Starlog Photo Guidebook Special Effects Vol 3

Norman Jacobs and Kerry O'Quinn present

By David Hutchison Art Director: Cheh N. Low Designer: Robert Sefcik

Art Staff: Laura O’Brien, Karen L. Hodell Production Assistants: Susan Adamo, John Clayton, Stuart Matranga ABOUT THE COVER:

Front Cover, clockwise from top right: 1) Superman is up, up and away via Zoran Perisic’s Zoptic front projection technique. 2) Live laser effects under the supervision of Derek Meddings on Moonraker. 3) Bran Ferren’s optical enhancement of Dick Smith’s makeup in Altered States. 4) Doug Trumbull pauses a moment with one of the droids from his Silent Running. 5) Miniature from The Black Hole , effects by Art Cruickshank, Peter Ellenshaw, Danny Lee and Eustace Lycett.

Back Cover, clockwise from top: 1) Miniature sequence from Thunderbirds, “End of the Road,” special effects supervised by Derek Meddings. 2) One of the optical printers at John Dykstra’s Apogee Co. 3) The model “Galactica” rigged for filming on the Dykstraf lex motion control system. David Robin and Don Dow are shown next to the model at Apogee. 4) Leon Harris’ conceptual art for the original alien saucer sequence at the end of Disney’s Wat- cher In the Woods. This sequence was never filmed.

A STARLOG PRESS PUBLICATION 475 Park Avenue South New York, N.Y. 10016

Entire contents of STARLOG’s Photoguide Book to Special Ef- fects Vol. 3 is Copyright © 1981 by Starlog Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinting or copying in part or in whole without the written permission of the publishers is strictly forbidden. Printed in Singapore. ISBN: 0-931064-39-2 PREFACE

his is the third volume in the STARLOG Photo Guide- book Series on Special Effects. Subtitled “High T Tech Filmmaking,’’ it focuses on the modern gad- getry used by special effects houses to make photographic effects faster, easier, cheaper . . . and more complicated. New advances in special effects technology are coming so fast that by the time news reaches the printed page, something better has already come along. Selecting material for this volume, with so much happening so fast, was a tough challenge. Finding material, stories and illustrations was no problem; trying to decide what to leave out was a problem. I could have easily filled a three-volume series on High Tech Filmmaking alone. So take a moment to explore the film technology of today and tomorrow, from computer cameras to 3-D to miniature technology. But as you read through this book, keep in mind the fact that somewhere, someone is thinking up something even better for filmmakers and movie- goers alike. David Hutchison STARLOG Magazine ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

his third volume of STARLOG’s Photo Guidebook to Special Effects could not have been assembled T without the generous assistance of the science-fiction/fantasy collectors and the special-effects artists themselves, many of whom took the time to lend photographs from their collections and take the time to tell the stories behind them. My personal thanks to: Nick Allder, James Butterfield, Larry Cuba, Jim Dow, Richard Ed- lund, Bran Ferren, George Gibbs, Barry Gordon, David Inglish, Mat Irvine, Don Iwerks, Brian Johnson, Murray Lerner, Carey Melcher, John Rupkalvis, Dan Symmes, Doug Trumbull, Fran Van der Veer, Richard Vetter and Joe Viskocil.

6 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill CONTENTS

The Digital Brush 10

Disney’s Calculating Camera 16

Magicam Explores the Cosmos 24

Quo Vadis 3-D? 33

Allder and Johnson: Special FX Supervisors 40

Letter From England, I . 46

Sodium System Traveling Mattes 50

Flying Down to Mongo 52

Art, Science and Altered States 62

Show Scan 72

StereoSpace 76

Elicon 78

Letter From England, II 80

Explosions for Miniatures 84

Building An Effects Shop For “The Empire” 90

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 7 INDEX

Titles:

ALIEN 40-45 Mary Poppins 50-51 Altered States 62-71 Medusa Touch, The 40, 42 A Man for All Seasons 42 Melody 34 Ape 35 Mosquito Squadron, The 42 Black Hole, The 16-23 New Scotland Yard 42 Blockhouse, The 42 Nothing but the Night 42 Bubble, The 35 Pink Panther, The 40 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 84 Protectors, The 42 Close Encounters of the Third Kind .... 59, 84 Revenge of the Creature 35 Cosmos 24-32 Revenge of the Pink Panther 42 Crucifer of Blood 65 Sea Dream 33, 39 Day After Tomorrow, The 42 Space: 1999 42 Demon Seed 15 Star Wars 10-15, 18, 45, 52, 84-90, 96-98 Dial “M” for Murder 33 Stingray 42 Dr. Who 80-83 Superman 52, 54 Dynasty 35 Tamarind Seed, The 42 Empire Strikes Back, The .... 40, 42, 45, 90-98 Taste the Blood of Dracula 42 Evita 65 This Island Earth 84, 89 Fire in the Sky 88 Thunderbirds 42 Flash Gordon 46-49, 52-61 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 16, 18 Flesh Gordon 84, 87 2001: A Space Odyssey 42 Frankenstein 65 Trip to the Moon, A 84 Greatest American Hero, The 30, 31 UFO: Target Earth 15 It Came From Outer Space 33, 34 War of the Worlds 84, 87 Khartoum 42 Watcher in the Woods 20 Kiss Me Kate 33 When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth 42 Logan’s Rim 84 When Worlds Collide 84

8 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoL III Artists:

Allder, Nick 40-45 Johnston, Joe 92 Anderson, Gerry 40, 42, 88 Komar, Victor 39 Berg, John 97 Kurtz, Gary 42 Bower, Martin 46, 48 Lerner, Murray 35, 36, 37 Bowie, Les 42 Logan, Bruce 89 Butterfield, James 37, 38, 39 Lucas, George 10, 12, 13, 40 Caple, Ray 45 Lumm, Charles 80 Carroll, Gordon 40 Lycett, Eustace 18 Chomitz, Tom 13 Melcher, Carey 24, 28-31, 32 Cobb, Ron 44 Miller, A1 93 Condon, Chris 39 Muren, Dennis 92 Conway, Richard 46, 49, 59 Nicholson, Bruce 97 Cruickshank, Art 18 O’Donnell, T.J 13 Cuba, Larry 10-15 Overs, Christine 46 DeFanti, Tom 14 Pearson, Bill 46, 48 Dow, Jim 24, 26-31, 32 Peterson, Lome 92 Dykstra, John 12, 90 Retsek, John 24 Edlund, Richard 90-98 Rupkalvis, John 37 Ellenshaw, Peter 18 Sagan, Carl 24, 28-32 Ferren, Bran 62-71 Scherman, Tom 87 Foss, Chris 44 Scott, Ridley 40-44 FrieseGreen, William 33 Smith, Dick 64-65 Gibbs, George 46-49 Snyder, David 23 Giger, H.R 44 Spence, Steve 48 Grafton, David 93 Spielberg, Steven 75 Hill, Walter 40 Symmes, Daniel 39 Hodges, Mike 48, 49, 61 Tippet, Phil 97 Inglish, David 18-23 Trumbull, Doug 59, 72-75 Irvine, Mat 78-81 Van der Veer, Frank 52-61 Iwerks, Don 16-23 Vanlint, Derek 45 Jefress, Jerry 93 Viskocil, Joe 84-89 Johnson, Brian 40-45 Watson, David 46

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill 9 The DiqiTAl Bnush

An Interview With Star Wars Animator, Larry Cuba

n the shifting sands of Ta- electronic means. In cel animation, tooine nestles the small an artist must draw each frame of O cottage of “Old Ben“ Kenobi. film by hand. Here the computer Inside, Luke Skywalker and Ben creates each frame which is then listen to Princess Leia’s plea for help photographed and projected. (Or via a holographic recording im- videotaped and televised.) planted in R2-D2. Also within the With Star Wars already in pro- feisty ‘droid’s memory banks are the duction, George Lucas issued a call technical read-outs of the battle sta- for bids from companies and in- tion Deathstar. These plans may dividuals to produce various bits of sway the balance of survival for instrumentation animation—in par- Princess Leia’s people in the fight ticular the briefing room sequence. against the Empire! A number of computer artists and The man responsible for the some cel animators responded. physical creation of the little ’droid’s Some of the computer people had memory readout is Larry Cuba. The very sophisticated equipment cap- sequence in the briefing room in able of producing colored and shad- which the schematic view of the ed planes and forms. One computer Deathstar appears on a huge elec- artist even wanted to do most of the tronic screen, displaying a simulated model sequences entirely on com- point of view of a pilot maneuvering puters. George spoke with each of straight down a trench on the sur- the artists and viewed their work, face of the Deathstar to a two-meter but Larry seemed to understand the wide thermal exhaust port, was kind of look that George wanted for accomplished by means of computer the film. animation. When Larry was assigned the Computer animation is a process computer realization of the Death- whereby the illusion of movement is star plans for the briefing room bestowed upon inanimate objects by scene, he was asked to have the se-

10 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill 1

Scene 135 from A New Hope (Chapter 4 of the Star Wars films) with the rebel starpilots and navigators viewing the rear-projected computer readout of the Deathstar plans. George Lucas preferred rear-projection on the set, so the actors would have something to play to.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 1 quence photographed on 35mm film these molds hundreds of casts were I photographed the six modules so the plans could be rear-projected made in polyurethane foam. These and traced them onto the Vector during the filming of the briefing modular sections were then cut up General data tablet with its elec- room scene with the rebel pilots. At and assembled in a variety of tronic pen. By pressing the pen to UICC Larry would be using the Vec- basically random configurations to the various points on the photo- tor General 3D3I display and a PDP establish the sides and bottom of the graphs, the modules were digit- 1145 minicomputer. The sequence trench as well as part of the Death- ized—their x and y components would be filmed off of the Vector star's surface area. entered into the computer.’’ (The x General screen with a standard Mit- Larry took samples of each of the component refers to the horizontal chell 35mm camera rigged with an six to Chicago to construct his own axis and the y to the vertical axis.) animation motor. The only thing computer trench. “There was no The z coordinate was entered lacking was the trench. John reason to have the computer se- manually. Dykstra’s crew had not yet gotten quence match the actual model The z coordinate (depth) was around to building it. precisely, since the audience would limited to about four or five different John Dykstra and his team of perceive the trench more in terms levels, so when entering the x and y model-makers at Industrial Light of a texture rather than an abso- components on the electronic tablet, and Magic (ILM) had begun to lute configuration,’’ Larry explains. Larry punched one of five buttons assemble the basic modular molds “ILM was chopping up the modular that he had programmed to repre- from which they would construct the pieces to assemble the trench, so I sent the z coordinate at various model of the trench. The basic molds did the same thing—building up the levels. were constructed about two feet trench in the computer just like they Then a program was written so square in six different types. From were doing with the real thing. that I could call up (from the computer’s memory) the raw sections and combine them into the trench.’’ The computer trench consisted of about fifty U-shaped sections (the two sides and bottom of the trench make a U). Larry called up sections of the modules, stretched or moved them around to build up the trench

bit by bit. “The trench information was stored away and another program written that would call up the sections sequentially, in the perspective of a pilot flying down the trench, and cue the camera to photograph a

frame. I managed to get about thirty frames an hour into the camera once the program was running smoothly.’’ On the screen the Star Wars audience sees the computer realization of the trench sequence in the form of a “wire cage’’ model rather than as a series of solid forms and planes. One of the early problems in computer graphics was the wire cage versus solid form display. At first computer programs could only call

up figures in wire cage format. It was only a few years ago that programs were devised to remove the “hidden lines;’’ the program had to determine which lines would be “hidden’’ by a front surface or plane and remove those lines. “When George Lucas specified the kind of animation he wanted for The Vector General Series 3’s capabilities range from a simple two-dimensional graphics the scene, he knew enough about display to complex 3D transformations including scale, rotation about all three spatial axes and variable intensity for depth cuing. computer animation to ask for a true

1 2 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 3

Dolphin Productions of New York City is justifiably famous for its Pepto-Bismol spot that dramatically inflates a “hard-hat” afflicted with indigestion — all by means of the Scanimate electronic video synthesizer.

perspective without the ‘hidden were to have been created by a puter is drawing successive frames lines’ removed. He wanted the machine. as fast as thirty-per-second, which is trench and the Deathstar to appear From start to finish, the entire se- what is needed to see the thing move as wire cage figures with all lines quence lasts only about 40 seconds smoothly on a TV screen. ‘‘There is and vertices visible. George thought on the screen. It took Larry and his a limit to how many of those points a that this sort of image would suggest two assistants T.J. O’Donnell and computer can draw in a thirtieth of ‘computer animation’ by having a Tom Chomitz about two months to a second and in the case of the Star very mechanical look.” supply two minutes of animation. Wars animation with its true per- Science fiction as a genre often The enormous number of points spective image as opposed to paral- projects into the world of future and lines on the wire cage figures lel projection (one without depth cue- technology. Larry Cuba suggests that make up the representation of ing), I went way beyond that limit. that in the future computers will be trench seem to flow with almost Consequently, you take longer than able to generate pictures of such simultaneous precision. The com- a thirtieth of a second to put an im- quality that they will look as though puter doesn’t handle all of these age on a frame of film. Since the they had been photographed by a points simultaneously, but rather Star Wars sequence was being camera. In the case of Star Wars, it sequentially. It happens very fast, filmed it didn’t need to exist in real was thought that such photographic certainly, and it can appear to the time anyway. In this case it took realism might be confusing to the au- eye to be happening all at the same about two minutes to complete each dience, so a wire cage model was time, which would be the case while frame.” specified so that the audience would observing a real-time system. A real- There are, of course, displays readily understand that the images time system means that the com- more sohpisticated than the Vector

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 1 General, that could have computed project it so that the guys in the a particular molecule, a simple su- the perspective more readily and briefing room would play to the im- gar for example, which has been probably done the flight down the ages while they were talking. Well, named SUGAR. The molecule must trench in real time; the perspective my first take worked. There were a be called up from the memory disk, transformation would be wired into couple of problems, but they edited shown on the screen, made larger or the hardware itself, rather than around them.” smaller and rotated for study. The generated by a separate program The briefing room sequence is the commands would be typed out on There are systems today that can only scene in Star Wars in which the alpha-numeric keyboard in generate shaded color planes in real digital computer animation was GRASS: time. One such system was devel- used—other than for occasional GET DISK SUGAR oped by General Electric and built at background displays as part of the SCALE SUGAR, DO a cost of $2,000,000 to train astro- Deathstar set. The effect was pro- ROTATE SUGAR, X, Dl nauts to land on the Moon. Similar grammed in Tom Defanti’s GRASS By means of these three com- systems are used to train airline language. GRASS (GRAphics Symbi- mands the required molecule ap- pilots to land under a variety of osis System) was written by Tom as pears on the screen, its size can be emergency conditions. part of his doctoral thesis for Ohio changed by turning dial number

Basically, Larry’s system con- State. “It takes advantage of all the “0,” and it can be rotated around sisted of a $50,000 Vector General things that the Vector General does. the x-axis (horizontal) by means of 3D3I graphics terminal with its dials The Vector General has a lot of im- dial number ”1.”

and electronic data tablet, a $30,000 age transformation hardware built Sounds easy? It is. And what fun

PDP 1145 minicomputer and stan- into it, which allows you to do a lot it must be to sit there and play with dard alpha-numeric keyboard. “I set of things in real time (with no pro- shapes and movement!

up a Mitchell 35mm camera with an cessing delay). The language is “The display can then be handled animation motor in front of the designed for non-computer people. by an image processor—colored, screen and connected it to the com- GRASS consists of very simple, mixed and recorded on standard puter so that a signal from the pro- straight forward commands which videotape, 3/4 inch cassette or what gram could trigger the animation allow the students to work with the have you.” The system has produced motor when the image was Vector General 3DI directly and tapes in chemistry, mathematics, complete. manipulate the image by means of medicine and computer programs. “The full length of the trench con- various dials and buttons. Additionally, since the system

sisted of about fifty of these “GRASS as a language makes it operates in real time, it has been U-shaped sections. Well, you super easy for an educator or stu- used in performance in a live con- couldn’t bring all fifty of these dent to come in and call up a stored cert. Various monitors were spotted sections up on the screen at the image (a crystal, molecule, etc.) and around the concert hall and one same time. The computer brought up by means of the language manipu- large Advent Video projector rigged.

five sections at a time and it would late the image, say rotation by a There are three performers. One take about 24 frames (one second) to single dial, programmed in GRASS. performer programs the computer

go through one U-shaped section of Suppose it is necessary to look at and operates the dials of the Vector the trench.

“So it was this continual shuffle of sections; never having more than five on at any one time. Now, of course, this means that ones at the

back just sort of pop on. I had hoped to be able to just fade them in, bit by bit, by manipulating the intensity control to make them appear more slowly. But there wasn’t enough time. “The entire sequence was shot

once, and that was it. Early on, I had a deadline of June first, but in early April the deadline was moved up to May fifth —lopping off three weeks.

I had anticipated another six. I suggested that they wait and shoot the sequence in England blue screen; they could print the computer effects in later and have the thing perfect. But no, they wanted to rear

14 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill CORPORATION

EQUIPMENT

DIGITAL

COURTESY

PHOTO:

Left: The control center of Dolphin Production’s video creations. Above: Digital’s PDP 11/45 introduced in 1972 as a large minicomputer has an internal memory of 262,1 44 characters and can handle 3.3 million mathematical calculations per second.

General, creating the image. The se- the actors will work on giant-blue ored and positioned on the screen. cond manipulates the image pro- screen sets with all of the details Then the image can be moved and cessor and colorizes the image and added by computer. rolled in any manner around the the third performer creates music Computer video technology has screen. The Scanimate is operated on an audio synthesizer to complete found its way into commercial televi- by patching the video signal through the video picture. A number of tapes sion. Numerous commercials and various transforming modules in have been made of these concerts logos have made use of sophisticated much the manner as an audio and are generally available. PBS has video synthesizers to create, without synthesizer. The movements are broadcast a number ot them. the photographic camera or lengthy watched and tested at various set-

But is it art? Mr. Cuba maintains cel animation, the images required. tings until the client sees what he that the computer and its periph- In New York City, Dolphin Produc- likes. Then it is recorded. Eventually erals are tools, like brushes and pig- tions uses the Scanimate video syn- a foreground and background reel is ments to a painter. That the manipu- thesizer to produce a good many of generated. At the end of the day the lations of these tools is by the mind Madison Avenue’s television com- reels are composited, a sound track of man and just as selectively con- mercials. laid in and the client goes away with trolled as any other fine art. “The There are only five such machines a complete TV spot tucked under his computer as a tool gives us a new in the world—originally built by arm. way to explore motion, movement Computer Image Corp. in Denver. The advantage of the system is and the kind of imagery that we The essence of the machine is that that the client can immediately see have never really had the power to you can put down any picture or im- what he is getting without waiting explore.” age and move it, transform it, distort for various laboratories and optical

Will we see more computer ani- it, flip it, color it right in front of houses to process films and create mation in motion picture making? So your eyes and record the result on effects. far it has had a very limited use. video tape. Dolphin’s use of the Scanimate There was a sequence in UFO: The images can be saved, mixed equipment allows them to have Target Earth and Futureworld. All of or composited with other images and almost any job out in two days at the visuals aboard the ships in 2001 backgrounds so that little by little a half the cost of the average commer- were cel animation masquerading completed sequence can be built up. cial. Certainly if the effects of as computer graphics. There were Much of the credit must go to the figures twisting, stretching, zooming, some in Demon Seed—one of the enormous advances in recent years strobing, or squeezing against a ‘ background display monitors ran a of computer controlled video tape ‘three-dimensional’ ’ background computer-generated model of an editing. With the Scanimate equip- were attempted with cel animation, earthquake.. ment and IVC 9000 video editing the cost would be prohibitive.

Ultimately, there is the possiblity equipment a complete thirty second The Scanimate, however, isn’t in- that the technology of producing commercial may be produced in tended to compete with cel anima- curved surfaces, details, colored eight hours. The going rate, tion, but to produce visually effec- and shaded planes will replace some however, is $8,000 a day and up. tive animation on the spot, with the of the rather complicated special The process starts with an image, client watching. effects that can be created only by either a Kodalith on a light box scan- Certainly the potentials of com- photography and optical effects. ned by a TV camera or a TV studio puter animation have only been sug- Already computer controlled camera image. The image is then gested. Much is still unrealized, cameras could usher in the era of transformed in some manner, for ex- waiting for the man with the ideas setless cinematography, in which ample, compressed into a ball, col- and visions to use these new tools.#

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoJ. Ill 1 5 2

DisNEy's CaIcuIatInCi Camera

ne of the Walt Disney long umbilical cord back to the glass Studios' massive sound cage.

stages is beginning to look a It could be equipment borrowed

littleOlike control It’s from Berkeley’s atomic physics lab or a NASA room. the same Stage #3 that was built for a testing bench for a new NASA space

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in the probe. But it isn’t. It’s for fun. It’s for early 1950s, when the studio began to making movies. It’s ACES. invest more and more time in live ac- ACES, or Automatic Camera Ef- tion production. But these days the fects System, was developed by the

great tank in the floor is not filled with Disney imagineers for The Black Hole, water or a model of the Nautilus. The the studio’s first entry into high

tank is empty and covered except for budget SF production. a section that allows the lower half of Don Iwerks, son of Ub Iwerks, long- an enormous scenic backdrop to hang time Disney associate, was the pro-

below floor level. The backdrop is ject manager for the team that devel- painted with stars, star clusters and oped ACES. “It was a year ago last

great gossamer fingers of glowing in- January when it became apparent terstellar gas. from the script of The Black Hole that Facing this gigantic galactic cur- we were going to have to have some tain and mounted on the floor of the sort of camera system that was cap- stage are shiny twin tubular steel able of precise programming and re- tracks that extend 68 feet to the rear peatability.’’ wall of the studio. There, in a glass-en- Repeatability would allow the Dis- closed humidity-controlled environ- ney directors and cameramen to ment, are the banks of the NOVA 3/1 shoot their effects “in the camera.”

computer system from Data General. That is, the effects would not have to Computer video terminals and dis- be shot separately and combined play screens can be seen in abun- later in the optical printer. A greater

dance both within the glass cage and sense of reality could be maintained if alongside the gleaming metal tracks the different elements of an effects where a complex series of servo shot could be recorded one at a time in motors and metal arms and platforms the camera on a single piece of film, rest. A long crane arm extends from instead of assembled later from many the center of the “car” that rides on pieces of film on the printer. The pro- the tracks. Cables, some two-and-a- cessing steps on the printer tend to half inches in diameter and contain- “degrade” the original image and ing up to 150 pairs of wires, form a nothing beats the quality of effects

1 6 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill The ACES team assembled for Disney’s The Black Hole. Seated in front are Director of Miniature Photography Art Cruickshank and Production Designer Peter Ellenshaw. They are seated in front of the very compact operator’s console. The ACES camera crane is visible to the far right.

The ACES camera arm tracks a hill-and-dale form to photograph an element for the shuttle-car ride on the Cygnus.

The camera is rigged with a pitching lens relay system from Continental Camera.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoJ. Ill 17 ‘ shot ‘in the camera ” on a single piece giant step forward in the fast develop- layout of the equipment. “The camera of film. ing field of motion control cameras is is mounted on a dolly track that is “After talking with special effects the fact that the computer calculates about 68 feet long. The track is people Eustace Lycett, Art Cruik- the moves of the camera. How does mounted in the cement floor of Stage shank and Peter Ellenshaw,” ex- this differ from, say, the Dykstraflex #3. We excavated the concrete floor plains Iwerks, “we were able to de- of Star Wars fame? David Inglish ex- in a channel about five or six feet termine the design parameters of the plains. “The Dykstraflex system al- wide. Then we built a new concrete system—what the camera would lows you to move a camera through foundation below the level of the have to do, how far it would have to several axis of rotation by manipulat- stage, so we could put the floor panels travel, how accurately, etc.’’ It took ing a ‘joystick control.’ The computer back down when we weren’t using it about three months, until March of records the moves, one axis at a time. and use the stage for other things. 1978, to complete the specification These recorded moves can be played “The track gives us 68 feet of travel manual for the system. back at various speeds. . .which is forwards and backwards. At one end David Inglish, systems elec- and great. That movie and its technology of the track is a pit—the tank used for tronics engineer on the ACES team, laid the groundwork for ACES.’’ 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. We picks up the story. “We spent a good “But ACES,’’ continues Iwerks, can rig a screen or backing down into deal of time trying to find out as much “isn’t just a matter of recording speci- the pit so the camera can shoot down- as possible about other new camera fic moves.’’ You can tell the computer ward. It gives the same effect as hav- systems that had been developed. We where you want the camera and the ing some height to the system. At the were hoping to find something that model it is photographing to be at a opposite end of the track is a storage would meet the needs of the company, specific point. The computer calcu- room built into the sound stage. One so that our recommendation would be lates the required in-between point, half is very much like a garage with a to just buy it. We knew that we were moving the camera smoothly through roll-up door. We can back the camera going to need the system for The Black the take, passing through up to 20 key right into it and close the door to store Hole by the first of August and here it positions at specified frame numbers. and secure the camera. The other was mid-February. It was going to be This is done for all 12 axes of motion half is the computer room which is cli- awfully difficult to get everything up simultaneously while maintaining au- mate controlled for temperature, hu- and going by the first of August! Just to-follow focus or even automatically midity and dust. the computer itself was quoted at four positioning the axes to follow a point “In addition to moving up and down months delivery! We were really hop- of interest during the shot! It is this the track, the dolly has its own north- ing that there was something avail- calculating ability of the computer south, east-west axis. There are 48 in- able that would do the job ... it turned system that makes ACES so powerful ches of travel on these axes at a maxi- out there wasn’t.’’ a tool. mum real time speed of six inches per “We really had an impossible dead- Don Iwerks describes the physical second. The 68-foot track has a travel line,’’ agrees Iwerks. “It was in the middle of January that we were talking about the necessity of having the thing, but it wasn’t until the first of May that we were actually able to start ordering or building anything. We had the system operational by the latter part of September. It was an enormous project that involved a lot of people’s expertise. Amazingly, it all worked out well and came together.’’ The Automatic Camera Effects Sys- tem is the first truly computer-operated camera system to be applied to film production. The ACES system calculates camera moves and then sends the appropriate signals to the camera and the servomotor drives to execute those moves. The system has a repeatable positioning accuracy of .01 inch on the dolly and .01 degree in rotation! As far as the Disney engineers are able to determine, no other available camera system has such a degree of accuracy. What makes the ACES system a

18 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 9

speed of three feet per second. All of which are repeatably accurate to within .01 inch.

“The camera itself is mounted on a boom arm. The camera can rotate 360

degrees through the pan and tilt axes,

can execute 720 degrees of roll, all at a rate of 36 degrees per second at

real-time speed, and is repeatably accurate to within .01 degree of rotation.

“The camera is mounted in a bal- anced position, but should we need to

pan or tilt the camera through the nodal point of the lens (the optical center), the computer will calculate the move for us. We tell the computer where the nodal point is and the computer calculates and executes the

pan or tilt through the nodal point automatically. “The ‘point of interest’ program is useful, too. We can define a point on the model, say, or just a point in space.

We’ll tell the camera to do a dolly down the track, do a north-south and

PRODUCTIONS an east-west move, a roll and a few other things and the computer has the

DISNEY capability of calculating where the WALT moves should go so we will always

1980 look at the point. “We also have a model track which

PHOTOS:© is an entirely separate piece of equip-

ment. It is identical to the other track

Left: Matte supervisor Harrison Ellenshaw extends the set of the power core of the Palomino physically, but it is portable, and it’s

with a matte painting. The rear-projected plate is the lighter grey area. Above: Yvette Mimieux about 30 feet long. We can put it and Robert Forster hang suspended from flying harnesses in front of a blue screen. The fin- anywhere near the camera track. We ished composite marries a matte painting, a plate of the power core and the live actors, who appear to be floating through the center of the ship. Top: The black hole itself and probe ship. can set it parallel or crosswise, since the Art Cruickshank directed miniature photography and Eustace Lycett supervised the com- the camera track is mounted below posite optical work. A.C.E.S. operators: Bill Kilduff and Robert R. Wilson. the surface of the floor. Once we’ve

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 1 defined where the model is for the satisfied with a move within a shot, “Some of our scenes took eight to computer, it will move both of them in that move can be altered without dis- ten hours to shoot, because we had to relation to each other and still turbing the rest of the shot. The video use exposures of up to maybe 20 automatically retain pre-selected system is also used to get a 24-frames- seconds per frame—stopped down to points of interest, if we so desire. per-second replay of a stop-motion se- carry the focus. This ability to shut

“The model stand is rigged with quence. Each frame of exposure is down and pick up the next day was a pitch, yaw and roll axes just like the recorded on a video disc instead of great convenience. camera stand. There are additional tape, since disc has frame-by-frame “It is really a marvelous tool to channels in the computer to run an- recording capability and can be work with—particularly the video cillary equipment such as lights or played back at regular speed after system, because a director can plan a special motors on the model which the frames are recorded. This gives shot, program the system in simple can be controlled and keyed to turn on the director a high quality image in- terms that a cameraman is used to, and off at precise frames. Thera is a stantly, rather than having to wait for rehearse it, look at it on video and rear-projection screen that is also test film to be developed and printed make a recording of it. Finally when computer linked. by the lab. everybody is happy with the shots and

“The camera is a marvel of con- The system is enormously flexible. how they cut together, you shoot it. struction from Richardson Design. It Iwerks says, “We have used rear-pro- “All of the information is stored on can shoot standard 4-perforation or jection with it. We can run any a floppy disc, so that if at any time in

8-perferation VistaVision. It can number of other ancillary devices the future you need to do that shot shoot at 24 frames or a time exposure from the main computer—turn lights again, all the information is right of any duration at all. It was built on and off, command almost any kind there—you just load it up and let it under our supervision and with our of thing to happen at any point in the run!” design. But we are not locked into any photography. The Disney artists have already one camera. At this time the com- “The computer allows us to be very been thinking of new uses for the puter program is set to operate with free. If we don’t wish to get the shot all system beyond The Black Hole. David any one of seven lenses, spherical or in one day, or if we get started at two Inglish describes how the system was anamorphic. The TV monitors auto- in the afternoon and it’s going to run used for Disney’s Watcher In the matically unsqueeze the anamorphic to 11 or 12, we can shut the thing Woods. “We take that live action film image so the operator can see the im- down at 6 p.m. by telling the computer and transfer it to video tape. Then we age unsqueezed in rehearsal.” to fade out at a certain point. In the take the video signal of the ACES The video monitor system, one morning we can come back up to the camera and superimpose that ACES placed at the operator’s console and point that the fade started and make a model shot and the live action shot on one out at the camera, allows the cross fade back in again, then keep the model through a video switcher. crew to see exactly what the camera right on going until we finish that day. Using test targets we can perfectly

is seeing during the rehearsal of a You will not be able to tell that the line up the registration of the live ac- shot. If the director isn’t quite shot wasn’t done all at one time. tion and model cameras, so we can

The Automatic Camera Effects System made this complex docking maneuver seem easy. ACES makes feasible effects shots that would either be too costly or time consuming, bringing them within the reach of a production budget.

20 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill 1

Top: An ACES-eye view of the Cygnus in deep space. The model Above left: The ACES camera track and the smaller model track to was photographed by ACES in front of a painted backdrop, so that its left. Note that the camera track is sunk below floor level, allowing the star field would not have to be opticaled-in later. The art director the model track to placed across the camera track. The camera wanted the Cygnus to appear as a dark shape against a lighter star track runs 68' and is fixed in position. The model track is portable field, in this case a very dense star field with glowing gasses and and about 30' long. Above right: A view of the Nova 3/1 2 computer nebulae. and control system.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 2 match our miniature shot exactly to the full scale live action shot!” Thus, even though the live action footage was not shot with any sort of motion control recording device, the ACES system will be able to duplicate the movements of the live action camera in scale for the model. The effects shot and the live action will match perfectly- ‘‘We tried to design the ACES system so that it was flexible enough mechanically, electrically and in terms of the software so that it would allow us not only to meet the initial needs of The Black Hole but also be flexible enough to meet the needs that would evolve over the course of time. When the decision was made to do The Black Hole the creative people , had a long list of fantastic shots that they wanted. We didn’t have the equipment to do it. What we finally built was so far superior to anything else available that, after the equipment was built and they saw what they could do, the demands kept getting more and more complicated. And that’s good. That’s the role that engineering people fulfill in the Disney organization and the enter- tainment industry in general.”

Speed is one of the most significant aspects of the ACES system. ‘‘The video system gives us instant replay and rehearsal capabilities. If we don’t like what we see we can edit out any move without affecting the other axes. ‘‘We create a shot by allowing the cameraman sitting at the control console to move the camera to the position that he wants at the start of the shot. He then selects certain key positions; say at frame 200 he wants to be at one position and at 480 he wants a third and at 1500 he wants a fourth position. At 480 he decides to start a pan or a tilt or the model moving or all thre. The computer calculates all of

PRODUCTIONS the in-between functions for all of the axes at the same time. It does that

DISNEY very quickly at about 1/10 second per

WALT frame, so for a 1500 frame shot it takes about two and a half minutes for 1980 (& the computer to calculate all the

PHOTOS: moves on all of the axes. Then he just punches a button to start the re- The ACES camera crane has great flexibility of motion: note the variety of ways in which the hearsal and the system takes the cam- camera can move. The roll axis allows for a full 720 degrees of rotation. Accuracy is .01 degree in rotation. era and model through all of the axes

2 2 SPECIAL EFFECTS/ Vol. Ill a

as he watches the rehearsal on the TV monitor—seeing just exactly what will appear on film during the take.

“If it so happens that one axis inter- acts with another so that the path he

had in mind is not what it works out to

be, he knows it right away—no waiting for test film from the lab. He goes back very quickly and can

change the move to correct what is

happening. It makes setting up a shot very fast. “This capability of the computer to automatically compute the in- between positions comes from our long experience with the audio- animatronic creatures.” The ACES technology may soon expand to other areas in the studio. In- glish explains, “As early as 1971 David Snyder did a proposal to computer automate a cartoon crane, but at that time we were in the process of getting Walt Disney World going.

Now we are looking at it again. We hope to expedite the multiple crane.

As it is now, it requires a lot of people

to operate it, a lot of time to move the equipment in several axes. The ACES

system technology is very applicable

to that. It could bring the cost of multi- plane animation back to a more realistic level. Now all we have to do is figure out a way for the computer to paint the cels!” laughs Inglish. “I think with ACES we have given cinematography, direction and production designers a very finely honed tool that can do complicated things

very quickly. We hope it will extend the creativity of our artists. It’s like trying to build fine furniture with just a few old chisels and hammers—

fine craftsman can do it, but it will take him a long time and a lot of ar- duous work. Give that same craftsman some modern tools to work with and he’ll do a better job in much less time. That’s what we hope ACES will provide our people with. “I’ve been watching the dailies on

The Black Hole and I really find it dif-

ficult to believe that we shot that. I

look at the screen and I look at the

model and it still looks like Disney hired a mile-long spacecraft and

towed it out to the edge of a black hole! That’s what ACES in the hands The portable model stand assembly has its own axes of movement also controlled by the computer. Any number of ancillary devices can be controlled during a shoot such as rear screen, of the Disney artists can do. It’s ex- lights on the model, etc. citing to be a part of it.” •

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoJ. Ill 23 MACjicAM ExpLoRES The Cosmos

he Public Broadcasting Alexandrian Library Service has taken Ameri- T cans on a spell-binding The library of Alexandria was an journey through the Universe to ex- ancient Egyptian storehouse of all plore and explain the manifold worldly knowledge built by Alex- wonders of creation. The 13-week ander the Great. When it was de- series, Cosmos was the result of a stroyed, over a million volumes con- fortunate coalition of science, taining all the knowledge amassed business and a special-effects tech- by humanity up to that time were nology called Magicam. lost. Carl Sagan, that persuasive spokes- A model of the library was re- man for science, enlisted the assist- searched and reconstructed by Jim ance of various companies to pro- Dow, head of Magicam's model duce the spectacular special-effects shop, in collaboration with John sequences that illustrate a number Retsek of KCET. With Magicam's of complex theoretical concepts. process of interlocked video Magicam was called upon to pro- cameras—one on the model and one duce 90 minutes of special effects to on Carl Sagan, it was possible to be used at various times during the make Sagan appear to walk through series. the library, even casting his shadow The Magicam effects team was on the walls, passageways and asked to recreate the lost library of stairs. Alexandria, the inside of the human Magicam spokesman and vice- brain, a graphic representation of president of sales and promotion,

the life span of the Universe and an Carey Melcher, emphasizes that, imaginary grid system in outer “Every attempt was made to make it space. All of these sequences would as accurate as possible, though

include Sagan as if he were “on much of it is just educated guess location” inside the human, at the work. The entire model is about 20 library, etc. feet long, five feet wide and three

Right: The simple before and after. Magicam is a unique electronic compositing technique that utilizes microprocessors to link cameras on a full size set with cameras on a miniature. The two images can be combined electronically to look like a normal shot.

24 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 25 The above diagram highlights the features of the Magicam system. The background camera

(left) reaches into the miniature set with a periscope. In the center is the video control in- feet high; we had to construct the installation which permits the slaving together of the background camera and the foreground terior, several rooms and the ex- camera, shown operating on the blue screen cyclorama stage at right. terior with formal gardens. It took five months to construct at a cost of $70,000—which we think is cheap Below: Red suited actors perform on a blue-screen stage before the Magicam camera. The for model with such extensive actors will be inserted electronically into the miniature set. a ’ detailing.’ Part of the model was based upon the Getty Museum, a Graeco-Roman structure in Malibu. A six-person team using “state-of-the-art” model- ing techniques produced the miniature in 24:1 scale. Jim Dow, art director and head of Magicam’s model shop comments on some of the techniques. “The materials we use to construct the models are selected with very specific characteristics. For example, as you know, we have to use quite a bit of light to get the image through the periscope [camera] lens. So the easiest materials for us to work in are plastics, but those plastics have to be selected for their thermal charac-

teristics —that is, the plastics have to at least not melt and at best not flex or change dimension under the tremendous amount of light and therefore heat. “Most of the plastics used are

26 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoJ. Ill non-expanding epoxy urethanes, Above: Periscope which we cast in RTV rubber molds; camera lens tracks through a miniature the original patterns are carved in set, following the wax. I’ve been using these techni- movements in scale ques for some time and there are a of the camera on the live action set. of other in that couple shops town Right: Jim Dow’s use those same techniques. model of brain cells, “The marbling of the columns was which were inspired by roots from achieved marbling the plastic by garden vegetables. they were cast with,” Dow explains. “The natural color of the material was acceptable as a base color. We introduced a white pigment and swirled it for the ‘marble’ effect, it worked beautifully. The initial col- umn was turned on a lathe and the capitals were carved in wax; a rubber mold was made for the castings. the detail The capitals were all hand painted. Much of on the Alexandrian lot of the detail in the floor is “A Library model was interesting,” Dow continues. “Origi- hand painted, though Dow did ex- nally, I was going to paint all that, periment with pho- to do ex- but we decided some tographic detailing periments, so we went out to the as well. Marble in- Getty Museum and photographed lays at the Getty Museum were pho- out there. the rich marble inlays tographed and These photographs were then printed by the hun- printed by the hundreds. We cut out dreds. The photographed tiles were the photographed tiles and pasted cut out and pasted them down to the model.” A special onto the model. adhesive had to be researched that

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 27 would fasten the resin-coated paper down to the plastic model and stand up to the intense heat.

“The murals were all done as full- size paintings, about 16 by 30 inches. These were photographed, reduced in scale and printed on a pebble-finish paper, which gives them a mosaic texture.”

Drain Trip

As Carl Sagan points out, “one of the most significant features of the

Magicam process is that it can help us to visualize the world of the small. I would love to use the process to help people understand the microbe world. We could ‘shrink' the narrator to the size of an amoeba and have him walk among living cells describing their characteristics.” One of the sequences in Cosmos takes Sagan into the convolutions of the human brain—another kind of Above and next page: Snorkel camera slowly travels through the Alexandrian Library set. “storage library.” For this sequence Magicam’s matting system is sophisticated enough to allow Carl Sagan’s shadow to follow

Magicam had to miniaturize Sagan the contours of the miniature set—exactly as if he really strolled through the corridors and steps of a full size set. The illusion of reality is uncanny. Below: The Magicam miniature of and magnify the brain tissue. Carey the "cosmic” calendar. For this sequence with Sagan walking through the ages of the Melcher takes up the story: “We universe six generations of video mattes were required. take Carl into the convolutions of the brain and he emerges at the base of the corpus callosum—the dividing canyon between the right and left hemispheres. Then we take him through the wall and down into the neural level. “We sculpted an area of the brain in clay and made a latex mold to produce modules that we assembled into the eight-foot long model of the corpus callosum.” The Magicam team studied brain tissue (cat, not human) at UCLA and photographed the microscope neural cells with a scanning electron microscope. “After viewing the material with

Dr. Scheibel at UCLA, I proceeded to construct a model,” explains Dow. After several attempts, Dow took castings off of parsley roots and rootabagas and wired them up for models. “The cells really do look like garden vegetables,” says Dow with a smile. “The Magicam matting technique allows Carl Sagan to appear to be taking a stroll through the neural network while describing its operation.

2 8 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill

Space Construction “What we really wanted to do,” animated film would have to be Another kind of network was says Dow, “was to define space as transferred to tape. When the film created for a sequence which Carey grid with computer graphics. But goes through the projector gate, Melcher likes to call “the Shape of with the restraints of a TV budget, however, there is a slight weave to

Space.” Carl Sagan is matted into we had to do it with cel animation. it. If we matted a solid object like an animated grid system as he “In ‘normal’ animation,” inter- Carl, who is, electronically, a very explains the principles and impli- rupts Melcher, “you work with stable picture, there would be a cations of Einstein’s Theory of 35mm film, but we are working with good deal of ‘sawing’ between the Relativity. The grid system serves to video tape. We wanted to use the cel background and Carl—the elements graphically show the flow and animation as a background plate would weave and jiggle against one

curves of the Universe. and matte Carl into it. But the 35mm another.

30 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill “So what we did was to transfer our cels directly to videotape using a color video camera on an Acme animation stand and a digital frame storer. We were able to click off frames of our own animation, store them and relay that directly to video tape; so we had an electonically stable background that we could work with and add whatever effects we desired.”

Magicam was hired to create many of the visual effects for ABC’s The Greatest American Hero. The flying sequences involved on actor in harness on a blue screen stage and the snorkel camera tracking

through a miniature alley. Magicam’s video matting technique is well suited to the demands of television production.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 3 1 the Universe with whirling galaxies, on an old desert air base, but The Cosmic Calendar dar) planetary formation and the like logistics and lighting problems were In Sagan’s book, The Dragons of taking most of the “months.” In ac- of enormous concern. But we Eden, the entire development of the curate scale all of human history realized the Magicam process could

Universe is described in terms of a takes up the last “ten seconds” again be utilized to produce the

calendar year. It begins at 12:01 of before midnight, December 31. precision visual effects we needed to

January 1 with the “big bang” and According to Sagan, “our ex- present the lifespan of the continues to midnight of December ecutive producer initially planned to Universe.”

31, which is the present time. The construct a huge set hundreds of Carey Melcher describes the se- calendar charts the development of yards long (an enormous strip calen- quence as created by Magicam: “You are introduced to the calendar through a series of motion-control moves, starting with the big bang, through the formation of stars, galaxies and planets. The camera moves up and around, finally show- ing Sagan walking through the calendar. We used video motion control to lay in six generations of mattes.

Each ‘month’ had its own special pictorialization—three dimensional planet models, galaxies, etc. The panel’s were built out of Vfe-inch acrylic, airbrushed and underlit, for

a spectacular effect . . . and on a TV budget.” Melcher emphasizes that although

Magicam is capable of enormous degrees of sophistication and

believability with its process that is

not a “one, two, three, bang it out

system.” It requires ample planning and proper care in pre-production in order to achieve the full value of the system. Properly used, the Magicam process can create extremely complex environments for film and video production at a fraction of the cost these settings would demand were they to be built on a human scale. Carl Sagan sums up his ex- periences with Magicam production: “The science of Magicam is com- parable to that used in in- terplanetary missions, utilizing some of the most sophisticated electronic

systems available today. I view it not as an illusionary technique, but as reality machinery that enables people to understand the worlds of the very large and very small. The key

element is the motion. It imparts

such realism to the film work. I am in the early planning stages of a feature-length film and hope to be A good look at miniature set a on the Magicam table. You can see that the periscope is able to work with the Magicam crew capable of getting extreme close-ups, requiring that the miniature sets be exactly scaled and I delighted with both minutely detailed. again, as was the technical and creative support we received from Magicam.” •

3 2 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill Oto VAdis J-D?

Three-dimensional photography is alive and well, both in the movie theater and in the operating room.

cience Fiction writers have periencing widescreen, surround

made use of the concept of 3-D sound, color . . . and 3-D? Well, it may S television and 3-D movies as surprise you to learn that many peo- background props for their stories ple can and do. nearly as long as the genre itself has Movies in 3-D have been exhibited existed. Furthermore, 3-D technology sporadically with varying degrees of has been with us since the earliest success thoughout this century—the days of the motion picture. In fact, the last big boom ocurring during the ear- first motion picture ever made was in ly 50’s. There are still a few theaters 3-D in 1889 by the English inventor today that occasionally exhibit some William Friese-Green. of the classics (such as Kiss Me Kate,

So why aren’t we sitting at home It Came From Outer Space and Dial M watching 3-D TV in color or going to For Murder, among others) in 3-D. A the movies and sitting in theaters ex- few films have been made in 3-D since

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 33 PRODUCTIONS

DISNEY

WALT

1953 ©

PHOTO

Above: Disney’s “Melody,” the first in the series Adventures In Music, was animated in Technicolor and 3-D. Directed by C. August Nichols and Ward Kimball with color styling

by Eyvind Earle, it was released in 1953. Left: Frame blow-up from the anaglyph version of

It Came From Outer Space. The 2-projector

Polaroid version is also still seen. Below: Stereotronics 3-D video microscope invented

by James Butterfield is used in micro-electronic manufacturing, small parts assembly, biological research and education.

UNIVERSAL

1953 ©

PHOTO

34 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill (

FRAMING BETWEEN RIGHT AND LEFT STEREO IMAGES jS provided roR 3y “gut/ugger" mattes IN FRONT OF CAMERA.

LEMT EYE IMAGE IDENTIFICATION fiaj

CAMERA APERTURE PROTECTOR APERTURE O CD . 0/ o'(.Z54mm) wtDE SHARP FRAME LINE SEPARATES STEREO PAIRS OFIMAGES 0 a L3 ° 10 OVERLAP OF RIGHT AND LEFT R2 I ASPECT • STEREO PAIRS OT IMAGES RATIO =/ TUZ A 1 Produces fuzzy frame LINE ”1, " o!5*(. rRCPi . 00 70. 03&MM) wide. ° PROJECTED IMAGE NOTCH IN CAMERA APERTURE DESIGNATES -380 (RGEmm) VERTICAL SEPARATION LEFT EVE IMAGE t f Between Similar image podws Rl d p AS measured peinten a fight UNO A LEFTSTEREO PAIR OFIMAGES p

' . . 009 0SLMtA> 7O.R"(022& HEADS- HORIZONTAL. DISPLACEMENT of LEFTEYE IMAGES, OFINFINITY OBJECTS CLOSER TO SOUND TRACK SPACEVISION AREA. , FILM STANDARD

for theatrical release, that time Above: Technical format notably Dynasty, Ape, Arch Oboler’s specifications for the Spacevi- The Bubble, Andy Warhol’s Frank- sion process. Spacevision was pioneered by the late Robert enstein and a few porno flicks. There Bernier; the principle of a are also quite a few companies carry- single-strip over-and-under ing on active research in 3-D movies; system is widely imitated. There are other systems today companies like StereoMed, Space- which have greatly improved vision Stereovision and Dimension-3. on this process, but no process United Artists quite recently is better than the skill and care of the person using it. Left: The developed a dual 70mm camera Spacevision lens. system (surely the Rolls Royce of all movie formats) called StereoSpace and shot test footage in Egypt of the built to allow commercial filmmakers possibilities they had in mind was a pyramids and Tut’s treasures. the opportunity to film ocean denizens 3-D film—perhaps because Marine- But very few of these more recent in a simulated natural environment. land had been used as one of the loca- developments are available for public Soon scientists and tourist alike were tions for the 3-D thriller Revenge of viewing, with the exception of Sea streaming to the secluded oceanfront the Creature in 1955. Dream, a very remarkable film site south of St. Augustine to view the Excited by the possibilities of work- created by Murray Lerner, a New unique “windows on the sea.” It ing in 3-D, Lerner began a year-long York-based documentary filmmaker. became the world’s first marine life search for the 3-D process that would Produced in Spacevision (a process attraction and has enjoyed notable be right for a film with many under- owned by E.M.I. Films) for Marine- success since its doors were opened water sequences. “Out of all the pro- land of Florida, this 23-minute film in to the public in 1938. cesses I saw,” asserts Lerner, “I liked color, quadraphonic sound and 3-D Sea Dream, presented in a special Spacevision the best. I found it to be has been enchanting visitors since 444-seat theater, is part of an ongoing sharper than any other 35mm wide-

1978. expansion program at Marineland. sreen process. I did a very elaborate Marineland of Florida was created When Murray Lerner was ap- test that took about a month. But as in 1937 as Marine Studios —two large proached by Marineland to produce a soon as I began seeing footage in 3-D, I tanks called “oceanariums” were special exhibition film, one of the knew I had what I wanted and began

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoJ. Ill 35 —

to get very excited. dramatic impact is heightened than that. You are limiting yourself

Sea Dream is a nature documen- considerably with so much of the ac- dramatically and artistically.’’ tary that makes excellent use of the tion appearing to take place within an Spacevision’s inventor, the late

3-D process. “When I started script- arm’s reach of the viewer. Lerner en- Bob Bernier, was aware that there

1 ing Sea Dream/ Lerner explains, “I joys playing with the audience; right were many technical considerations tried to analyze the esthetic pos- at the beginning of the film, he estab- and limitations to 3-D films. Many

sibilities of 3-D. I don’t think anyone lishes the exciting potential of 3-D to systems in the ’50s were restricted to has ever done that with 3-D before. his audience by having a frisbee come shots that closely matched the It’s usually just added to the story sailing over the waves, off the screen capabilities of human vision. Space- like taking out black and white film and remain floating just a couple of vision seems to be good at producing and putting color film into the cam- feet in front of the viewer’s nose. It’s unusual shots without eyestrain.

era. I knew that Sea Dream had to be startling and exciting and it lets the Spacevision’s 3-D lens is simple to an ‘experience film,’ that the medium audience realize what they are in for operate. The system utilizes a single

had to be the message—the fact that I when the frisbee dissolves into the im- 35mm camera with the Spacevision was working in 3-D had to be at the age of a sea creature—the audience Trioptiscope lens which “sees’’ two

heart of what I was doing.’’ finds itself looking not through a win- viewpoints on a horizontal plane If the reactions of the audience dow at the world, but experiencing similar to one’s eyes. These two im- since 1978 are any indication, Mur- the world projected into their midst. ages corresponding to the right and ray Lerner has given them an ex- Lerner comments, “I found that left eye view are stacked on top of the

perience in 3-D filmmaking that is most oldtimers in 3-D films like to other within the standard 35mm indeed unique. Most 3-D films of the place the action ‘beyond the window.’ frame. This slitting of the 35mm frame

recent past used the screen as a “win- I guess they were afraid to shock the gives Spacevision its widescreen

dow’’ —as if the audience were audience. It’s just like the early days aspect ratio of 2.35:1. seated in a darkened room and of regular cinematography when the Lerner is looking forward to con- watching the action of the film unfold cameramen were afraid of wide tinuing his work in the 3-D medium. through the window of the screen. Oc- angle and telephoto lenses —they Quite a number of SF film producers casionally, for shock value, objects stuck to the so-called “normal’’ and directors have seen special would be poked through the window lenses. They all insisted on a lens that screenings of Sea Dream, which into the audience’s faces. Westerns resembled the way the human eye Spacevision now uses to show off its were particularly noted for the sheer worked and anything else was wrong. process. Even Dr. Land of the Polaroid

quantity of debris “hurled’’ at the au- But this is an esthetic consideration. Corp., and one of the pioneers in 3-D dience. Sea Dream, however, gives They didn’t understand the drama of system development, has said that the viewer a new experience. Lerner the medium. Film isn’t vision. Film Sea Dream incorporates some of the

attempts to fill the space between the shouldn’t seek to recreate normal finest 3-D photography he has ever viewer and the screen. The film’s human vision, because film is better seen. Lerner thinks that science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic and the circus are all ideal for the medium of 3-D. But Lerner maintains that

whatever the genre, it should be

scripted for 3-D so that it becomes a “total experience.’’ “You have to think of the medium,’’ Lerner maintains. “I think talking heads would be the weakest possible subject matter for 3-D. You have to pick your story for the medium.” A 3-D film is a very different experience. In ordinary “flat” films, when the camera goes to close-up, the image gets bigger on the screen. Some-

times it can be quite disconcerting. There were some Cinerama close-ups

1 of faces that created Brobdingnagian nostrils that you could have driven a | l truck through. But in 3-D, a close-up

| means that the image comes closer to you. It stays the same size, but comes g 1 right up to you—face to face. Spacevision’s Trioptiscope lens mounted on an otherwise unmodified 35mm motion picture Sea Dream is such an accomplish- camera. The ‘‘outrigger mattes” in front of the lens provide framing between right left and ment in 3-D technology that the stereo images.

36 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill a

Rupkalvis of StereoMed presented a Above: Marineland audiences ex- large screen (6x9 feet) demonstra- perience the 3-D tion of live closed-circuit, three- thrills of “being” dimensional color TV for the Archi- underwater. The pic- tectural School of the University of ture on the screen is

simulated for this il- Minnesota. Nearly a decade earlier in lustration. Left: The 1954 and 1955, James Butterfield Spacevision camera (who currently holds a number of in an underwater housing filming se- patents in 3-D TV) transmitted 3-D TV quences for Sea on a daily basis in Mexico. Dream. One of the most remarkable applications of 3-D technology has been in the field of microsurgery. Dr. John P.

Beale, Jr. of the San Francisco Eye In- Museum of Holography in New York article? Well, 3-D TV does indeed stitute, a pioneer in the field of City arranged for Saturday— screen- exist today, though it is not nearly as microsurgery, saw the need for a new ings as part of their exhibit “Similar accessible to the general public as 3-D medical instrument which would Visions” in 1980. The infant art and movies. There have been public combine a surgical optical micro- science of holography is no match for demonstrations though, and 3-D TV is scope with color 3-D television— modern processes like Spacevision. used in closed circuit systems in Surgical Stereo-Video Microscope. The technology of stereoscopic photo- nuclear power plants, hospitals and Dr. Beale went to James Butterfield graphy dates well back into the last scientific research laboratories. with his request and such a system century while holography is only two From time to time, demonstrations of was developed. decades old. state-of-the-art 3-D TV are held at In June of 1974 a patent was But what about that 3-D TV broad- technical conferences and conven- granted to Mr. Butterfield for his cast mentioned in the opening of this tions. As long ago as 1972, John Stereo Television Microscope

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 3 7 Spacevision system is set-up to film butterflies. The special net-covered frame keeps the butterflies in front of the camera.

(#3,818,125). The system incor- opportunity of witnessing the opera- absolute necessity. The inventor and porates a miniature 3-D color televi- tion in the classsroom at a later date. patent holder, James Butterfield, sion camera attached by means of a Doctors have found such 3-D color reports that Dr. Beale has used the beam splitter to Dr. Beale’s surgical videotape presentations to be extre- equipment to perform such pro- microscope. During the operation the mely helpful in the classroom. Many cedures as the Strabismus (crossed surgeon is able to use either the opti- times, during the heat of an operation, eyes) operation, corneal transplants cal microscope or view the 3-D televi- a surgeon will make decisions about a and cataract and cornea procedures. sion screen without any special choice of procedure and hours, days The high resolution image (1,023 scan glasses. The surgeon is no longer tied or weeks later may not be able to lines as opposed to the 525 lines for down to a single tiring position during recall the precise circumstances that home broadcast), the precision color the long hours of surgery. He is free to required that decision at that time. control possible and the all-important move his head, look at his assistants With the operation recorded in all the stereo depth of the image have given or other instruments without having depth of 3-D color TV, the cir- Dr. Beale a unique and valuable tool. to refocus his eyes as would be the cumstances can be replayed for Recently, Mr. Butterfield has been case with a conventional microscope. himself and the class. As a bonus, developing a Stereo Video Dr. Beale also employs the use of a since the entire operation has been Microscope for industrial applica- large monitor in his operating room so recorded on videotape, insurance tions. An obvious application is that the operating team can view the companies may be more inclined to assembly line examination of micro- progress of the operation. The signal lower their malpractice premiums, miniature integrated circuits which can also be fed out to other color 3-D since direct evidence is available to may have more than 30,000 elements TV monitors so that visiting doctors them should a case have to go to court. in a chip only V4-inch square. In addi- and personnel can observe the same Dr. Beale has performed numerous tion to seeing a high resolution 3-D col- picture the surgeon sees and follow operations using the 3-D television or TV image magnified a thousand his progress during the operation. image. The 3-D color image has given times, a flick of a switch enables the The 3-D picture can also be him the assurance and confidence to viewer to reverse the image from a videotaped for “instant-replay” in the perform very delicate sewing, cutting positive to negative or to any number operating room, should the surgeon so and other procedures on the human of “false-color” displays that often require, or to allow students the eye in which depth perception is an reveal details not normally visible.

38 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoJ. Ill The 3-D TV camera can be made sen- sitive to infrared or ultraviolet light or even to X-rays, so that human eyes can see on the 3-D TV screen objects illuminated by “light” outside the range of human vision. Mr. Butter- field says that his Stereo Video Micro- scope “takes viewers on a voyage into micro-space in the same way that a spaceship might travel through outer space.” NASA has made use of Mr. Butter- field’s 3-D TV to view 3-D pictures taken by Earth satellites. At the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland you can look in 3-D down through the eye of a hur- ricane with stereo pictures taken by one of the weather satellites.

