The structure, funded through gifts from the Lucasfilm Foundation as well as a host of other industry heavyweights, pays homage to the cinematic history of Southern California and USC. It does this though its architecture – a combination of what The New York Times called “a homage to the university’s older buildings, particularly its ornate 1932 Doheny Memorial Library, and to the Mediterranean tilt of Los Angeles architecture around 1929, when the cinema school was founded” – and through the starry names that appear throughout it.

The courtyard entry, for example, is named for – and funded by ­– the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It features a statue of a swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks Sr. who, as president of the fledgling academy, in 1928 approached his fencing partner, USC President Rufus B. Von KleinSmid, with the idea of creating a program to educate professionals in the motion picture industry. In 1929, USC’s “Introduction to Photoplay” became the first program of its kind in the nation.

Eighty years later, film is pretty much a thing of the past. Through innovations such as the John C. Hench Division of Animation & Digital Arts and the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts – the first university-based all-digital production training center – as well as its newer programs in ­interactive media, such as the 3-D lab covered on page 10 of this issue, the school continues its focus on the future.

Lucas and Spielberg were both present and highly visible at the grand opening ceremonies, of course, and their names are on the two buildings that make up the first phase of the complex. But it was their transformative vision that was the real star of the show. “This new home,” said Dean Elizabeth Daley, “is where future generations of women and men ... will continue on the paths of those who have come before them ... and go on to redefine the boundaries of the cinematic arts.” 

  – Susan Heitman