What is Reddit's opinion of Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Special Effects?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Is this it?

https://www.amazon.com/Industrial-Light-Magic-Special-Effects/dp/0345322630

Here you go:

• The Art of Special Effects
• Into the Digital Age

Both are very old so won't mention modern tools/techniques etc. They also go into all the tricks of the trade, such as matte painting, creatures, stop/go animation etc. The model making is just 1 chapter.

I love them dearly, but they're more celebratory than reference works.

Warning, long read - I'm a vfx artist for movies and always wanted to be.

My stepfather was a sci-fi geek and collected Starlog Magazine when I was little. I used to look at those and other special-effects books and when I was 8, he got a copy of this book and I almost immediately took it away from him and read it cover-to-cover. It dawned on me that people could make a living doing special effects for movies. Everything I did from that point on was to make my own special effects. My first project was to use Lego train rails, tin foil, and my humidifier to recreate the minecar chase sequence from Temple of Doom, which was featured prominently in that book. My parents bought a VHS camcorder around that same time and I stole that from them too, constantly making short films with all sorts of effects, from the simple to the elaborate. Fast forward several years and I found out there was a digital effects school opening in Hollywood and used credit cards to pay for classes (no financial aid for that back then) and got an internship at a small game company after a few months. The hours were long and the pay terrible, but I LOVED EVERY SINGLE MOMENT OF IT. Fast forward 12 more years and I'm still at it, working on big-budget films and having worked with several heroes of mine from that ILM book. I still have that book sitting on my desk, with many signatures in it of people I worked with. I sometimes get frustrated to the point of quitting; sometimes I have to take a lot of time off after a particularly long or difficult film, but at the end of the day I can't imagine doing anything else.

As far as finding out what your passion/purpose in life is, here's my suggestion. Look at your day-to-day life. What do you love to do more than anything? You mentioned documentaries; have you considered making one of someone you know and find interesting? Even if it's 5 minutes long, if it's interesting put it on YouTube and see what happens.

Here's another suggestion: Take a LONG roadtrip somewhere. By yourself. Sleep in your car. Wake up in unfamiliar territory. Meet new people. Find yourself. Sounds lame but I've done that and it was always a rewarding learning experience.