Back on Earth, Mr. Butterfield is building a 3-D TV system for Lawrence Livermore Laboratories. The 3-D TV cameras are the eyes of a viewer to wear glasses of any kind. cent Geneva conference may sweep WORM—a robot-like device that can Russian technicians have been all that aside. But even within the see in almost total darkness to ex- researching no-glasses 3-D since the F.C.C. there is no question in anyone’s plore areas of nuclear reactors too early 1940’s, but Dr. Victor Komar, mind that the world will have 3-D and dangerous for human personnel. one of the U.S.S.R.’s leaders in 3-D that, in the future, it will become just

With the aid of the 3-D TV monitor research and development, recently as standard as color TV is today. “eyes,” human controllers can check viewed a demonstration of Mr. But- If you think that your business or in- for radiation leaks and manipulate terfield’s 3-D TV without glasses and dustry could profit by the application tools and equiptment with the accu- came away impressed. of 3-D technology, one or more of the racy of full depth perception. Mr. Butterfield’s company, The 3-D following companies may be of in- But what about 3-D TV at home? Video Corp., developed the system terest to you: Well, there are quite a few systems currently being used by SelecTV, VI- being developed in the U.S. and SIONS and MultiVisions to transmit 3-D Video Corp. abroad. In Australia the DOTS classic 3-D motion pictures to home James F. Butterfield, system attempts to make 3-D compat- viewers. Mr. Butterfield reports that Technical Director ible with normal color broadcast: he has taken the old anaglyph system 10999 Riverside Drive Viewers with special glasses will see to its ultimate development by allow- Suite 208 a 3-D TV picture, but viewers without ing color films to use the anaglyph N. Hollywood, CA 91602 glasses will see a normal color image. system. It should be noted that these The process has been criticized for broadcasts are true stereoscopic 3-D StereoMed the very low quality of the 3-D image transmissions as opposed to a system John Rupkalvis created. In the United States there that has been used for children’s pro- 8208 40th Avenue North are both no-glasses and glasses- gramming in Japan based on the old Minneapolis, MN 55427 required systems. James Butterfield, Pulfrich illusion. Mr. Butterfield’s again, has built a fully operational 3-D system allows objects to come out of Dimension-3 TV (the prototype is in black and the screen to within a few inches of Daniel L. Symmes white) that does not require the the viewer’s eyes and go back some 256 South Robertson Blvd. distance into the screen. Beverly Hills, CA 90211 Because of the increasing activity in 3-D research many people have Spacevision, Inc. suggested that 3-D is finally “just EMI Films, Inc. around the corner.” Cable-TV sub- 9489 Dayton Way scribers have been the first home- Beverly Hills, CA 90210 viewers in the U.S. to see test 3-D transmissions in this decade. The big Stereovision, Inc. stumbling block is the F.C.C.’s in- Chris Condon sistence on compatibility with cur- 3421 West Burbank Blvd. John Rupkalvis’ custom stereo camera. rent broadcast standards, but a re- Burbank, CA 91505 •

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill 39 AlldER ANd JohNSON: SpeciAl FX SupERvisORS

rian Johnson and Nick Allder “I was presented with the script to share the screen credit and ALIEN a long time ago,” remembers B responsibilities of “Special Ef- Johnson. “I was working for Gerry fects Supervisor” on 20th Century- Anderson on Space: 1999. Walter Hill, Fox’s release, ALIEN. The association Gordon Carroll and another ALIEN

between the two is not a new one, as director called me in to discuss the Allder remembers. “I suppose Brian script. At that time there were very

and I have known each other for 10 or few special effects in the script—one 15 years, possibly.’’ Johnson concurs. or two establishing shots in space and

‘ ‘We’ve worked on a lot of pictures to- some floor effects.

gether. Nicky is working with me now “After some discussion, they asked on The Empire Strikes Back." me to do the movie, but the film was In effect, the partnership of John- going to be in preparation for some son and Allder enabled ALIEN's time and lots of things were going to

“Special Effects Supervisor’’ to be in be changed, so I went to work on Re-

two places at the same time. Allder venge of the Pink Panther , Medusa

elaborates: “While I was with the Touch and one or two other things.

‘ main unit supervising the shooting at ‘Then one day I got a call from 20th Shepperton Studios [where the live- Century-Fox asking me to do the ef-

action, full-scale photography was fects on ALIEN. At that time I was just done], Brian was at Bray [Studios] about to start the Star Wars sequel, keeping an eye on the models—get- but I said, ‘Great! I’d love to do it.’ I ting them built and shooting the had a meeting with Ridley Scott, who tests.” is a wonderful storyboard artist. We Before the filming of ALIEN began, looked over his drawings and set a Johnson had already agreed to do the tentative date. The understanding Star Wars sequel, but because of his was that there weren’t going to be so

long association with Allder, Johnson many effects that I couldn’t still carry felt perfectly confident leaving Allder on with The Empire Strikes Back." in charge. Says Johnson, “I directed Although Empire and ALIEN are

all of the effects for ALIEN until I left both Fox pictures, Johnson had signed to join The Empire Strikes Back. Then with Empire first, so Fox had to get Nicky took over. permission from George Lucas and

40 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill CENTURY-FOX

20TH

1977 ©

PHOTO:

ALIEN proved to be a fascinating challenge for effects supervisors Johnson and Allder.

It was while Johnson was still working on Gerry Anderson’s Space: 1999 that he was first presented with the script for ALIEN. Johnson is seen here behind a high speed Mitchell 35mm camera preparing to shoot a sequence in miniature for Space: 1999.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill 41 —

Gary Kurtz to allow Johnson to do both pictures. “Actually, George’s company owns Empire while is , ALIEN totally financed by Fox,” Johnson explains. “It was never my intention not to give each picture 100 percent of my time. Though we did manage it, I can tell you that it has been a big strain on all the SFX crews concerned with shooting both ALIEN and Empire. Peo- ple develop split personalities when working on two pictures at once their loyalties get divided. It’s very difficult to give a picture your full time and effort when you know there’s another which requires your time and effort, too. We worked very long hours on ALIEN and everybody got very tired. That’s not the best way to Johnson had to leave the set of ALIEN early to work on Empire, Nick Allder took over for him start like a major movie Empire. on ALIEN. Mark Hamill, above, recovers from an encounter with a snow creature. “We’ve had some pretty rugged locations on Empire. We’ve been to taries and TV commercials, and then late Les Bowie’s special-effects com-

Norway, where it was 50° below zero. as an assistant on feature films. pany in the early 1960s where he We are working full-out, but we are Johnson’s budding career was then worked on several Hammer films. all going to be very glad to finish the interrupted by the National Service, Allder spent 11 months in Egypt picture and have a rest next year. I where he performed various duties in working on the epic Khartoum, then haven’t had a vacation in five years.” RAF Transport Command. Shortly the Academy Award-winning A Man Brian Johnson rose to prominence after returning to civilian life he for All Seasons; after this he was off to in the U.S. when his work in Gerry found himself working on visual- Malta for a thriller, Twist of Sand, Anderson’s Space: 1 999 TV series at- effects camerawork, a field in which then two years on the aerial process tracted so much attention. His work he has specialized ever since. photography for the mammoth The for this series and most of the photo- Over the years Johnson has been Battle of Britain. From working in the graphic effects work in ALIEN took responsible for many of the eye- air, he went underwater for photog- place at the specially equipped boggling events seen in such movies raphy on Submarine X-l and the studios at Bray, near Windsor, as Taste the Blood of Dracula, When underwater tank sequences on the

England, where many of the Hammer Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, 2001: A Alistair Maclean thriller Fear is the horror films were made. Space Odyssey, Revenge of the Pink Key. His other films have included On Space: 1999, Johnson is credited Panther, The Medusa Touch, Mos- The Long Duel, The Medusa Touch, as special-effects designer and super- quito Squadron, Nothing But the The Wild Geese, The Revenge of the visor. ALIEN as supervisor, Night, On , John- The Blockhouse and The Pink Panther and three years as son “designed the way the effects Tamarind Seed. His effects magic has special-effects cameraman on Space: were to be done. I determined the size also been featured on television on 1 999. of the models,” says Johnson, “and The Protectors, New Scotland Yard, their manner of construction. I se- Day After Tomorrow, Stingray, Th un- They Came Prepared lected the crew and drew up the bud- derbirds and, of course, Space: 1999. The varied backgrounds of Allder get. I decided how the various shots On Space: 1999 his jobs included and Johnson prepared them ideally were going to be done.” designing the models, painting origi- for the problems they encountered on nal artwork, working on floor effects ALIEN. Johnson remembers, “One of A Lucky Career Change and directing the combined skills of the difficulties with ALIEN was the Born in Surrey, England, Johnson’s his hand-picked, and highly efficient, way the project grew. With [director] ambition was to take up flying as a ca- 12-man effects and camera crew. Ridley Scott you’ve got a man who reer, but he was advised against it on Nick Allderwas borninto the film keeps adding things and changing medical grounds. Instead, he got a job industry. His father, the late John things. One has to be on top of the situ- with a company specializing in the Allder, was a camera engineer. The ation and say, ‘Well, no, you can’t do making of television commercials and younger Allder began his career as that at the moment, but give us a few after a time found himself promoted an assistant rostrum cameraman days, a few hours and you will be able to the laboratory. The next three and with a film company making commer- to do it.’ a half years were spent working with cials. Eight years later, he switched to “We went through quite a number cameras on a variety of film documen- camera special effects. He joined the of evolutionary processes—equip-

4 2 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill ment was modified or thrown out alto- I visited Bray Studios in October of nic exhausts like we used in Thunder-

gether as new ideas were generated. 1978. There, Nick Allder, at work on birds. On this kind of work it would

Usually the new equipment would be ALIEN kind look silly, , was enough to show us very and completely incor- totally different from the original de- the Nostromo and its cathedral-like rect. The plumbing we have installed vice. Eventually, we got what we ‘‘processing refinery” in tow. in the tail of the model for the exhaust

hoped would be convincing on film.” ‘‘The complete model,” said Allder, jet is very sophisticated—it is elec- Johnson and Allder found Scott’s ‘‘is about 18 feet long and weighs trically operated by remote control so penchant for last-minute improvisa- about 800 lbs. The detailing of the that at the touch of a button the jet will

tion to be both a challenge and a joy. models is particularly rich, much of it switch on or off.”

‘‘This is why making motion pictures manufactured and turned out on a The model of the Nostromo is sur- (even the most commercial) is still an lathe. From whatever angle and how- rounded by a black cyclorama. ‘‘Our art form,” Johnson believes. ‘‘You still ever close you wish to work the cam- camera system incorporates a very have the joy of experimenting and dis- era, the sense of scale and detail sophisticated grid system so we can covering new things; whether it’s a never diminishes.” actually do multiple exposures. This new chemical that gives you a weird Three models of various scales technique, which records only on the texture to photograph, or just spend- were built of the Nostromo. The ship’s original negative, will give us much ing an afternoon dropping different jets are rigged with high-intensity better quality than traveling mattes substances on glass and photograph- quartz lights and plumbing for the or blue-screen backing shots. When ing them. You look at everything in life vapor jet. Allder explained. ‘‘We using the grid we take very careful from the point of view of what it would started using freon on Space: 1 999 for records of what areas of the frame look like on the movie screen if you rocket exhaust in space. Thank good- have been exposed in each pass tried to photograph it.” ness we’ve left behind the pyrotech- through the camera. Then we can re- wind and overlay another exposure in what we know to be a clear piece of film.

‘‘We can get by with a lot of shots in

which a starfield isn’t necessary, or is in a different area of the frame. Where the ship must cross a starfield, however, we have rotoscoped mattes. Rotoscoping involves taking a sequence frame by frame, making line drawings, hand-painting the black mattes, then shooting that in high-contrast to actually create our matte and eventual effect. It’s the only time we use an optical printer.”

Solving the "Nostromo" Problems Lighting the Nostromo and its processing refinery, which even in model

form are 18 feet long, so that the illumination appears to eminate from a single point source—the nearest star—was something of a problem. Allder pointed out that there are no double shadows on the model, even though several lighting instruments in

a row are used to illuminate it from the camera. ‘‘We use a series of flags

FOX to cross one light over to the other.

CENTURY— Where the shadow created by one flag starts, the light from the second 20TH lighting instrument in the row starts.” 1979 © By careful placement of flags and

PHOTO: lighting instruments the model can be

made to appear to be lit from a single

The sets for ALIEN were rich in problematic floor effects. Note the streams of carbon dioxide point-source. gas expelled from the explorer’s space suits as they prepare to enter the alien craft. The unique design of the ships and

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill 43 I —

sets has been noted in many magazine cause he could have turned around lishing shots.’’

articles and interviews. Brian John- and said he didn’t like it! Allder recalls that “the model was son adds his own comments to the “But he did like it... knew, built of polystyrene with a fiberglass story. “We had a whole series of though, that somewhere along the line ‘skin.’ ’’ The model was also used in

people—Chris Foss, Ron Cobb and he’d want to modify it. He modifies the long shots of the explorers as they Ridley Scott—create sketches of the everything as he goes along. We approached the ship. “It was not a ships. It was my job to assess these changed the color about four or five composite shot, however,’’ smiles

and decide on the size of the model times; it gradually got spikier, but the Johnson. “The explorers were tiny needed for any particular shot. In the basic shape was always fairly simi- puppets with lights on them!’’ end no one could really make up their lar. The rear end was altered slightly

minds as to how the Nostromo should and it had lots of various probes and Setting Up Floor Effects

look. Ridley is the kind of person who other things added to it.’’ Besides the use of photographic ef- likes to see something in three dimen- The craft that the crew of the No- fects with their models, mattes and sions before he actually says yes. stromo finds on the surface of the starfields, there are the floor ef- “My crew constructed a small planet is a Giger design. “We took fects —the mechanical devices that Nostromo model—just the basic front Giger’s sketch and sculpted a small must be built for the full-scale, live- section. I showed it to Ridley, who replica without any detail—just the action set. These included the alien it- thought it might be alright, but that he basic shape, for a test.’’ Johnson ex- self and all of its forms, special smoke, would probably want to make a few plains the problems involved in trans- steam and fire effects. changes. The talk went on and on and forming a two-dimensional sketch in- One of the most interesting innova-

I was getting close to my shooting date to a three-dimensional sculpture. tions was the use of a pulse laser on

and couldn’t wait any longer. So I “It’s a common problem. A director the planet set to produce the blue- went ahead and built this huge model. will come to you with drawing; ‘Hey, beam effect that seemed to be protect-

When it was ready, we showed it to I’ve got this great sketch!’ But it’s a ing the egg chamber in the base of the

Ridley, I had my fingers crossed, be- two-dimensional drawing, and when alien ship.

you put it into three dimensions it “We used the laser,’’ Johnson con- never looks the same. You have to be tinues, “because Ridley wanted to do able to look at a sketch and say, something different. We looked at all ALIEN ‘That’s going to look like a pile of rub- sorts of lasers while we were at Shep-

Special Effects Credits bish. Why don’t you let me have a go perton Studios; there is a company Special Effects at making something that will be simi- there that has lasers for hire. We got

Supervisors .... Brian Johnson and lar, but might have a totally different one on stage and played with it Nick Allder shape in three dimensions?’ puffed smoke and dry-ice fog through Floor Effects Supervisor “We showed the rough sculpted it. We shot several different se-

Allan Bryce form of the Giger sketch to Ridley, quences using it, but they were all cut

Special Effects who said that it was somewhere near out. Only the egg chamber sequence

Technicians David Watkins, what he would like. Then we built a remains. I think it’s very effective as Phil Knowles, Roger Nichols, huge one about 12 feet across that some sort of weird protective ray or .’’ Dennis Lowe, Neil Swan, would be used for background estab- whatever— Guy Hudson Matte Artist Ray Caple Electronics and Video Coordinator Dick Hewitt Supervising Model Makers Martin Bower,

Bill Pearson Director of Photography for Miniature Effects Denys Ayling Alien Design H.R. Giger Alien Head Effects Created by Carlo Rambaldi Small Alien Forms Co-designed and Mode by Roger Dicken Additional Alien Mechanics Carlo DeMorchis, Dr. David Watling Alien Effects Coordinator Clinton Covers Alien Bolaji Badejo Special Optical Effects Filmfex Effects Supervisor Nick Allder lines up a shot through the viewfinder of a Panavision camera.

44 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill 1 Perhaps one of ALIEN s most startling and horrific sequences that makes extensive use of floor effects is the “Chest-Burster” scene. Kane, Brian Johnson on who has been attacked by the “Face- one of the stages at Bray Studios. The Hugger,” is finally killed by the Chest- model of the

Burster—a larval stage of the alien Nostromo is in the background. creature—as it literally bursts from The Nostromo went his chest, breaking the ribs outward, through a long period splattering Kane’s blood everywhere of evolution and and finally making a bee-line for the many coats of paint before everyone darkest regions of the Nostromo. The was satisfied. sequence is very convincing . . .to say the least. Johnson recollects that day on the sound stage at Shepperton. “We did take after take of the Chest-Burster levers which had tremendous force.” the second version. I think that he sequence. Some of it was too hor- As the alien creature grows on would like it to be just slightly longer rendous for words. The lighting cam- the at one point it and to include one or two extra bits board Nostromo , eraman, Derek Vanlint, who saw the leaves behind a trail of some slimy and pieces; not just to be gory, but be- rushes the next day, was sick after substance. “The slime was a sub- cause he thinks (and I’m sure he’s watching them. I think to get the R stance with a lot of long chain poly- right) that there would be a greater rating they used the most sophisti- mers, so it wc uld extend and look very dramatic effect.” catedly convincing takes, but there oozy—pretty revolting stuff. We try to As Johnson was moving directly were some that were really horren- work with substances that are as non- from ALIEN to Empire again as SFX dous. . .bloody beyond belief.” toxic as possible. It is bad enough hav- supervisor, I asked him to explain a

The sequence, though, is a good ex- ing to work with pyrotechnic mater- bit about the role of a special-effects ample of a floor-effect problem. “Not ials, as people can get injured very supervisor. that you do chest bursts everyday,” easily. We do a bit of research into “Part of what being a supervisor is Johnson laughs, “but the problem of whatever chemicals we use to make all about is being able to pick people setting a mechanism with some sort of sure that they are not going to harm who you know are going to come up dynamic action into a very confined anyone later on in life or whatever. In with the goods. There’s a lot more to it space—this is one of the floor-effects years past,” Johnson admits, “carcin- than just actually working on the man’s regular problems.” ogens and other dangerous sub- movie. You’re not a father figure, but stances have been used without re- you need to be something of an ama- "Poor John Hurt" gard for the human damage they teur psychologist. If you start having For the sequence in which the could cause. Unfortunately, most of rows among the crew on a picture like Chest-Burster actually breaks through the substances in the special-effects ALIEN or Star Wars, you’re in John Hurt’s rib cage, Johnson’s crew man’s kit are fairly toxic, so we have trouble. built a special chest cavity for the to take precautions, such as proper “I’m a great believer in giving peo- hydraulic rams and the little puppet ventilation and making sure the sub- ple responsibility and trusting them in alien, actually a hand puppet. “Poor stances are labeled with warnings.” the way they do things, but at the

’ ‘ John Hurt, ’ Johnson explains, ‘had to Johnson sighs when he remembers same time steering them in the direc- lay on foam-rubber pads which how much of their work never made it tion you want them to go. In that way weren’t very comfortable, with his to the screen. Many sequences were you get the best out of everybody. I do head canted back at an angle. We us- filmed, among them the much-talked my best to get everybody a credit. The ed John’s real head and built up a about “cocoon sequence.” “There result is that you get total commit- chest cavity that allowed us enough are very few of Ray Caples’s matte ment. freedom of movement to get the mech- paintings left in the film. They were “The effects on ALIEN are a total anisms inside it; most of his body was cut out, not because there was any- product of an amazing team of guys below a cutaway section of the set, thing wrong with them, but because who worked together. If there are at- while we manipulated the mechani- when the movie was trimmed down to tributions of amazing special-effects cal chest. But there still wasn’t much make it tighter, they were no longer work, you really must credit the work room to get all the mechanisms in needed. of the entire crew—they all worked there. You had to have quite a lot of “I’m sure that if the film is a great their hearts out. leverage because we had to actually success at the box office, in the re- “A special-effects supervisor is on- burst through the fabric and the release (which seems to happen with ly as good as the crew around him. layers of structure, bones and all the every major picture that makes a lot With Nicky Allder and the rest of the other things that were in there. We of money, nowadays) they should crew, I think I’ve got the best special- used a series of pneumatic arms and allow Ridley complete control over effects team in the world!” •

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill 45 A Letter From EnqIancI

British Special Effects Supervisor George Gibbs shores some personal observations about his work on Flash Gordon

e started active prepara- ALIEN. As the model making became

tions in April 1979, to be more hectic I also called in Christine ready for shooting at the Overs who happened to be working on Wend of 1979. Flash Gordon in June was a commercial the studio. She was always bound to be a heavy effects reputed to be very good with

motion picture so I was on the lookout miniatures so I gave her a try. She

for the very best assistants I could turned out first class and I can boast

find. The first choice was easy; that I was the first supervisor to have Richard Conway—who later was to a female SFX assistant.

play a very important role in the Once I got my crew together my special effects of Flash Gordon it’s next big , problem was getting our

worth a mention that he and I have workshops organized in three areas worked together on and off for 12 outside London, Dino had all the years. My No. 2 assistant was David stages at Shepperton Studios booked, Watson who had helped me on a cou- also at EMI Studios Borehamwood.

ple of previous movies. But this still wasn’t enough stage

Altogether I started with a key staff space so he rented one of the largest of 16, six engineers in the main aircraft hangars in Europe at Wey- workshop, 4 with the principal bridge Surrey built on the old shooting unit, 4 assistants operating Brooklands Motor Race Track which

on the model unit, and an advance still in fact encircles the facility. party of 2 more at EMI Studios The hangar has a glass roof so the Borehamwood. whole of the roof had to be blacked The next step was to recruit top out, then literally miles of heavy elec-

model makers, so I asked Martin tric cable installed around the hangar Bower and Bill Pearson to build our to supply great banks of ‘Dino’ flood

models and help out on the model sets. lights for the blue backings. I under-

I was delighted when they agreed as stand we had the largest travelling they were fresh from working on matte blue backing ever built.

