars: Phantom Menace,” “The Mummy,” “Jurassic Park: Lost World,” “Men in Black,” “Saving Private Ryan,” Tim Burton’s “Planet of the Apes,” “War of the Worlds,” and dozens of others.
Rose Duignan, Executive Producer, The Kerner Group: Rose Duignan’s is the contact person for all productions that come into The Kerner Group. Her career spans 30 years, 20 of those at ILM as Production Supervisor and Director of Marketing. Among her credits are such hit films as “Star Wars: A New Hope” and “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” “Avatar” and “The Last Airbender.” Additionally, she was also the executive producer of an animated TV series which ran for two seasons on ABC. Duignan has served as Director of Marketing for both Tippett Studio and Rhythm and Hues, as well as Development Director for both TV and film at The Osmond Company.
The Kerner Group’s new brands are:
KernerFX: Previously ILM’s “Model Shop,” KernerFX provides world class realistic physical effects to the film, television, and commercial production industries. Previously the physical effects department of Industrial Light and Magic, KernerFX today is a leading provider of this unique visual imagery.
With recent credits including FX contributions to “Terminator Salvation” (for which the company earned a Visual Effects Society Award nomination), the 2009 version of J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek,” and “Ironman II,” KernerFX continues to set the standard for outstanding and realistic physical effects available in the industry.
Renowned throughout the film industry as the “Masters of Destruction,” Kerner has few competitors with similar or equal experience. The company has over three decades of expertise, along with numerous industry awards, for its realistic physical FX work. The company continues to distinguish itself in the areas of: FX elements (including wind, fire, water, smoke, dust, etc.); pyrotechnics; the creation of various scenes of destruction; the design and production of models, and practical miniature effects of all scales. With many of these effects becoming massively larger over the years, the term “Bigatures” is used to reflect the fact that Kerner’s action miniatures are often over
2500 square feet in size, and have even included the 35-foot long model of the “Black Pearl” pirate ship for all three “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.
In its quest to always provide the most realistic destruction sequences possible, Kerner will soon also be offering a hybrid solution that combines the best of physical effects with the best that digital can offer.
Kerner 3D Technologies: For over 30 years, the Kerner name has been associated with ground-breaking special effects and optical technology. This includes the company’s development of the “Empire Camera.” For “The Empire Strikes Back” film, George Lucas was after very specific shots that were not possible with any camera available at that time. ILM’s engineers designed and built the “Empire Camera” — a super high speed camera that uses the Vistavision format. This camera–still in use today—is available only through The Kerner Group.
After 30 years of helping George Lucas bring to life his incredible imagination, the Kerner team has developed groundbreaking camera, camera rig, and optical technologies. In 2006, shortly after George Lucas relocated ILM to a new site, the Kerner team turned its formidable knowledge and technical skills toward the development of these new 3D technologies.
Today, Kerner 3D Technologies develops and offers a range of camera rigs for easy and accurate capture of 3D content. The Kernercam 3D capture systems are beam-splitter rigs of varying sizes, available for broadcast or cinematic applications.
The Kernercam 3D system was used in the production of actor David Arquette’s short 3D film, “The Butler’s In Love,” which will open the 6th Annual HollyShorts Film Festival, August 5, at the Director’s Guild of America Theatre in Los Angeles. “The Butler’s In Love,” directed by Arquette, features an all star cast including Thomas Jane (HBO’s “Hung”), Elizabeth Berkley (“CSI Miami”), and Arquette, himself. (Based on a beautiful, ‘absinthe era’ painting of the same name, the film tells the story of people longing for true love).
Kerner 3D Technologies also recently delivered two Kernercam 3D systems to major Japanese broadcaster NHK Cosmomedia America, Inc., where they are being used for sports and entertainment programming. Additionally, Kerner has delivered one 3D system to the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, based in Vancouver, CN.
Kerner Studios: Home to ILM for thirty years, Kerner Studios, as a facility, offers producers of television, film, commercial, music video, or corporate productions, a rare combination of state-of-the-art production space, equipment, personnel skills, and decades of experience. A world class facility, Kerner Studios boasts several fully equipped (indoor and outdoor) stages, camera (2D and 3D) equipment, and multi-award winning talent.
In conjunction with its sister divisions KernerFX and Kerner 3D Technologies, Kerner Studios offer a truly unique, one-stop-solution, for any television, film, or commercial production – especially those thinking of shooting in 3D.
The Kerner Group has also launched other new service divisions, including those involved with Commercial Production, Model and Miniature Design for non-entertainment clients, Corporate & Government Research, and the Production of Original 3D Film and Television projects. Additional details on these will be announced shortly.
About THE KERNER GROUP
The Kerner Group (originally Kerner Optical and Kerner Studios) was originally the home of the physical effects and camera engineering departments of George Lucas’ world renowned Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), since 1977. Among the smash hit motion pictures which were shot in part within the soundstages of Kerner are: “The Empire Strikes Back,” “The Return of the Jedi,” the “Back to the Future” trilogy, the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, “War of the Worlds,” “Indiana Jones 4,” “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” “Transformers,” “Terminator Salvation,” the 2009 “Star Trek,” “Iron Man II,” and dozens more.
In 2006, after relocating his digital effects team from the Kerner campus, Lucas sold the company in a management-led buyout that would allow the new Kerner team—now led by Eric Edmeades–to branch out and create its own destiny. Today, the group is comprised of a number of exciting creative companies and divisions uniquely positioned to move Kerner’s 30-year legacy even further into the 21st Century. These divisions are cited above.
The Kerner Group is located at 90 Windward Way, San Rafael, CA, 94901. The phone is 415/448-2000. For more information, please visit the company’s new website: www.kerner.com.
