Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership | Illinois

Photo Credit: Paul Debevec website

Paul Debevec: “Master of Light”
By: Lucas A. Cook (B.S. in Advertising, College of Media, Class of 2011)

What do the movies Spider-Man 2 and 3, The Matrix, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, King Kong, and Superman Returns have in common? They all feature graphics techniques based on the research of Paul Debevec, one of the film industry’s top minds and a product of the University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Illinois. After graduating from Uni High in 1988, Debevec attended the University of Michigan where he earned degrees in Math and Computer Engineering. In 1996, Debevec received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, Debevec created an image-based modeling system called Façade, which was later used to create the award-winning virtual backgrounds in the 1999 film, The Matrix.

In his more recent research, Debevec has examined different methods for recording real-world illumination for use in computer graphics. Debevec and his team have produced a number of inventions for recording ambient and incident light. One of these inventions, the Light Stage, is a system that captures and simulates how people and objects appear under real-world illumination. Light Stage and has been used in award-winning films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Golden Compass. Currently, Debevec is a Research Associate Professor in the USC’s Computer Science Department and leads the Graphics Laboratory at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies. His research and contributions have revolutionized the visual effects industry and opened the door for further innovation. The MIT’s Technology Review dubbed Paul Debevec, “Hollywood’s Master of Light.”