From a story by David S. Cohen on Variety.com:

"In the beginning, there was ... ILM?
Well, that may not be literally true; the company founded by George Lucas -- being honored as a "cinematic pioneer" this year by the San Francisco Intl. Film Fest -- didn't invent visual effects, and there were filmmakers in the Bay Area when Lucas arrived.

Still, according to Phil Tippett, whose Berkeley-based Tippett Studios is one of the world's top creature shops, "Historically, (ILM) is the source of the Nile. There was nothing up here in terms of visual effects."

The local filmmaking community has certainly changed in the 30-odd years since Lucas set up shop in Marin County in the late '70s.

Now the Bay Area is one of the world capitals of digital filmmaking, with ILM at the Presidio, the Orphanage nearby, Skywalker Sound in Marin, Tippett Studios in Berkeley and ILM offshoot Pixar in Emeryville.

Add in DreamWorks Animation down the peninsula, boutique vfx shops Wild Brain, Evil Eye and Giant Killer Robots, among others, in San Francisco proper, and the Bay Area boasts as deep a pool of digital artists as any city in the world -- with ILM and Lucas having paved the way."

Click here for the full story.