Lester Novros

At the age of 91, Novros died on September 10, 2000 in Sherman Oaks, California, after an extended illness. He was survived by his wife Esther (née Susswein) Novros and his children, including son David Novros.

Novros taught USC filmic writing students. I had his brilliant class in spring of 1986. He included the brilliant psychological theory of movement laws and human evaluation. This understanding creates excellence in all visual mediums. These theories were from Slavo Vorkapich.

Novros's interest in large format film technology led him to produce some of the first Imax/Omnimax films, for the Reuben H. Fleet Space Center in San Diego, California, including Voyage to the Outer Planets, Cosmos: the World of Loren Eisley and Tomorrow in Space (1982). In 1976, Novros won national acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for his documentary film Universe.

Among his many achievements, Novros may be most remembered as a pioneer in the large format and special venue film industries. Included in his filmography are numerous specialty films produced for World Fair Expositions, including several titles for the 1964 New York's World Fair, including Chemical Man for Abbott Laboratories, Reaching for the Stars, for Lockheed Corporation, and Voyage to America for the United States Pavilion. However, it was the 10-perf, 70mm film To the Moon and Beyond, (produced for Cinerama Corporation) that caught the attention of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, who soon enlisted the creativity of Novros and his special effects team in the creation of A Space Odyssey (1968).

In 1941, Novros left Disney to form his own production company, Graphic Films. That same year, he joined the faculty of the Cinema Department of the University of Southern California. Thousands of students took his course on "Filmic Expression" before his retirement in 1984.

His curiosity in the study of movement lead to an interest in motion pictures. In 1936, he was recruited by the Walt Disney Company to come to Hollywood to work on feature animation projects. Novros was an "inbetweener" on the 1937 Disney animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and received a credit for art direction for the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence of Fantasia (1940).

Lester Novros (January 27, 1909 – September 10, 2000) was an American artist, animator, and teacher.

Lester Novros was born in Passaic, New Jersey on January 27, 1909. Novros studied painting at the National Academy of Design in New York City, was an active member of the Art Students League of New York and studied at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain.