Joe Johnston

Born: 13th May 1950
Where: Austin, Texas

Joe moved to California to attend college, and originally intended to become a commercial artist, but a summer job drawing sketches and storyboards for George Lucas' Star Wars altered the course of his career forever.

As an artistic director at the famed Industrial Light & Magic Company, his work included designing Yoda for The Empire Strikes Back, the first of three films for which he served as visual effects art director.

He shared a 1981 Academy Award for the visual effects on Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark, and after performing similar duty two years later on Return of the Jedi, Joe got the desire to direct and returned to school to study filmmaking at the University of Southern California.

After working as a second unit director on *batteries not included in 1987, Joe earned an associate producer credit on Ron Howard's Willow before landing in the director's chair on the Disney-produced Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

His next directing effort came in 1991 with The Rocketeer, which told the story of a pilot who stumbles on a secret air-pack that allows him to fly.

Three years later came the Macaulay Culkin film The Pagemaster, with critics almost universally faulting the film's lackluster animation.

A year later, Joe scored a moderate box-office success with the special-effects extravaganza Jumanji starring Robin Williams as a man who had played a dangerous board game as a child.

He followed up with the effects-laden sequel Jurassic Park 3, and then directed Hidalgo, a Disney-produced story of horse racing.