46 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill 47 —

We decided to locate the heavy having mysteriously disappeared. Building the combat disc was a engineering workshop in a separate We finally started first unit worry for me. It had to be 30 feet in the hangar at Weybridge because we shooting in Scotland on the Isle of air with 96 steel spikes that rise and

needed bags of space to build the Skye, chosen because it has a similar fall in blocks of 12 or individually. giant combat disc for the Hawkmen’s landscape to Maine on the American Apart from this built-in hazard Sky City with the various gimbles. We Eastern Seaboard. We were there for Mike Hodges insisted on using Flash also set up a model workshop in the 10 days shooting flying sequences and Barin (Timothy Dalton) them-

same hangar, not enough as it turned leading up to the plane crash. This selves on the disc rather than the out because of our heavy shooting was a good way to start a long picture stuntmen—the disc was made to tip schedule, just 16 weeks to do because the crew was together on a more than 15 degrees in any direc- everything. We needed an additional very small island and we got to know tion, tricky to even stand on let let but smaller engineering shop and each other very quickly. alone fight with whips at the same another model shop at Shepperton Meanwhile Richard Conway was time. We fashioned each spike like an Studios so that we could film at looking after the model shooting unit air ram, working on as little as 4 Weybridge or Shepperton simul- for me preparing our scale glass pounds air pressure controlled by 6 taneously without major disruption or house set for the plane crash se- volt electric solenoids. The reason for loss of time. quence and Zarkov’s rocket mini- such low pressure was to insure they We still had EMI Studios Boreham- ature for the trip to Mongo and would instantly retract if the actors wood to think about. Fortunately this his attempt to save the earth from fell on them accidentally. was all first unit photography no destruction. The next big problem was a method models, so we set up just a small ser- For the rocket launch we wanted to of detonating explosions around the vice workshop on site. As backup we get some really good flare effects to Hawkmen remembering they were had two standby trucks fully loaded simulate the massive real life rocket naked except for leather briefs and

with just about everything we could motors. I went first to a Defense wings. Dino De Laurentiis wanted me think of including the kitchen sink. Department factory that manufac- to make the explosions much bigger,

Director Mike Hodges had the habit of tures flares for guided missiles. They but when I explained the reason he visualizing some unusual effect com- had just the thing, each flare was quickly understood. Its totally dif- pletely on the spur of the moment, but made to the highest precision in- ferent in a war picture when actors his off the cuff ideas always turned up cluding final X-rays for otherwise in- are well covered with uniforms to pro- trumps. visible faults (flares with steel cases tect them from the heat of explosions. His most successful idea, in my have been known to explode on occas- We also had some great fun on the opinion, was the American football sion because of cracks in the com- Arboria Forest set which filled H fight between Flash and Ming’s pound). They burned for exactly 15 Stage at Shepperton with its giant Palace Guards on the arrival into seconds every time, starting with red trees and steaming swamps. Sam Mingo City shortly after landing on for 2 seconds, changing to white this Jones turned out to be a real pro. He the planet. gave a great heat effect inside the did all his own stunts. The swamp

Whilst I was getting everything greenhouse as the rocket gained looked and felt really horrific. The organized and on the move we started liftoff. monster that rose out of the swamp to build our models, Martin Bower and Bill Pearson had already begun construction on our model Dove exec- utive plane and some of the space

ships. I don’t think they were overly impressed with the inital concept of the various rocket ships because they are rather way out, very close to the

original Flash Gordon look I would say. They were designed by Steve Spence a talented young art director who also designed all the weapons for the film among many other props, a name to remember for the future.

Meanwhile our little engineering department was busy rebuilding the full size fuselage of the Dove Ex- ecutive aircraft that crashes into the giant glasshouse of Dr. Zarkov (Chaim Topol) with Flash and Dale the only Mike Hodges directs a rehearsal with Max Von Sydow. two passengers inside it, the crew

48 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill Enormous quantities of light were needed to illuminate acres of blue screens. The Empyrogen cast in foam latex from Martin Bower’s prototype.

like a giant spider was another conti- extremely interesting but they lacked take so we could have 5 tries without nuing saga. One week we would get a depth and credibility as atmospheres. a reload, which between takes would

memo to say it was out of the film, the They also posed insurmountable con- have taken up far too much time. I had

very next day it would be back in. tinuity problems as it was virtually a 35’ high tower built, with my firing Just as Flash laid down to rest after impossible to recreate a constant boxes and a plan of the rocket on the escaping from the swamp the spider effect. top platform, since a good view of the attacked and began to eat him alive. We had already produced a fine Hawkmen flying in was essential. Sam had to be covered with all the surreal storm cloud effect on our first Some had charges attached to them slimey substances we had mixed up tank test, so we decided to use the and others had to crash full tilt into into a cocktail to simulate the same technique for most of the tank the rocket. monster’s digestive juices. work on cloud formations. The Hawkmen were flying in at We had already completed about Director Mike Hodges and Dino De about 50 feet from the ground with big eight weeks filming when we decided Laurentiis were very pleased with the bangs going off all around them. In

to start with the cloud tank, already results. I’m sorry that there is not situations like this the stuntmen and built during the preparation period more of the cloud effects in the film. special effects team have to work

and it had worked perfectly on our The colors and movements with dif- very closely together to make sure first test. (9’ 6” x 6’ 4” dimensions ferent shapes and forms would actu- stuntmen have complete confidence built from Polycarbonate acrylic ally make an interesting short film of in the special effects system, because sheet). This form of perspex was used its own. the heat of an explosion being because even with the great weight of By the time the first unit shooting detonated prematurely could actual-

water we were using it would only was complete we had a lot of model ly make the spring steel supporting 3 have to be /b” thick. shots still to do, Richard Conway and I wires snap like cotton. To use glass with such high water mapped out the model shots together. The special effects in Flash Gordon pressure would have been far too Crashing the war rocket into Mingo should not be compared with other thick and not optically viable to the City had to be a one off take because films. We were not in any sense trying

same degree as clear perspex. I per- we only had one rocket which was in- to match or out do the next or the last

sonally was still very much involved evitably badly damaged when it space fantasy films. Perfection was with the first unit filming at EMI crashed into the model palace. Look- not our aim, but to give a feel of the Studios, so Richard Conway had to ing back most of our effects were one original Flash Gordon stories which continue alone at Shepperton Studios take deals because we had such a fast started as a newspaper strip back in to work out some good possibilities for shooting schedule. the early thirties. cloud backgrounds and Galaxies. The one sequence that will always We also had to keep in mind con- Creating the Mongo atmospheres stay in my mind is the Hawkmen stantly that the fundamental purpose was an exciting part of our work on attack on Ming’s war rocket. Art of the cinema is to entertain. • Flash Gordon. The original notion was Director John Graysmark had a full to use microphotography but by this size section of the war rocket built in George Gibbs time the first unit had proceeded with the hangar at Weybridge some 200 Special Effects acres of blue screen backings thus feet long and 50 feet high. We covered Supervisor committing the film to sky plates. it with made up explosive charges, Flash Gordon The preliminary micro plates were numbered 1 to 100 firing 20 off per 1950-81

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 4 9 TRAveliNq Mattes Ustaq The DisNEy SodiuM SysTEM

A traveling matte is a means to combine two or more separately photographed scenes into one picture. In certain sequences of Disney’s Mary Poppins the foreground , (actors and/or animated characters) and the background (existing or painted) were photographed at different times and places, and the composite images produced were later combined during the processing to make one composite picture.

1. Actors on foreground platform A are photographed under white 2. This color image goes through a prism D inside the camera and is light against a specially lighted sodium screen B. This particular recorded on a color film strip E. The sodium screen color is reflected sodium color is used because it is a very narrow band in the spec- within the prism and recorded on a separate black and white film strip trum. and its absence from the color negative has no discernible ef- as a negative silhouette image F. (See enlargements of film strips E fect in the color of the scene as photographed by the beam splitting and F below.) camera C. 5. These cels are photographed L in color under normal front lighting by the animation

3. The use of the prism makes it possible to camera. A negative traveling matte M is shoot live action E and form a correspond- 4. Blow-up prints J. black and white enlarge- made by backlighting the cels to create a ing traveling matte simultaneously. From ments of individual frames are made. These silhouette image and re-shooting them on this negative matte F a positive matte G is blow-up prints enable the animator to plot black and white film. From the negative made. Note that the foreground platform out the action of the animated characters. matte a positive matte N is made. All ele- upon which the actors stand E is designed The animated drawings K are then repro- ments are combined to form the composite to blend in with the painted background H. duced on cels and carefully painted. print O. (See P, steps 1 through 5.)

50 SPECIAL EFFECTS/ Vol. Ill

FlyiNq Down to MoNqo OR ThE TRAveliNq Matte BIues

hotographic effects veteran proved to be an enormous undertak- Frank Van der Veer is a second ing in terms of photographic effects, Pgeneration Oscar winner. His not so much because of what had to be father, the first man to film both the done, but how much had to be done in North and South Poles, won the 1930 a relatively short time. “In my estima- “ Award for Photographic Achieve- tion,” says Van der Veer, Flash Gor- ment. Frank Van der Veer picked up don has more photographic effects

his for King Kong in 1977. His reputa- work in it than any other movie ever tion in photographic effects began made. I’d say 75 per cent of the movie when he joined the photographic features some sort of effect.” effects department at 20th Century- Van der Veer emphasizes how this Fox in 1950. After seven action- stands in marked contrast to the films packed “apprenticeship” years, he of the 60s and early 70s that had no moved to Warner Brothers for a fur- need of effects—the pre-Star Wars ther six to expand his techniques in days. “Until recently, all movies the field of blue screen traveling seemed to start with a fade-in and end matte photography. with a fade-out. No effects in be-

Since that time he has probably tween, just so-called ‘realism.’ I refer

been called upon to do more blue- to it as the ‘Life Can Be Miserable’ screen work than anyone else in period.” Hollywood. Blue screen traveling But now with the fashions of the

mattes require skill, experience, care ash-can school of filmmaking, virtual- and plenty of time in the lab in order to ly vanishing from the movie houses, achieve the degree of precision that imagination, adventure, tall tales and modern audiences and producers de- high excitement are replacing the mand. Van der Veer’s recent suc- seamy slice of life scripts and placing cesses with blue-screen effects in the ever-increasing burdens on special De Laurentiis King Kong and effects artists. “By way of illustra- Spielberg’s 1941 made him the logical tion,” explains Van der Veer, “con-

choice to handle the photographic sider Superman. On that film it was effects for Flash Gordon. very important to convince the au-

The De Laurentiis Flash Gordon dience that a man could fly. I think the

Above right: Blue screen insert with live action set shot. Model rocket and tank effect sky have been matted into the background opening in Ming’s palace. Right: The miniature set of Ming’s palace with sky effect matted in.

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The war rocket is poised to crash into the model of Mong’s City. Effects supervisor George Gibbs states, “Crashing the war rocket into Ming’s City had to be a ‘one take’ affair.’’

people on that film did a marvellous Steel was flying against a fairly can be conventional. The skies have to job. What complicates ours is the fact realistic and familiar backdrop like be different, the land is unique, the that we don’t have just one man flying New York City, our Hawkmen are fly- clothing like nothing you have ever in a scene ... we have one thousand ing against a setting of the Mongo seen and the architecture literally Hawkmen. Also, they are flying in a Galaxy, sheer fantasy. Every environ- ‘out of this world.’ Our job is to pull all very unusual setting. ment these characters enter differs this off realistically, so the whole film

“Whereas in Superman the Man of from the one preceding it. Nothing doesn’t look like one gigantic effect.”

Director of Photography Gil Taylor. Brian Blessed wings to the rescue in this completed blue screen optical composite.

54 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill Hawkmen on the wing. Director Hodges admits that he walked a tightrope between comic strip art and reality.

Still, Flash Gordon is very nearly 'Flash's' Greatest Challenge the greatest challenge since De “one long effect.” After principal But before the months of round-the- Laurentiis and his designers envi- photography wrapped in December clock tedious time-consuming optical sioned sequences with hundreds and of ‘79, Frank Van der Veer and his compositing, there were the months hundreds of Hawkmen in the air flying team at Van der Veer Photo Effects spent in England shooting the seem- to the rescue. Van der Veer explains a had less than nine months to complete ingly endless special effects se- bit of the process: an unheard of 600 composites! quences. The Hawkmen proved to be “We decided we would be able to fly and control seven or eight men at a time. In order to make the hawkmen shots look like hundreds of them in the air, we would have to combine several shots in the optical printer. We put together shots which combined as many as 20 different blue- screened elements to make a single shot. “But to photograph seven or eight

Hawkmen at a time, it was necessary to build an enormous blue-screen. In the course of the production we used many different types and sizes, the screen we built for the Hawkmen was 60 feet high and 100 feet wide.” The first problem to be faced was how to light a screen of that size to the requirements of blue-screen photography. Van der Veer prefers to light Frank Van der Veer lines up a shot with an Arri 35BL and a Cinema Products XR 35. his blue-screen with arcs, when possi-

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill 55 A video adapter has been rigged to the Arriflex 35BL providing the camera operator with video recording and monitoring capabilities. Flash was shot in Todd-AO 35 format.

56 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill —

ble; arcs have a lot more blue in them halogen lights; we called them flapping their wings—the camera and the object in blue screen photo- ‘Dinos.’ They put out a tremendous would supply the flying effect. graphy is to get as much separation amount of heat, but they also put out a

between the blue in the background tremendous amount of light; just to Winging It and the warmer light in the light that one background screen took The flapping wings proved to be foreground as possible. “Unfor- a million watts of power.” another problem. Even the wings tunately,” Van der Veer continues, Additional power was required to were rigged on wires to control the “there are very few arc lights in light the seven or eight sturdy stunt- movement. If all this sounds like a London. Of course, it’s practically men who were required to dangle for situation that could easily go hay-

impossible to light a screen that large hours in their roles as Hawkmen. wire. . .you’re right. Van der Veer with arcs, anyway. Can you imagine Stuntmen were called upon to handle describes an average morning. how many arcs would be required? the flying sequences because of the “All right, so you haul up the And can you imagine how many men stamina required to keep their bodies Hawkmen in front of the blue screen you’d have manning those arcs? And horizontal while hanging from wires for a take. All of a sudden you notice can you imagine all the scaffolding attached to a hip harness. Proper fly- the second guy from the left—his you’d have to support those arcs? ing form required the Hawkmen to right wing isn’t working right. So you And then of course somebody would keep their heads up so they would be fix that and set up again. Then, oops, always be trimming an arc! Not only looking forward when flying (instead the third guy on the right forgot his that, but in trimming the arc, when of looking down) and their legs and gun. O.K., once more. Then you notice they swing the lamp around to put a backs arched. The work was tiring, that the people pulling the wing wires,

new arc in, they put it back the way awkward and uncomfortable. making them flap are not together

they think they had it before, right? At first it was thought that the some are too fast, some are too slow. When you have 100 guys doing Hawkmen would do the flying and the Well, after four minutes in the air, the

that . . . they don’t get back to the camera would remain stationary, but guys are getting tired—they can’t same place! Then, too, you’d have a it soon became apparent that there hold their bodies in that awkward tremendous smoke problem. was just no way to move that many position for more than four minutes. “We finally had to do it with incan- people; so the decision was made to Then, too, the constant friction of descent lights. We built special lights “fly” the camera with the Hawkmen the wings on the wires kept rubbing which were clusters of quartz- hanging in a stationary position while the blue paint off, so the wires are

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Art Director Graysmark had a full size section of the war rocket built, 200’ long and 50’ high. Laser effects were added optically.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill 5 7 Ming’s palatial city in model form is readied for filming against one of the largest blue screens in the world.

constantly having to be repainted and you have to make sure to light the wires as carefully as possible so they don’t show. “Finally, after everything is flying and moving properly you have to worry about the camera—you have to move the camera or zoom the lens or whatever to get the illusion of movement. Sometimes the Hawkmen are hovering, sometimes they are zooming, sometimes they are going away from you and sometimes they are coming towards you and, of course, those FILMS

movements require different types of FAMOUS rigging; which, of course, takes time 1980 to set up. ©

“We had some 600 blue screen PHOTOS: shots to do for this picture. The reason there were so many was because of The camera crew for Flash Gordon with Gil Taylor center and Effects Supervisor George Gibbs the alien sky effects. On Mongo all of peering over Taylor’s left shoulder. the skies are very unique, so if there is a window in the set or a doorway or months and months of work to pro- tremendous amount of expertise and anything that lets you see to the out- duce. They are the work of Richard experimentation; the results are side, it meant that blue-screen photo- Conway and his associates, Harry unbelievable—they have stratas that graphy was necessary to insert one of Oakes, B.S.C.; David Litchfield and go in different directions, they have these unique sky effects. The abso- Terry Pearce. different types and colors of clouds. lutely gorgeous clouds and skies took “The sky and cloud effects took a Arborea is greenish, of course;

58 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill Ming’s city is reds, yellows; Sky City very slowly across the tank. Copper quite different. The variety of forms was purples, cyans and blues.” tubing with little holes in it was used seemed to be infinite. After you did a The sky effects were achieved in a to dispense pigment into the tank. Get- few shots, you could change the tank and bring to mind the techniques ting that just right took a bit of ex- lighting and the colors of the gels on that Doug Trumbull’s crew used to perimentation; if you squirt it in there the lights and shoot again before you create the startling cloud effects for too fast, in nothing flat you have a had to empty the tank and start all

Close Encounters. It was no holds tank of mud. But after a while, Con- over.” barred for the tank experiments and way and his crew began working with everyone seemed anxious to try all the temperature of the water and Everywhere a Blue Screen sorts of things to see what sort of learning how to control the currents. All of the skies and cloud footage cloud effects they would get. ‘‘Guys Even after the tank had been filled served as background plates for the would go to the grocery store and with clear water and allowed to sit for blue-screen photography. And with start pulling down different kinds of an hour or so, there were still very so many sets having doors, windows detergents and cleaning fluids to try slight currents circulating in the tank. and openings to the ‘‘outside,” blue out. One enterprising experimenter These currents would take different screens were everywhere. ‘‘In addi- even made off with his wife’s toilet pigments in slightly different direction to the 100 by 60 foot screen, there bowl cleaner. We put it in the sky tank tions as they were inserted. At times was a U-shaped screen that ran for and it was the most gorgeous effect layers were built using different den- 100 feet down one leg of the “U” then you’d ever want to see!” sities and temperatures. It was a curved for another 100 feet and then Conway and his team worked with tremendous job, since so many shots ran another 100 feet up the other leg a tank measuring nine by six by four required skies. of the “U;” so we had a screen 300 feet and were able to develop a varie- ‘‘A variety of camera speeds were feet by 35 feet high. We had them in ty of tricks and techniques. ‘‘For used. If the tank was very quiet and all sizes down to little teeny-weeny example,” recalls Van der Veer, the currents moving very slowly we ones, which were usually Stewart ‘‘they found they could use the sur- could shoot as little as four frames a T-Matte Blue Screens instead of the face as a mirror and make it look second. Also you could make one run painted type; we used these for small twice as deep; a motion control on a tank and go right ahead and areas such as behind windows. The camera was used a few times to move make another run that would look rest of the screens were painted blue

War rocket model was photographed with smoke against a blue screen with Conway’s skies optically composited by Frank Van der Veer.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill 59 —

process of trial and error begins. It is not unusual for a given shot to require eight or nine attempts in compositing before a satisfactory optical composite is achieved—that is, one without “fringing” or color distortion or any one of several other “tell-tales” that make for an unsatis- factory composite. All of this takes

time . . . and skill. There was skill aplenty, but time was very short. Van

der Veer is a frank admirer of Flash Gordon producer Dino De Laurentiis. “A man with a lot of horse sense except when he tells you the delivery date he has in mind!” “In order to make the Hawkmen look like hundreds in the air when we only shot them seven or eight at a time, we had to make up layers of our

shots. And, of course, maybe there is a

Frank Van der Veer sets up a test composite on his new electronic "optical” printer. miniature in the shot and always the special skies. Also a lot of the and lit with incandescents. With so After all of the separate elements Hawkmen flying sequences involved many windows and openings, it meant were photographed, the gargantuan explosions with the Hawkmen firing that scenes which would be shot nor- task of optical compositing had to be weapons and being fired at. There is mally on any other film became blue faced. In order to get all of the bits and lots of smoke and flame and fire screen problems for us.” pieces to fit together properly, a long things that are usually ‘no-no’s’ for

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Even interior sets required blue-screen setups, since the sky of the planet Mongo is visible through openings and windows.

