Kerner Optical closing its doors

Cinefex is reporting that Kerner Optical is closing its doors.

In recent years the studio had been moving into 3D stereo and other areas, but it would appear this icon of quality visual and special effects is shutting up ‘the shop’. Kerner is a company that stood for quality and an innovative love of filmmaking. They will be missed. Quoting from a brief piece published by Cinefex:

“We’ve just received the sad news that Kerner Optical has closed for business. Kerner had its origin in the fabled model shop of Industrial Light & Magic, spinning off — after 30 years of stellar work — into a separate modelmaking entity when Lucas opted to shutter the ILM model shop in 2006. After struggling for some time, Kerner finally succumbed to the harsh economy and the industry’s waning interest in miniature work. End of an era.”

Kerner has posted a farewell letter on their site.

Here is a link to an in-depth piece we wrote on Kerner a couple of years ago.

fxguide’s Kerner story

2 thoughts on “Kerner Optical closing its doors”

  1. Super bummer… It’s where it all started so it is sad. I guess the ‘spirit’ was passed on to ILM and that is its time to shine… Hopefully they preserve the site as historic or something. I took some Qube training out at that site a couple years ago. It was pretty cool standing on the spot where they blew up they shot the death star :]

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