John Stillman is a Bay Area native. As a kid, he played baseball, soccer, and football. He earned a bachelor's degree at UCLA in Design. Shortly after graduation John travelled around Europe landing a job in Prague where he worked as a Production Manager and Associate Art Director for Prognosis, an English language newspaper.
After a year or so abroad John came back to California and applied for a job at Industrial Light & Magic working as a production assistant. He wound up working there for the next seven years eventually working as a lighting technical director. John’s ILM credits include; Speed 2, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Deep Rising, Sleepy Hallow, Mission to Mars, and Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace (to name just a few).
After his first stint at ILM John went to work for a startup called I-Beam with some pals from ILM. They commuted each day from Marin to Palo Alto in a stretch limousine they bought as a group. When the start up went bust, John moved back into visual effects working at Giant Killer Robots, Weta Digital in New Zealand (on Return of the King), at Image Movers Digital, Atomic Fiction, and eventually back for a second stint at ILM for four more years (The Avengers, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).
Shifting gears John decided to go back to school, moving across the country and enrolling at MIT earning a master’s degree in Integrated Design. Today John lives in Boston working full time as the Principal Tech Artist and Developer at PTC. When he’s not at work he’s an awesome dad to his two kids, coaching little league, soccer, and even hockey. John is an amazing artist and technician. He’s been a great friend for over 25 years and it was a blast catching up with him.