60 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill — I

Hawkmen were required to dan-

gle by wire in front of blue- screens for hours to film the complicated attack of the Hawkmen sequence. There were over 600 bluescreen shots that had to be assembled in Flash Gordon. Many were very complex shots involving smoke, fire and explosions.

blue-screen work. You can imagine thing, he listens to you. And he doesn’t 'FLASH GORDON' what it meant when we had to have care if it costs more money as long as Effects Credits one no-no working with another no-no it’s better. If it’s not better, he’s not in- Produced by Dino De Laurentiis over a couple of other no-no’s which terested. And it’s only one man you Directed by Mike Hodges — are over a couple of other no-no’s. We don’t have to fight a committee. Director of Photography . Gil Taylor, B.S.C

Production, Costumes and Sets put together blue screen shots which ‘‘I believe that the most important Designed by Danilo Donati combined as many as 20 different thing is for the producer to have a Supervising Art Director John Graysmark . Supervising Special Photographic blue-screen elements to make a single good experience when he is working Effects .... Frank Van der Veer, A.S.C. shot. The capture of the battle with photographic effects or any kind Assisted by Barry Nolan rocket—which is reel 10 of the pic- of effects. If he has a good experience, Special Effects Supervisor . . George Gibbs ture— is the most impressive of all the he will be inclined to have another Special Effects Consultant . Glen Robinson

Art Director—Models. . . . Norman Dorme reels; it has the look of thousands of one. If he has a bad one, he’ll start Special Effects Hawkmen winging to the attack.” making Westerns again or something. Models and Skies Richard Conway Special Effects Editor Chris Kelly In the final analysis, when the ‘‘All in all, though, it was an enjoy- Skies and Clouds: quality and content of the work comes able experience with tremendous Lighting up for judgement the harshest critic is pressure. And if all of the things we Cameraman Harry Oakes B.S.C. Camera Operator David Litchfield usually the artist himself. Frank Van did are not truly perfect, I think they Focus Terry Pearce der Veer is no exception to this rule. work within the context of the pic-

Special Effects Assistants . . Dave Watson, ‘‘Actually, where as you are never ture. What made it all possible was Pierre Tilley, Michael White Special Effects Flying Derek Botell truly happy with what you do—at the quality of our crew. We are not a Model Makers Martin Bower, least I’m not, I can always see a way to large crew but we all know what we Christine Overs, Bill Pearson, Don Sargent get better results given the time— are doing. That’s my basic philo- Optical Effects by Van der Veer Photo Effects feel that with the length of time we sophy. Instead of getting 70 people, Blue Screen Composites had to put these 600 shots together, each of whom knows one little thing, Greg Van der Veer we did an almost impossible job. you get 10 people who know seven Optical Cameramen Hugh Wade, Ray Monahan ‘‘I really enjoyed working on the things. You’re much better off and Optical Technicians Dick Ramirez, film and I’m very fond of Dino. He’s a you’re better organized— everybody Lyn Gerry, Ralph Gordon, Rick Rothbart wonderful man. If you think he’s mak- knows what’s expected of them and Matte Paintings Lou Lichtenfield talk Bob Scifo ing the wrong decision, you can to everybody does it. I just have a

. Administrative Assistants . Jerry Cormier him about it. If you have a legitimate marvelous crew and I’m very proud of Diana Bull reason for wanting to change some- them.” •

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill 61 Art, SciENCE an

Paddy Chayefsky's Altered States comes to the screen in a form that demands new levels of

technical and artistic excellence from its creators.

addy Chayefsky’s novel screenplays, but Altered States was Altered States, published in his first novel. The screenplay, P 1978, moved very quickly into though, is credited to Sidney Aaron, production as a major motion pic- Chayefsky’s psuedonym, due to a ture. Quite a number of directors, dispute with the film’s director Ken designers and effects artists had to Russell. be approached, however, before a The story explores the investiga- production team willing to tackle tions of a young scientist’s experi- the very unusual production prob- ments with altered states of con- lems was assembled. Chayefsky has sciousness, and the power of the won three Academy Awards for his mind to effect physiological changes

Above: Jessup’s (William Hurt) image in the TV monitor, lets us see what’s happening inside the isolation tank. Right: The final transformation sequence.

62 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill 63

u }MHv^: 1 ^B&w hBHHB9IiM ’^ • *vV*a. Left and inset: Detail of William Hurt as Jessup in Dick Smith’s full body suit for one of the metamorphosis sequences. Smith demonstrates to director Russell the operation of a mechanical arm. Above: Blair Brown in different body suits before optical enhancement.

in the body. It uses the isolation tank ideas for the special effects. “My for so long, it gives it a kind of unique experiments of John Lilly as a depar- approach, after reading the book look.” Ferren made a point of ture point. and talking to Paddy, was that we avoiding the usual cut-away-for-the- Dean of American makeup artists shouldn’t be making a special ef- special-effects-shot handicap, so Dick Smith created the special fects film. We should use magic. that the audience would be more apt appliances for the actor’s transfor- That is, when we have a specific im- to react to the situation rather than mations and young Bran Ferren of age in mind, we should actually the effect.

Associates and Ferren was hired to make it happen and take a picture of “I want the audience to say: ‘Oh, create the mechanical special it. In other words: do it for real and look at what’s happening in that effects. film it! room!’ rather than, ‘Oh, look at that Ferren, who is best known for his “I thought that that approach clever effect.’” rock concert effects and Broadway would look an awful lot more convin- The demands of the script in many stage effects in Evita and Crucifer of cing than, say, 700 extremely clever instances, however, make it impos-

Blood and Frankenstein ,) made such techniques brought to bear in the sible for this sort of aesthetic to be an impression on Ken Russell that he optical house or miniature sets or maintained. “For example,” ex- was asked to handle the optical end whatever plains Ferren, “when you see a of the effects problems as well. So they didn’t use miniatures. burning cross zooming in on a per- Ferren’s strong background in live- “Whenever you see a strange son and then heading out into infini- theatre stage effects proved to be an hallucinogenic scene which has no ty, obviously this is not something invaluable asset. direct relevance other than to pre- that happens within one’s direct

sent one, wild image, we’d go out frame of physical experience, so it Magic on Film and build a set or go tromping violates that standard. Ferren, whose sandy red hair, around to a location or go do “However, for the ‘throat’ and penetrating blue eyes and husky six- something and shoot it that way. whirlpool sequences —and a good foot frame seem more suitable to a Hopefully, and I’m the worst person deal of the stuff that happens at the soccer player, had very definite to judge this since I was so close to it end of the film— I think we’ve been

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 65 Right: The transparent tank with the specially lit

suit designed to look as if it was glowing. Jes- sup is supposed to be emmitting so much energy that his image becomes visible through the walls. Artist Dick Smith was concerned with what happened to all of this energy, which the film never really makes clear. Below: A close-up of one of Dick Smith’s makeups with optical enhancement.

Below: The whirlpool tank built with plexiglass to permit lighting from below. Construction by Chuck Gaspar. Blair Brown had to move into the whirlpool, fighting the force of the water. No optical trickery here— it’s real.

Above: A close-up of Jessup’s final transformation with optical enhancement by Bran Ferren and his team.

66 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill very successful by starting out with which is just a matter of working out assisted rotoscoping. Generally we the premise that we’re doing magic solution and doing it, the most dif- would have to generate a protection , a live, and then following up in post- ficult problems were in post- matte for a given area in order to do production with opticals to comple- production. something to that scene. But instead ment and enhance things. Unfor- ‘‘We had to develop very sophis- of using conventional ‘hard’ matte tunately, a significant number of ticated matting techniques that technique —solid blacks and clear things we needed for enhancement would enable us to go back into whites —we were able to create con- had never been done before and scenes that were complete, and not trolled-density mattes. That is, we therefore we had to develop tech- reshootable, to selectively alter ele- produced a number of records niques and technologies to do ments within a scene. We would which continually change in density them—which gets to be expensive!” have to change a person, change or across them and then build up im- correct a portion of a room differ- ages with anything from 15 to 30 or

New Technology ently from another portion of a 40 passes through the printer. I What techniques and techno- room. There were any number of lit- think our biggest optical was 47 logies did Ferren have to develop tle things that we had to do in order passes in one shot.” that weren’t off-the-shelf? “Well,” to make the continuity of some of the Use of graduated-density mattes Ferren says with a laugh ‘‘ignoring more difficult sequences work. For enabled Ferren’s staff to exercise a the straightforward physical and example, we had to reposition great degree of control over the mechanical solutions to specialized things within a scene so that they climactic transformations at the set-ups in composite front projec- matched during very fast cutting. end of the film. ‘‘For example,” ex- tion, or the creation of a ‘cosmic’ We had a lot of non-matched footage plains Ferren, ‘‘when we have a whirlpool in a specially constructed which we had to match—a lot of gaseous envelope of heat coming off set of inch-and-a-quarter plexiglass non-locked-down, camera-in-motion a person and when their hand gets with high pressure pumps creating shots which had to be repositioned near a wall, that part of the wall has a vortex of thousands of gallons of dynamically in motion in order to to glow with the reflected light. water, which has to be lit and have a make them fit together,” Ferren ex- Also, the graduated-density mattes live actor walk into it. . .and come plains. enable us to control the relationship out alive ... Ignoring all of that. ‘‘We used a lot of computer- of intensities when the arm is seen

Jessup’s first hallucination sequence involved quite a number visually interesting full size sets. Both Ken Russell and Bran Ferren agreed that whenever possible effects would be filmed live before the cameras on stage, rather than relying on post production optical techniques.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 67 68 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill I

Jessup inside the tank after and during metamorphosis. Dick Smith had to develop new techniques to handle full body suits in water.

against a black background, as op- all together, then you end up with girl in a clever costume sitting on the

it ’ posed to when is seen against the what you want . . . maybe. floor with a glow all around her. But glowing body, or when we are look- “I think I have succeeded when of course, the girl wasn't sitting on ing lengthwise down the arm as op- you look at Blair Brown in the cor- the floor, in that room, in that posed to crosswise— all those little ridor at the end and it is not im- position. relationships which one would mediately obvious what is happen- ‘‘When you see this creature with rather not have to think about, but ing or how it is being done... this dark red suit, with highlights which are absolutely necessary. hope.” shining off it and other things

“For some shots, Dick Smith built reflecting around the room. . .that us a special body suit which fits Fooling the Sophisticate wasn’t the dark red suit with

Blair Brown so that you can see the It is one thing, Ferren believes, to highlights reflecting around the muscle structure, etc. We painted be matting in skylines and space- room, it was a normal person stand- onto that Scothlite retro-reflective ships, but quite another to be working there, or it was a person stand- material and composite front- ing with people and real envi- ing there with body makeup on a suit projected, while the scene was ronments. ‘‘The average viewer is to change the physical geometry of being shot, reference images and starting to get much sharper and the human form; and then, from that target marks. These keys gave us more critical about this sort of thing point on, everything about the color dynamically and spatially-oriented with the constant barrage of SFX and its structure and movement, reference marks so that we could do films in the past few years. I am sure etc. was reassembled! a convincing job of matte work. A lot that the obvious things will be notic- ‘‘I think we got away with quite a of the film’s success is dependent ed to a certain extent. For instance, lot of that.” upon very careful development and there’s Blair sitting there with a The modern trend for increas- cooperation between multiple glow around her . . . okay, the glow ingly complex images and special departments, between Dick Smith had to come from somewhere, the effects has led some producers and doing this and the cameraman doing image on the suit had to come from directors to think in terms of tech- that —none of the elements by them- somewhere, but what I’m hoping for niques and hardware rather than in selves work, but when you put them is that the person will say, ‘There’s a terms of what they are trying to get

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill 69 Jessup begins one of his hallucinatory “trips."

onto film. “It seems,” Ferren com- nologies to achieve. That doesn’t what the first eight concepts were, ments, “that people want to use mean that you can't produce an ac- you've seen every foot of film that computers, or want to use lasers or ceptable image by using some other was shot and you know every take want to use small nuclear devices to technique.” that’s in or out. It’s very hard to pull accomplish a given shot and often it back and say, ‘Yes, this is definitely is not the most expeditious way to Too Close to De Objective perfect.’ get it done. “With Altered States, I've en- “It’s a bit of a strange feeling to “Most things in effects are quite joyed being able to experience all lose that level of objectivity. You straightforward. There is a small three phases of production— from don’t lose it as much in the theatre, percentage that has to do with design to production to post- even though you’re involved in some brilliance, inspiration and clever production. Each phase has its own of the same procedures; it’s over a ideas, but most of it is just, ‘Well, we particular set of challenges. In the shorter span—not like the year-and- need to see this.’ At which point actual production the major prob- a-half I spent on Altered States. you'll say, ‘Would you rather see lem is time. Keeping a major produc- Also, in theatre you have the advan- this instead?’ Giving yourself a little tion on schedule or anywhere near tage that once it’s over with, it’s artistic and editorial input into the it, when you have six to nine sound done— it doesn’t follow you around. situation, or you may say, ‘Shall we stages and first, second and third “The theatre is wonderful be- do this another way?’ Finally you units all working, is very demanding cause it is so impermanent. It’s this come to a point of resolution and on a 23V2 hour a day basis when it magical moment that happens in a then it’s just a matter of mechan- lasts for several weeks running. slice of time and if you missed it you ically translating that to a piece of “And then not to leave, after missed it. If you never saw this pro- film. those weeks, but to be involved in duction of that play with this

“It’s very rare that you are asked the editing, sound mixing, further wonderful person in it, that is never to do something that just cannot be storyline development ... it's very going to happen again. And, in fact, done. More often than not you can’t hard to pull back and be objective that one performance, that one afford to do it, but occasionally about things. When there is a evening will never happen again. something will come up which is out- change in the story, you have all of You are privileged to see, potential- side the realm of all available tech- the accumulated experience of ly, a very special moment. Also, if

70 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoJ. Ill you’ve been able to move the audience at all, then the flaws will tend to fade away and the audience will remember just what’s wonderful with it. “Film, however, has the advantage and simultaneous disadvan- tage of permanence. You can work film into shape, look at it whenever you want to and it’s always the same. But later on, if you decide you don’t like something, you’re stuck with it and its death because the thing will follow you around forever and all of the flaws will jump out at you every time you see it.’’

Artistic Goals In the field of special effects Bran

Ferren is something of an oddity and a rarity. He has an artistic background and, yet, moves easily through the worlds of science and technology. Oftentimes artists are convinced that he is a technician and the technicians are convinced he is an artist. His personal joy is in the blending of the two worlds. He dropped out of high school (“Actual- red to me that I was paying to do the tric Circus. I found solving problems ly I just didn’t go enough to gradu- sort of things that I could be doing on interesting and challenging, but not ate.’’) and restlessly dropped out of my own. I guess I should have been fully satisfying on an artistic level M.I.T. sitting down and learning how to be until Altered States, because my “I met some interesting people at a something, but that concept has work has been such a tiny compo-

M.I.T., one or two of which work for never been all that appealing. nent of an immense undertaking. I me at the moment, and I had a nice “I worked on a lot of miscel- could say, ‘Look at the nice steady research grant and my own lab. But laneous things in those years, TV image of an elephant running down I wasnt’t accomplishing anything commercials, still photography, a ramp on roller skates!’ There just particularly relevant and it occur- rock concerts; I worked at the Elec- had to be something more than that!” Altered States has given Ferren just that sort of challenge. The cosmic transformations and images are immense challenges to both the artist and the technician. John Lilly, upon whose isolation tank experiments much of the film is based, set the starting point in describing some of his images: “I moved into universes contain- ing beings much larger than

myself,” he wrote. “The first time I

entered these spaces, I was swept, pushed, carried, whirled and in general beat around by processes

which I could not understand, processes of immense energy, of fantastic light and of terrifying power.”

It was the goal of the Altered States production staff and special effects team to let the audience see Bran Ferren in his Long Island workshop takes great pleasure in effects work for stage and screen. it for themselves. •

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 71 —a

Show Scan

Hi-Tech For Tomorrow

am frustrated with the way mo- the medium itself.” tion pictures are made and pre- However, at Future General, Trum- i sented,” says Douglas Trumbull. bull has been working on a film and a “So I’ve been sort of hiding out for the new technique. The film is called past few years, making some break- Brainstorm and the process is called

throughs that I think are going to be Showscan. About Brainstorm, Mr.

