Interview by Bonnie Burton

This week we lost an iconic special effects innovator and make-up artist Stan Winston, who’s best known for his work in the Terminator films, Jurassic Park, Aliens, Predator, Edward Scissorhands and most recently Iron Man, passed away at age 62 on June 15, 2008. He leaves behind a legacy of innovative work that not only earned him four Academy Awards, but legions of fans who many have become movie make-up artists and creature creators themselves.

Revenge of the Sith Creature Shop Supervisor Dave Elsey talks to us about his own admiration for Stan Winston and why his talents on the big screen will be missed.

When did you first discover the work of Stan Winston?
I was probably about 15 when I discovered Stan Winston’s work. I had a book called Making A monster by Al Taylor and Sue Roy, and I was really obsessed by the stuff he did, even back then, before he started doing all the really iconic stuff. I really loved his collaborative old age makeup on The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman.

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The Bay Area travel show “Open Road” explores San Francisco’s Presidio national park, and goes behind the scenes at George Lucas’ Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic campus. Take a tour of the facility including the hallways and server rooms of Lucasfilm, as well as ILM’s motion capture stage!

VIDEO: “Open Road” Visits Lucasfilm at the Presidio

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Most fans know by now that “Lost” co-creator and film director J.J. Abrams is a die-hard Star Wars-ophile, so when he decided reimagine the prequel story of James Kirk, some people were inclined to raise a Spock eyebrow. Abrams tells AP why he chose to tackle the sci-fi franchise already saturated with a vocal fan base of its own.

“It was an opportunity to take what I think has been a maligned world — to sound crass, a franchise — and treat it in a way that made it something that I wanted to see,” said Abrams, who recently finished shooting on Star Trek, due in theaters May 8, 2009. “To take the characters, the thoughtfulness, the personalities, the sense of adventure, the idea of humanity working together, the sense of social commentary and innovation, all that stuff. To take it and apply it in a way that felt genuinely thrilling.”

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Grant McCune, the Chief Modelmaker who received a Visual Effects Oscar for Star Wars and was nominated for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), chats with Popular Mechanics about the secrets of good modelmaking and how to perfect your work like the pros.

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Variety.com recently reported the passing of Dave Stevens, creator of The Rocketeer, who died from complications from leukemia on March 10.

Many fans might be familiar with The Rocketeer from the film adaptation directed by post-ILMer Joe Johnston in 1991. The film was based on the successful comic series created by Stevens, first published in 1982. A little-known fact to many Indiana Jones fans is that Stevens had actually done some storyboard work on Raiders:

After leaving Hanna-Barbera, Stevens joined his friends, illustrator and film designer William Stout and science fiction paperback cover illustrator Richard Hescox, becoming a member of their art studio on La Brea Ave. in Los Angeles.

Stout also shared offices with Steven Spielberg at the time. On Stout’s recommendation, Stevens was hired to storyboard the harrowing truck fight sequence for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

In addition to the truck fight sequence, Stevens also drafted the boards for a famous lost Shanghai scene from Raiders which was later repurposed for Temple of Doom.

In the early days of Star Wars, Stevens contributed to the Los Angeles Times Syndicated Star Wars strip originally started by Russ Manning. He, along with Rick Hoberg, pinch hit for Manning during the “Frozen World of Ota” story-arc in 1980.

Stevens also illustrated an image of Luke Skywalker for the first Topps Star Wars Galaxy card set.

Read the full Variety article here.

Director Jon Favreau chats about filming the big-budget Iron Man and what it was like to work on the film at Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic.
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Academy Award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor John Knoll presented this week at TED 2008 during the “How Do We Create?” session. BoingBoing.net’s Mark Frauenfelder live blogs from the event:

John compared how visual effects were made for movies from the 1950s with contemporary movies. He showed clips from Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and clips from Pirates of the Caribbean.

The process hasn’t changed that much. You start off looking at the script, have discussions with director, and decide what needs to be shot using visual effects: anything you can’t just go out and shoot, anything that doesn’t exist, anything that’s too expensive, too dangerous, or just not possible.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea used miniature ships in a studio tank (about 200 ‘ x 200′, a few feet deep). The last pictures that used this techniques was Tora! Tora! Tora!. The tank method works pretty well but the scale of the water doesn’t work well. Droplet size is wrong. For Pirates, Knoll also built a tank, but came up with ways to split in full-size water droplets. Adding full scale water in background really helps.

SOURCE: BoingBoing.net

(photo by Bonnie Burton)

San Francisco Chronicle profiles legendary movie effects artist Ray Harryhausen and his poster that he signs every time he visits Industrial Light & Magic.

When one works at a special effects house, even the giant space bugs can become routine. Industrial Light & Magic in the Presidio is filled with relics from two generations worth of science fiction and fantasy films - model spaceships and dinosaurs and dozens of movie posters - that begin to fade into the background on the second or third visit.

But there’s one piece of art on the wall that few in the building take for granted: A giant print of the Cyclops from “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,” with a signature scrawled on it once for every visit by the monster’s creator. It was displayed prominently in the lobby of the old ILM offices in San Rafael, and now gets a place of honor near the cast photos from each of the company’s productions.

“Every time I walk by that and see those signatures, I think, ‘This has got to be the coolest place in the world,’ ” says Tim Harrington, an animator in his mid-30s who is working on the new Indiana Jones movie. “Ray Harryhausen has been here five times.”

Read the full article:
Ray Harryhausen’s monster gift to film

For visual effects buffs looking to place bets on the Oscar race, ILM made an impressive showing on Sunday’s VES awards. The three nominated films for the Visual Effects Oscar are Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Transformers and The Golden Compass, and ILM’s projects — Pirates and Transformers each scored Visual Effects Society acknowledgments, while Compass was left in the cold.

Transformers won four awards, including the top prize of best visual effects in an effects-driven film. Congrats to Scott Farrar, Shari Hanson,  Russell Earl and Scott Benza. The giant robot movie also won best single visual effect of the year (the desert highway sequence), best models and miniatures, and best compositing.  Pirates won for best created environment in a live action movie (the Maelstrom), and best animated character in a live action movie (for Davy Jones).
Congrats to everyone at Industrial Light & Magic for these accomplishments.

The New York Times is running a poll on all the Academy Award Nominees to see who the public thinks  will win each category. Illustrating the difference between StarWars.com readers and New York Times readers, this is where StarWars.com voters think the Visual Effects Award should go:

Transformers: 67%
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End: 28%
The Golden Compass: 5%

This is what New York Times readers currently think:

Transformers: 34%
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End: 34%
The Golden Compass: 32%

Go teach ‘em a thing or two at this link.