Tyruben ellingson biography

A distinguished concept designer, Ellingson's film career began in 1989 when he became an art director at George Lucas' visual effects company, Industrial Light.
TyRUBEN ELLINGSON, Senior Director of Narrative Media Group, Director of Cinema Program, Co-chair, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Arts.
Figure: Art alum TyRuben Ellingson (M.F.A.

•

All you have to do to succeed is give yourself permission.

TyRuben Ellingson, a 1977 Tech High School graduate, has always had an interest in movies. He had a strong passion for visual mediums of art, so he picked up a camera as a teen to create short videos. While in high school, Ellingson also had the opportunity to attend classes at St. Cloud State University (SCSU), so it felt natural for him to attend college there after high school.

[Attending college and high school at the same time] “was one big learning experience,” says Ellingson. “To my surprise, it really did give me the confidence to move away from Minnesota which I never thought I would do.”

Ellingson attributes many of his skills and ideologies from his high school years at Tech. His choir and band directors taught him that each person belongs to a collective, and together, a group is stronger than an individual. Despite Ellingson’s struggles with dyslexia, his creative writing teacher encouraged him to write down his big ideas and stories which brought out his creativity. His ti

•

TyRuben Ellingson (M.F.A. ’88) is this week’s featured alum in our new Alumni Spotlight series for the This Week at Meadows e-newsletter. Each week, a different Meadows alum will be highlighted for their accomplishments post-graduation.

Though TyRuben Ellingson graduated Meadows with a master's degree in painting, his career has largely been focused on the film industry where he was able to translate his artistic skills into the creation of special effects, and eventually into featured concept designs, for movies on the big screen.

It was Ellingson’s viewing of the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey that originally ignited his interest in film and left him with many questions about the process: how the movie was created, who designed the spaceships, what was happening with the apemen at the movie's beginning, and most crucially, what did it all signify? This film and the spark it created in Ellingson stayed at the forefront of his mind as he continued his artistic educational journey. Thanks to his father, a university art profess

•

From Our Pages: “Forget about Everything Else”—an interview with TyRuben Ellingson, cinematic art director and designer.

“If a film is working, you’re forgetting about everything else….”

TyRuben Ellingson is responsible for your dreams. As a cinematic visual effects art director and conceptual designer, he creates the monsters and galaxies and eerily beautiful landscapes through which your imagination roams in the flickering light of a movie theater … or in the deepest folds of time and image that your brain explores while you sleep.

Born in Minnesota, he started his career making cardboard models (“investigations”) in his father’s art studio. Shortly after earning an MFA from Southern Methodist University, he went to work for George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic as a visual effects (VFX) art director. There he was part of the team that devised innovative special effects in movies such as Jurassic Park, Star Wars: A New Hope, and Disclosure. He has also designed for director Guillermo del Toro and the Blade series of films, and while wo