’ received with great enthusiasm. ’ The Trumbull will only say that it is about breakthroughs have come as a result the frontiers of the human mind and

of basic research he has been doing at that a portion of it will be shot in Janu-

his company, Future General, which ary as a test. About Showscan: ‘‘It’s is allied with Paramount Pictures. going to be the ultimate experience “Except for Cinerama,’’ says Trum- the highest conceivable quality.” bull, ‘‘no one has ever created a new At Future General, Doug has a five- film process that was clearly and dis- minute test reel and demonstration tinctly separate from the rest and theater set up. The reaction of those

therefore worth the special effort. Is who have seen it is usually amaze- four-track magnetic better than an ment and wonder. Steven Spielberg Is optical track? 70mm better than commented . .it’s really remark-

35mm? Does it show up in the box of- able. It’s like looking through window fice? Is it going to make or break peo- glass—that’s how clear the film is. ple’s decision to come to the theater? You expect a breeze to come through Ordinarily, it doesn’t. And the pro- the screen and blow your hair. It’s the

ducers know that, so they don’t feel most amazing thing I have ever economically justified to go to the seen—even though, technically, I’m trouble. very conscious about these things. It’s

‘ ‘A big problem that occurred in the more than just a film; it’s a very sen- movie industry in the past was that sual experience.”

the exhibitor has been isolated from Showscan is a 70mm film process. the movie-maker by the anti-trust A high speed film process with the laws, which really crippled the whole camera running at 60 frames per sec- possibility for the motion picture in- ond, the projector running at 60 dustry to move ahead in terms of new frames per second, special multi- processes, wider screens, different channel sound, giant screen, new

kinds of sound systems, and all kinds kind of lamp house. It requires that of really dramatic improvements in the theater be totally converted—

72 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill —

whole new sound system, sometimes a Future General reorientation of the seats. The screen Corporation occupies a large proportion of your field of view—more than Cinerama and is slightly curved, though not as CINERIDE' deeply as Cinerama. The result of the process is super-realistic. Realism. That’s the quest of Show- scan. “When I began this project I wanted to know what creates realism and dimensionality in a motion picture and how those qualities could be improved.” Television has a quality of aliveness to it that is lacking in film. “If one could take this quality of live

TV and combine it with the resolution and color saturation with 70mm film

. . .well, you’ve got yourself one hell of a movie.” It has been and still is a long term project to make what Douglas Trum- bull hopes will be a quantum leap in motion picture technique. ‘‘Long term

Left: Douglas Trumbull behind the camera creating the startling effects for CE3K. Above: His Cineride system makes use of the Showscan process and surround sound.

not only in the conversion of my studio

equipment (I took on Close Encounters to get hold of the necessary 70mm cameras, editing systems, and optical

printers) but to make a first film. I think that Brainstorm will be a very unusual film not only for its Showscan

format but for its content— it should be a mindbender.”

The problem is theater conversion. “Theaters all over the world will be asked to convert at pretty considerable cost just to be able to exhibit Brainstorm; beyond that we must be able to guarantee to the theaters that there are more films coming their way. It’s a monumental long-term commitment.” The conversions will take many

steps. First there is the projection system: 70mm at 60 frames per second. Why 60 frames? In an effort to improve the illusion of reality, Trumbull studied a number of existing systems, such as 3-D,

which has never made it as a major

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. III 73 process. Why? Doug thinks, after stu- “I wanted to know the maximum charts showed the physiological dying the systems and making a few number of frames per second that the response to something that the mind test films, that there is no future in 3-D human mind could assimilate. The believes is real increased fivefold films as they are made now and view- current practice in movie exhibition when the frame rate approached 60 ed with Polaroid glasses, because is to project at 24 frames per second; per second. eyestrain is instrinsic in the process. that is 24 fields of information per sec- The projector modifications are In projection, the stereo image is ond. However, in order to compensate considerable. In addition to the in- causing your eyes to converge and for the flicker of light that would be creased frame rate, the lamp housing diverge just as they do in real life. But perceivable on a big screen, each has been redesigned to increase

in real life, the focus point is coinci- frame is shown twice, so that the screen illumination several times. dent with the convergence point. This flicker rate is 48 flashes per second There will be no reel changing for a

is not the case with 3-D projection. In and therefore is much less noticeable 90-minute feature. The film will lie on the theater your eyes always remain to the human eye. a platter wound on a core. The platter

focused at the plane of the screen, But, it turns out, the eye is capable filled with film will be about eight feet while the convergence point moves of handling much more than 24 in diameter and weigh about one ton. back and forth—the result: eyestrain, frames a second. “The real world That’s a lot of film. But the system or musculature discomfort. doesn’t exist as a series of still photo- doesn’t use up as much film as the 3-D films still didn’t look real, they graphs; it ’s a continuum of motion and wall-sized I-max 70mm system at the just looked 3-D; which is fun, but it information. It’s amazing how much Air & Space Museum at Washing- wasn’t what Trumbull was after. He the human eye sees and can observe ton’s Smithsonian. The I-max uses realized that movies were being made in a short span of time.’’ three times the frame area of normal

at the lowest possible number of It is the disparity between what the 70mm. The I-max is also plagued with

frames per second. human eye is capable of and current flicker problems due to its immense A motion picture is usually defined standards of photography and projec- screen and strobing problems involv- as an assemblage of still photographs tion that hampers the illusion of re- ing the twenty-four-frame-per-second viewed in rapid succession. The prop- ality in motion pictures. format. “You have to be very careful erty of persistence of vision makes To test various frame rates, Trum- how you move and pan the camera, one image flow into another so that bull projected films made at high- since images can jump six feet during the illusion of movement is main- speed rates and those made at the a pan on that enormous screen.’’ tained. According to Douglas Trum- standard twenty-four. He wanted to Showscan, with its new cameras, bull, “the way movies are made at establish a relationship between the projectors, and screen size will also twenty-four frames a second, or home viewer’s physiological response to have to make use of a new sound sys- movies at sixteen or eighteen frames something his mind perceived as real tem to deliver what Trumbull believes a second, is right at the threshhold of with motion pictures made at various will be “the ultimate motion picture human acceptability. Fewer frames frame rates. A number of UCLA experience.’’

per second or fewer flickers of light students were used as guinea pigs The new sound system, which still per second will break down the illu- and their EEG’s monitored to measure has a number of patents pending, will sion of motion. their responses. Analysis of the be a six-channel system. But each channel is broken down into four dis- tinct frequency bands and separately amplified and fed to speakers designed for that frequency band. The theory being that a more efficient, low distortion amplifier can be built more

economically if it just has to handle a portion of the audio frequency range. Also, the amplifiers will be high pow- James Shourt and Doug Trumbull are ered to allow full dynamic range for shown designing the audio signal without distortion. possible configura- The sub-woofer (deep bass) is a horn tions of truncated tetrahedrons. with a frontal opening of eighty-five square feet! This, plus the midrange

CINEMATOGRAPHER and tweeters, are multiplied by the six channels into a sound system that should leave Sensurround in the dust.

AMERICAN Douglas Trumbull expects to have a sound delivery throughout the entire

COURTESY acoustic range that is second to none. In addition to the realism of a clearer,

PHOTOS: brighter, sharper, more detailed,

74 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill to update their systems. We bust our a new method for the filming that asses trying to give you terrific sound, achieves the illusion of three-dimen-

and they play it back through what sional perspective. looks like stereo speakers in your As the car moves past an ordinary car—fifty years old. There are only rear-projected image, even a Show- about 200 theaters capable of giving scan image, there is no change in the good quality sound. The other 1500 or perspective. As the viewer travels

so are still back in the ‘Vitaphone’ along at a foot per second, it’s like Jazz Singer days.” driving past an animated billboard.

Douglas Trumbull hopes to change Flat. But if the original scene is filmed all that. with the camera moving along a mo- The screen size will be interest- torized track at one foot per second ing—current plans call for a screen and panning in the same motion that 50 feet high and 110 to 125 feet wide the viewers’ heads would turn while

depending on the aspect ratio (that is, the car moved, then the image seems Trumbull made his directing debut with Silent

Running. The film is noteworthy for its visual the width of the film frame in relation- to have real depth and reality be- poetry and interesting story. ship to its height). comes very difficult to separate from “Paramount plans to convert a the- illusion. The system has the advan- ater in the Los Angeles area this year tage of being able to use human actors Showscan image, he hopes that the to run my test film. The idea is to test instead of being limited to intricate sound system will create a psycho- the Showcase with a live audience, and costly robot machinery. acoustic environment for the au- get their reaction, and gain an idea of Though Showscan and Cineride dience. the marketability of the system—will are still in their developmental Each theater will have to be indi- movie-goers pay to see films in Show- stages, their impact could be revolu- vidually tuned to the sound system. scan. Will the return be worth the tionary in the history of the motion

Engineers will analyze the theaters investment? picture and its applications. It is no with modern, sophisticated, real-time There are other applications, how- wonder these new processes are mak- spectrum analyzers and graphic ever, for the Showscan process. An ing special effects artists into box of- equalizers to tune all the peaks and interest in the amusement park busi- fice stars. In the future we may expect valleys out of the acoustic response of ness has been in the back of the theater. “We have developed Trumbull’s brain for some time. electronic monitoring devices that Theme parks such as Disneyland and will measure the amount of acoustic Walt Disneyworld have made exten-

‘ ’ absorbtion by the audience (deter- sive use of ‘dark rides. ’ The Haunted mined by how many are present and House in Disneyland is an excellent what they are wearing) and example. Disney makes use, of automatically adjust to the levels of course, of their audio-animatronic ro- the various channels and amplifiers. bots to create an illusion of reality

“To achieve a psycho-acoustic illu- with people, animals and places. Per- sion we will be constantly monitoring haps the greatest of these is “Pirates the quality of the sound in the theater. of the Caribbean” in which specta- By experience, the human ear learns tors move in small boats through that certain qualities of sound signify underground caverns passing different shapes and sizes of rooms. various scenes of pirates in action.

“Certain kinds of environment gen- It’s quite thrilling and great fun. It Trumbull directs Bruce Dern on the set of erate a particular quality of sound does, however, take up a great deal of Silent Running. Many of the interiors were filmed aboard the old US Navy aircraft and vice versa.” To a limited extent space, requires skilled maintenance carrier Valiey Forge. this is done today when the sound and is expensive to build. track is being mixed down by the edi- Douglas Trumbull’s Cineride would to see fans flocking to see films from tor. “We intend to go beyond that to make use of the Showscan film system the workshops of the new heroes of heighten the illusion of reality. Our to heighten the illusion of reality. The the imagination. Where once people systems will monitor and create the small car or boat would pass through stood in line to see Gable or Monroe, sound effects in the theater. areas, such as a haunted house, in lines will soon be forming to see films “What goes on in most theaters to- which most of the wall space would be by John Dykstra, Ray Harryhausen, day is the worst, so that any improve- taken up by a rear projected Show- Doug Trumbull or any of a dozen of ment like Dolby, or Sensurround is scan image. other great special effects artists. worth having.” In principle, other than the ex- Trumbull sees no reason not to ex- Steven Spielberg says: “My pet treme quality of the Showscan image, pect that, like the stars of the golden peeve is that theater managers and film in dark rides is nothing new. But era, special effects artists will soon exhibitors for decades have refused again Douglas Trumbull has invented have their names above the titles. •

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 75 STEREoSpACE

t's happened before in cycles —ap- single camera dual image system, proximately every twenty years. which places the left and right images

I Right now, it’s on the upswing either side by side or stacked one

again, but it’s different this time; the above the other on the same strip of

cycles may be over— it may be with us film, and the dual camera system for good. which utilizes two interlocked

What is “it?” Well, this time the cameras to record the left and right cycle isn't sun spots or locusts or fly- images on separate strips of film. ing saucer reports, but something These systems are available in all much more entertaining—the pub- film formats from Super-8 to 70mm. lic’s interest in 3-D movies. The last While, most of the film industry re- big surge came in the early 50s. mains very cautious with 3-D and has

Before that it was the middle 30s; be- adopted a “let somebody else do the

fore that it was the late teens and ear- trailblazing” attitude, United Artists ly 20s. And, of course, the very first Theatre Circuit, Inc. has invested in a 3-D movie was made in 1889 by Wil- dual camera 70mm system which has liam Friese-Green in England. the potential to raise the quality of 3-D Interest began growing slowly in film going to unheard of heights. the late 70s and is very much with us Spokesman Richard Vetter ex- in the late 80s. Movie theaters in ma- plains what led the U.A.T.C. into 3-D. jor cities have been screening 3-D “U-A has a lot of large movie theaters greats and not so-greats from the 50s in this country, theaters on the scale to S.R.O. houses. Cable TV systems have been broadcasting some of the same features to their television sub- scribers. Anaglyph versions of classic 3-D horror and SF films are available in Super-8 and on videotape for home viewing. Interest in amateur stereo photography has been growing steadily despite the lack of modern

stereo equipment. So it is not really any great surprise that a number of companies have surfaced with modern 3-D motion picture systems.

There are two main approaches to Richard Vetter pauses beside one of the 3-D filming in the United States. The 70mm projectors used by StereoSpace.

76 SPECIAL EFFECTS/ Vol. Ill —

of the Rivoli in New York and the the original 3D photography and twin 2Vi inches apart, and therefore your Egyptian in Los Angeles. There are 40 70mm projectors for theater projec- eyes are looking straight ahead, par- or 50 of these large flagship theaters tion. (The extra 5mm is used for the allel, when gazing at infinity. This that are so large that it takes a movie magnetic soundtrack.) Each projector condition is matched in the theater ‘event' to do a pretty good business. has a big 4 kilowatt xenon projector with StereoSpace.

They need films that run for months to lamp. Of course, the screen is metallic A news system has been developed good crowds. The Egyptian Theater for stereo projection so it has a gain to keep the twin projectors in perfect here in Los Angeles did a terrific busi- factor of close to 3 times what a matte synchronization. Even a single frame ness with The Empire Strikes Back. screen would have. The 70mm aper- out of synch can be irritating. These big theaters do very well of you ture on the projector passes a lot of StereoSpace uses one set of the mag- have an ‘event’ and do not do well light, so we have no trouble maintain- netic tracks for digital synchroniza- with an ordinary feature because the ing 16 foot-Lamberts of brightness tion. Even if the projectionist mis- operating costs are too great. measured through the viewing threads the beginning of the reels, the

“So that’s what led us to 3D.” glasses. (Sixteen foot-Lamberts is the system will automatically pull itself Today the era of widescreens, S.M.P.T.E. standard for screen back into synch. Dolby sound and 70mm projection is brightness) StereoSpace can accom- The camera system consists of a very much with us. “Back in the modate screens up to 65 feet without pair of 65mm Mitchells mounted at 1950s, 3D never went into the big any difficulty. right angles. The interaxial distance theaters with big screens,’’ Vetter “The other factor in our favor is im- between the two cameras is accom- points out. “The systems of the time age quality and definition. Since we plished through a beam splitter and had a number of problems, but very are using two 65mm cameras, we are can range from 0 to 4 inches. The flex- little time or money was spent by the ibility allows for hyper and hypo- major studios to develop a ‘proper’ stereo effects. system. Generally, a system was For those that have never seen a 3D breadboarded together very quickly film, StereoSpace promises to be a and a few hundred thousand dollars very thrilling experience. In regular was spent to make an exploitation 2D flat movies a close-up shot means film. There were a few notable excep- the image gets larger on the screen. In

tions, such as House of Wax , in which 3D it means the image comes closer to they came close to really using 3D. you. The system has already been

“We decided that if we can’t do it leased by Walt Disney Productions better than they did in the 50s and 60s and Kodak for use in the Imagination then we don’t want to get into it. I pavilion at EPCOT. But its real future think the first weakness to overcome lies in saving those big screen movie Cinematographer Barry Gordon on location in was insufficient light for projection. houses that have not yet been con- Egypt with the StereoSpace cameras. When Polaroid filters were placed verted to “quads” or “triplexes.” over the projection lens and the audi- using five times the amount of film us- Vetter is very definite about his dis- ence donned their Polaroid glasses, ed in standard 35mm photography like for modern single strip 35mm pro- the net loss with the combination of which buys us incredible definition. cesses such as Spacevision which use these two sets of filters was about For example, there is a shot on our the small Techniscope format. “The two-thirds of your projection light. On demo reel in which you are more than over-and-under single strip 35mm a small screen this is not so much of a a mile away from the pyramids in system is much too small for large problem, but when you get into a big Egypt . . . and you can almost count screen presentation. A 30 foot screen theater with a 35-foot screen or the stones. stretches the format to its limit. Our larger, your audience will be sitting “Even more important, cinemato- system has seven times the bright- there for 90 minutes looking at a pic- grapher Barry Gordon and myself ness, clarity and definition.” ture that’s badly underlit and you are have done nothing for years but study The soundsystem for StereoSpace going to have eyestrain. 3D. We’ve had a number of consulting is designed to reproduce sound which “Other problems can be traced to oculists and opthamologists working matches the 3-D images in space. The the 3D photography. Few people with us to come up with a camera sys- Dolby multi-channel magnetic sound understood how to make the camera tem which allows the audience in the system will create as much an aural see the same way the audience in the theater to see in 3D the way you would illusion of reality as the visual 3D theater sees. Through a lack of under- normally view something in real life. image. standing scenes were photographed You can look comfortably from fore- United Artists Theatre Circuit is in such a way as to cause eyestrain ground to background as if you were looking for exactly the right property for the average theater goer.” actually there.” to showcase their system including Vetter explains how StereoSpace Vetter emphasizes that in projec- science fiction, horror or even a has made use of modern technology to tion the infinity points of the left and modern fantasia. If the right property over come these problems. “Stereo- right eye images are kept 2Vi inches is found 3-D may finally be here to Space uses twin 65mm cameras for apart. Our eyes are approximately stay. •

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoJ. Ill 77 ElicoN

here is no better example of the design and manufacture of the equip- rapid progress in special effects ment for special effects houses. In the T technology than the current pro- past, a studio or special effects house liferation of computer controlled hired experts away from other in- camera systems in Hollywood and dustries (manufacturing or aero- New York. Today’s inexpensive mi- space) to design and build custom croprocessor circuitry has placed ad- equipment. Nowadays, you can prac-

vanced technology within the grasp of tically buy it off the shelf. One of these low budget filmmakers. Though some suppliers is Elicon. production houses have preferred to The Elicon Camera Control System build and design their own equipment (CCS) provides the filmmaker with an (Lucasfilm, Disney) other houses have advanced, repeat pass miniature and sought sources from the outside. graphics filming system. The CCS is a Amazingly the demand for the equip- multi-axis camera motion control sys- ment is such that a few companies tem, utilizing a Digital Equipement

have sprung up which specialize in the Corp. PDP-1 1 minicomputer and state

78 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill of the art servo technology developed well as vertically above the track. by Elicon. The system is in use at a The closed-loop DC servo drive de- number of production houses among veloped by Elicon provides smoother them Roger Corman’s New World Pic- and more accurate positioning than tures and Bob Kiger’s Videography. the stepper motor drives of some Already the system has found use in other systems. The camera moves can such features as Battle Beyond the be programmed by a variety of tech- Stars, Escape From New York and niques. The camera can be physically Georgia Peaches; the modern space pushed along the desired path of mo- age look of television commercials has tion with the path being recorded by also capitalized on the flexibility and the computer, or the camera can be Elicon’s installation at New World. availability of the Elicon CCS. controlled by a joystick. The CCS looks like many other cam- Further, the data files can be modi- era systems in principal. It uses a hor- fied or created on a point by point out” of any given move. The program- izontal track and a boom arm. The basis, or points may be defined and a ming allows camera motion to be de- camera pans, tilts, moves forwards smooth curve motion generated to fit fined or modified using mathematical and backwards along the track. Addi- the points. A number of acceleration formulas. There is a ‘‘point of inter- tionally, the camera is capable of modes are possible on any given move est” program so that a specific target moving in an arc across the track as so that the camera can “ease-into or either stationary or in motion will be automatically tracked by the camera. Finally, after recording the moves Specifications for a model motion shot, the CCS program will compute the camera posi- Typical Doom Arm Configuration tions for a graphics pass. This function allows for the addition of a two di- Servo axes Accuracy Range mensional graphic (such as a starfield) to a three dimensional shot

Camera Pan 1.0 arc minutes ±720 degrees while still maintaining the perspec- Camera Tilt 1.0 arc minutes ± 90 degrees tive essential for realism. Boom azimuth 1.0 arc minutes ±720 degrees The standard software package al- Boom elevation 1.0 arc minutes ± 60 degrees lows you to film live action in real time Camera track 0.002 inch 40 feet or time exposure photography down Camera focus extension 0.001 inch 2 inch to 85 seconds per frame. Streak, stop- Camera motor 0.005 frame 5000 frame action, simulated shutter, slitscan and smear effects are all standard. Synthetic axes The CCS includes the Elicon Follow Focus System which operates with Camera viewpoint pan 0.03 arc minutes 360 degrees most standard lenses. The Follow Fo- Camera viewpoint tilt 0.03 arc minutes 360 degrees cus System is used on optical printers Camera viewpoint NS 0.001 inch 80 feet and animation stands to automatical- Camera viewpoint EW 0.001 inch 80 feet ly hold focus during zooms. On the Camera viewpoint vert 0.001 inch 80 feet CCS a wide variety of lenses can be Target NS 0.001 inch 80 feet used. The operator merely enters the Target EW 0.001 inch 80 feet focal length of the particular lens into Target vertical 0.001 inch 80 feet the computer. The follow focus also Standard Features provides the exposure corrections required for close-up photography. The plane of focus on a model or graphic Camera mount . 35 mm Mitchell HS be to from one Max frame rate . 20 FPS (higher speeds optional) can programmed move point to another during repeat DC servo control . Provides accurate and smooth motion pass Follow Focus .Maintains focus through 1:1 photography, Joystick dynamics .Provides smooth joystick moves As a further touch in Flicon’s com- prehensive approach the CCS is also Optional Features available in a vertical animation stand version for the ultimate in cel .Real time plot package for Tektronix 4010 CRT Graphics animation. The animation system is

Model mover . For miniature photography currently being used by the adventur-

Digital I/O . For control of lights etc. ous Nelvana, Ltd. group whose ani-

Extra servo axes . For spares, special setups etc. mation has been so well received in this country in recent years. •

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 79 Letter From

ENqlANd, II

ver since issue #23 when STAR- have been created for all the Dr. Who

‘discovered’ Dr. and I stories has been enormous, but LOG Who , one E myself formed part of the article, can never tell which, if any, will catch I’m glad to see that the programme the public’s imagination and become gets a mention now and again in your something more than yet another pages. monster. The Daleks are probably the

I know short articles have to gloss most famous and retained their popu-

over details, but I do feel that our fa- larity (or should it be notoriety) even vourite pet deserves slightly more during the years when no Dalek

than the piece in issue #38. So as I stories were produced. Cybermen, work within the BBC department that Ice Warriors and Sea Devils had a

actually built K.9, perhaps I can ex- certain following and the last story plain more about his ‘works.’ that featured Jon Pertwee, also fea- To set the background, over the tured the Spiders, which were sur- years the number of creatures, mon- prisingly popular. However as far as

sters and other personalities that the latter is concerned I must admit to

80 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 1

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 8 having continuously fostered this par-

ticular story as I originally made, and

still have, one of the spiders, Boris, who is motorised and self-contained

and is well known to the convention circuit in Britain. As you correctly stated, K.9 was designed for the one story only, “The Invisible Enemy.” Originally there was no plan for him to stay and conse- details quently that would have been The Doctor with nice to build into him could not be jus- Time Lady, tified for the single story. Even so he Romana and companion K.9. took considerable effort to build with- K.9 was born in in the time and my colleague, Tony the story “The In- Harding, who deserves the credit for visible Enemy” but proved to be the actual design, had many hectic a popular com- days trying to co-ordinate everyone’s panion for the Doctor. effort in constructing the beast. Yes, Inside word has it that the first effort wasn’t all that sophisti- K.9 can be cated and, yes, he did have a chain bribed with bat- tery-powered drive which was quite noisy. To coin- dog biscuits. cide with the Mk.2 K.9, (the Mk.l was left with Leela), the opportunity was taken to change the motor and drive, and to re-spray him a slightly differ-

ent colour. The belt drive that was fitted was much more efficient and did not in fact break that often! They were the same type of belts that are used in car timing systems, so it does indicate what sort of torque was in- band which can be fairly prone to in- two 6 channel MacGregor JR series volved. Besides this change, K.9’s interference, although in practice they were bought. nards remained basically the same as tended to give out more interference One particularly annoying problem the original, until at the start of this than receive, particularly to monitors with the AM sets is that they would season. and talk-back systems. But they too not work in close proximity to one It was decided that K.9 wasn’t were nearing the end of their useful another, even with crystals at oppo- mobile enough for rough terrain when life and I decided to replace them with site ends of the 27MHz band. The FM on location, although to be fair, re- an FM system which is far less prone sets get around this and you can tuck member he was only built to cope with to interference, and in consequence both transmitters into the crook of one the flat floor of a television studio.

This is where the caterpillar tracks came in, although they were very K.9 CONTROL SYSTEMS much a prototype affair and quickly abandoned. TRACKING SENSORS ANDZZZ COMPUTER VISUAL However, it was also becoming ap- AUDIO RECEIVERS DISPLAY UNIT. parent that most of K.9’s mechanics OPERATOR'S CONSOLE were wearing out and that he really MANUAL PROGRAMMING OF ROBOT needed a complete re-fit. I remember PHOTON BLASTER discussing the problem with another 3 SETTINGSiSTUN BLAST, colleague, Charlie Lumm who had DEMATERIALIS yRADIO SIGNA \ BOOSTEI done a lot of work on K.9 and other electro-mechanical devices as to SERVICE PANEL ACCESS TO whether it was worth re-building him. FOR SERVO MECHANISM NEC CENTRAL We eventually decided ‘yes’ and so FOR ARTICULATING COMPUTER MOVEMENT. virtually all the mechanisms have been replaced for this season. Origi- nally he was fitted with 1 0 channels of LOCOMOTIVE TREADS radio control gear, a 6 and 4 channel. LINKED TO TRACTION SYSTEM Technically these were on the AM

82 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill SIDE ELEVATION

arm, so that all the functions can be cadmium. servos and his head is pivoted and conveniently operated. Ironically the The back ‘computer’ panel has counterbalanced and moved by a sail- drive has gone back to a chain, but gone solid-state with a sequencer to wich servo. with a more powerful motor and flash the array of lights. The ‘probe’ is He did have a simulated VDU larger driving wheels to allow him an electric car aerial and his ears screen in his side which was fitted climb over camera and lighting (which are known as his ‘crisps’ in the with the blue colour used for what is cables. The batteries, which were ori- business) and his nose gun are pow- normally termed Chromakey, but ginally lead-acid motorcycle type, ered by hobby-type electric motors. which the BBC still tend to call CSO have been replaced with nickel- His tail wags via two model aircraft (Colour Separation Overlay), but its the same system. This feature though has not really been exploited since the first story. Similarly the month does have a ‘computer read-out’ tape, but this function has not been used all

that often and is in fact removed at present.

That, relatively briefly, is K.9. He can be fairly demanding to operate and usually we use a specific person, not attached to the Visual Effects De- partment, to control him. Recently however I’ve been running him myself, both in studios and functions out-

side where he is always in great demand. •

—Mat Irvine Visual Effects Designer

November 4, 1980

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoLIII 83 Explosion For Miniatures

Effects Artist Joe Viskocil Makes the Small Seem Large.

oe Viskocil’s carefully con- the Moon, made in 1902. Miniature structed explosions for the mini- explosions, however, have appeared J atures in Flesh Gordon made him only sporadically. ‘‘You would see a known to the film industry. Star Wars lot of miniature explosions in films gave him a showcase for his talents in like This Island Earth and War of the what is essentially a new art in spe- Worlds (which influenced me a lot)

cial effects. Joe Viskocil, an accom- and I could study what they had done

plished still photographer and film over at Universal. But otherwise, ev- technician by training, has created erybody else in Hollywood knew how his own niche in the film industry by to blow up cars and buildings, but no- developing a new and highly special- body speciahzed in miniature explo- ized art—miniature explosions. sions.” The term miniature applied to an Explosions on a small scale have a explosion might seem to be a contra- number of problems in common with diction in terms. But many of the con- other ‘‘impossible” miniature effects. cepts and story situations now follow- Water, for example (the Logans Run ing in Star Wars' vapor trails can only cityscape) or fire (the flames in When

be realized by the use of minia- Worlds Collide )—you can tell that tures—intergalactic battles, alien at- they are miniatures.

tacks etc. And where there are bat- ‘‘Once I came out of the theater tles, there are explosions. having just watched Chitty Chitty

“I firmly believe that anything can Bang Bang. I overheard some of the be done in miniature,” says Viskocil kids talking about the ‘blue line’

confidently. Certainly, recent films around the car, that it looked odd, fun- such as CE3K and his own work in ny. When kids notice things like that,

Star Wars would seem to bear him than you are in real trouble. I want to

out. totally fool the audience. I want to

Miniatures, as a film technique, make it look real.

have been in use since the pioneers of ‘‘The moviegoing public is not stu- cinema. Consider Melies’ A Trip to pid—they want to see quality—they

84 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill —

UNIVERSAL

1978 ©

PHOTO

Above left: The first take of the tower explosion from Flash Gordon. The first take was the best a good shape, flaming fragments and a cloud about three feet wide. Above: A Y-wing breaks apart into points of light. This sort of explosion was rejected in favor of the more violent-looking billowing flames as in the frame blow-up at

left. George Lucas had asked for a brief “aura” to appear around the ships just before they were blown apart.

CENTURY-FOX Left Middle: From Battlestar Galactica,

PHOTOS

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 85 Above left: Joe Viskocil demonstrates to Joe Johnston the correct method for rigging an X-wing for destruction. Two charges are rigged in the rear and one in the front of the model. The underside of the cockpit of the model was scored to break apart in a predictable manner. Left: The finished composite in the Deathstar trench. Above: Early test composite for the TIE fighter sequence. This test shot has not yet been color corrected to show off the green TIE explosions. —

want to see it done right. There’s the ships would have all been built is the choreography. In War Of The always a challenge involved in mak- with the same plan and would be us- Worlds there is an excellent se- ing an explosion look big or small, ing the same type of fuel, therefore quence of the Los Angeles City Hall whether the explosion is big or their explosions should have the same being blasted by the Martian war ma- small— it could be a few inches or a sort of identity. chines. ‘‘They make it so that it was a few feet, but it’s a matter of making it For example, in Star Wars all the two-layer explosion. The bottom layer look good on the screen and believa- TIE fighters exploded with a green would explode first, then the top. ble—making it look believable is of flame and smoke with gold sparks. It Then the middle of the entire diamond the utmost essence.” is likely that most audience memebers shape of the dome would come crash- One of the keys to believability is were not consciously aware of this ing down.” consistency. ‘‘I insisted upon some consistency, which is as it should be. It Or Tom Scherman’s castle in Flesh sort of continuity, some sort of design looked right Audiences would have Gordon. “I choreographed the castle to the explosions themselves. So that noticed it if it had looked wrong destruction to make sure that it if you see a ship blowing up, it will ships breaking apart in different wouldn’t go up all at the same time, more or less look like the rest of the ways or in a rainbow of colors. which when you are working with a ships that are blowing up.” In real life Another key factor to believability small and fragile model, is a very real

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill 87 —

problem. The destruction had to be a they looked like they took the time to using certain chemicals for various step-by-step maneuver. I prepared break down the sets and place explo- colors and quantities of smoke and the model by cutting up certain areas sions where there should be explo- flame. Packing the bomb differently that I wanted to see flying apart. I sions, in stead of just on an empty will result in either a soft explosion or wanted to actually see sections being hill.” a hard-and-fast one; and, of course, destroyed. Usually you have to take a Placement of the explosive charge the quantity of material is a factor.” model and almost tear it apart from is essential to that all-important goal For these reasons, every pyrotech- scratch so that it will come apart the of complete believability. “There nician should keep good notes while way you want it to. When the explo- should always be some reason for the he is experimenting. An accurate log sion goes off you should see fragments location of an explosion—how it will enable you to reproduce effects, of the model as debris flying through starts and grows. Usually, with not only for retakes, but when similar the air, some toward the camera and vehicles of any sort, you start with the effects are called for on other pro- some spreading up into the air. fuel tanks (or whatever makes it go) jects months or years later. “I just finished a film called Fire In and let the explosion grow from Like most miniatures, miniature ex- The Sky, which was made for NBC- there.” plosions must be filmed with a high- TV. I did a number of explosions for But even with careful planning, speed ’camera. Filming at high speed the sequence which involves a colli- storyboarding, design and construc- and projecting at the normal rate of sion of a comet with the city of Phoe- tion, miniature explosions are not 24 frames per second will make the nix. Part of the sequence consisted of completely predictable. “No two ex- particles of debris move more slowly a mushroom-cloud explosion. I set a plosions are going to come out the across the screen. Most of the Star number of charges so that they would same, you can usually recreate the Wars explosions were shot at 100 come toward the lens and one major basic texture—the type of debris you frames per second. This camera one going straight up for the mush- want to see—but the exact form of the speed gave just about the right scale room effect. It worked very well. explosion after ignition is very unpre- of movement to the explosions for that “Gerry Anerson usually had very dictable. particular size model. well-choreographed explosions “You can control your results by “The Deathstar shot was one of the

Joe Viskocil at the controls for the destruction of the castle in Flesh Gordon.

88 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill earliest ones that we created. It was shot at a camera speed of 300 frames per second. The first time I saw it I was amazed. . .it was just in pieces, slowly coming toward you, and it just kept going and going. ...” Explosions in outer space present a special problem since no one has ever seen one. There will, of course, not be any gravity effect, which should mean that the explosion would move out as a fairly uniform sphere. Most of the explosions designed for Star Wars, however, were designed for their spectacular effect rather than scientific accuracy. In space there would be no flame and no smoke. There would be ‘‘clouds of debris, glowing

fragments, the ignition flash. . .at least as far as we can surmise. No one has actually seen a space station or ship blown to smithereens.” ‘‘This Island Earth had a number of explosions or fireballs coming toward you, but some of the sparks were fall- ing straight down and it really bugged the hell out of me. That’s why I insisted on almost every explosion being shot straight up from below—that was the key to the zero-gravity effect. The circumference of the explosion would fill the entire frame instead of dropping off to one side.” The sequence of the attack over the Deathstar by the rebel fighters presented special problems. The ships had to be blasted while they were in motion relative to the surface of the Deathstar and in close-up. ‘‘About 13 ships were rigged by me and shot by

Bruce Logan over at Producer’s Stu- Top: Early test composite of TIE fighter explosion. Composite has not yet been color corrected. dio with their 45-foot-high ceiling. The Above: Viskocil rigged a “live-action” charge for the Jawa who welds the “restraining bolt” to R2-D2. The silver sparks are designed to suggest a welding effect. ships were shot against a blue screen and mounted on long rods in front of a wind tunnel. When the fans were goer’s Studio, I would ask some of the care about the productions they are ing full speed, the ship would still be gaffers and grips, ‘How did that look? working on. They don’t care about the stable, yet when the explosions went What did you think of it? I would ask director, they don’t care about what off, the debris and everything would people I didn’t even know because I he has in mind, they don’t care what

it, it like be springing past making look wanted to know their thoughts. . . . the scene is all about . . . They just go the ship was actually moving.” ‘Was it too big, or phony like a big 4th in there and do their work like they

The working situation has a great of July?’ I want to know people’s reac- were doing the laundry or something, deal to do with the quality of a fin- tions. It’s this sort of caring that cre- and that’s it. ished product. There must be enough ates a healthy family situation with “Not everyone on the set has to time to properly rig the models and es- your crew, so that the best work gets share the same vision, but they should tablish close coordination between all done. all be enthused about their work and members of the crew. “I’m not the “You have to have heart in the mo- care about the results. The audience kind of person that goes in and just tion picture industry. There are some cares about the results, they want to does it all himself. I want to toss directors, like Lucas, who are bring- believe in what you’re doing, and it around ideas. I want to get feedback ing back the old-fashioned matter of only takes a little care to make that from a lot of people. While at Produc- caring. Too many people today do not come true.” •

SPECIAL EFFECTS/Voi. Ill 89 —

Buildiivq An EFFects Shop For "ThE EivipiRE"

Richard Edlund, Co-supervisor of Special Effects for "The Empire Strikes Back," discusses the challenge of building an effects facility from scratch, for what he calls "the greatest motion-picture project to ever hit the special-effects world."

or Richard Edlund, both Star was going to produce and direct. Wars and The Empire Strikes “My first task was to design the F Back began the same way photographic system at Industrial with an empty room. For Star Wars, it Light and Magic, as George’s [pro- was an empty warehouse in Van ducer Lucas’] company came to be Nuys, Calif., and for Empire a similar known. But at that time I.L.M. was building in San Rafael had to be filled just an empty building that we had to

with photographic equipment and fill with equipment. In order to do staff to film what Edlund believes to that, we had to decide how we were be “the greatest motion-picture pro- going to do the film—what tools and ject ever to hit the special effects processes would be required to world.” transform George’s script into visual

“Prior to Star Wars, I was working images. Then, how would we acquire

for Bob Abel’s company. There I or build the tools and learn how to use developed the ‘candy-apple’ glossy them to finish the film?” look and shot a number of ABC net- The first motion-control cameras

work logos. I had just finished a ‘ 7-Up’ that were built for Star Wars were commercial that was very well conservative systems, since time was

received at the time (1975), when I short and there was no leeway for fid- heard that John Dykstra was inter- dling with an overly exotic system, ested in using me as first cameraman “the Dykstraflex,” as that early for an SF movie that George Lucas camera came to be known, had to

Top: Empire Camera, built in three month’s time is inspected by Richard Edlund, visual effects supervisor, prior to being sent to Norway. Bottom: Quad printer in the process of being built. © 6 o

90 SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill work the first time it was plugged in. then combined into a single piece of beamsplitter; that is, it has two pro-

“I was very happy with the way the film. If three TIE fighters are chasing jectors on each axis which are joined- worked, the ef- the Falcon then fighter by a splitter. splitter camera system how , each TIE and beam The then fects looked and how the picture was the Falcon are photographed on sepa- sends those images through an ana- received,” remembers Edlund, who rate pieces of film; these separate morphic lens giving us a composited frankly was looking forward to pieces must then be combined with image in 35mm anamorphic format. another project with Lucas. the appropriate background into a All of our original effects photo-

‘‘I stayed with Dykstra’s company a single piece of film. This compositing graphy is shot in VistaVision (some- short while, working on an interim is done on the optical printer, and for times called ‘lazy-8’ or horizontal project ( Galactica ), with the proviso such fine work a printer must operate 8-perf), which is reduced 2-to-l when that if Lucas started the next film, I with great accuracy. it is composited in the printer, so that would be free to join him. “The printer which I specified and the composited footage can be inter-

‘‘The Lucas people have what I more or less designed and built,” cut with the live-action Panavision believe to be the almost ideal working Edlund says, “is a four-headed (Quad) film.” atmosphere. They are extremely talented and know what they want. There aren’t a lot of last-minute nonsensical changes and constant pandemonium .... The company operates in a straightforward, business- like way. Talented people are hired to do certain jobs; they do them and are recognized. It was a situation I had been looking for for many years.

New FX Locale When Empire started up, In- dustrial Light and magic moved to San Rafael in northern California. The location was chosen by Lucas because it was part of the country that he liked and felt at home in, but it is quite a way from the hub of film activity in Los Angeles. Artists, Richard Edlund pulls back while technician Dick Dova supports the “luge” rig for the new high speed camera. A plexiglass case was built over the camera to simulate Luke’s Speeder cockpit cameramen, modelmakers and ani- window for the POV shot as the Speeder crashes into the snow. mators would be asked to pull up roots and move north. But Lucas and Edlund were only interested in the best people. Many of the people they had worked with before—seasoned pros such as cameraman Dennis Mur- ren, designer Joe Johnston and modelmaker Lome Peterson, among others —jumped at the chance to work again with Lucas and the Star Wars saga. “In San Rafael,” Edlund explains, “we had the same situation as in Van Nuys—an empty building, but this time we had the experience of Star Wars behind us. We could build on that knowledge. “The single most important piece of equipment that we had to add to our arsenal was an optical printer that was capable of very good resolution and was designed for doing composite work.” Each element of a special-effects shot is photographed separately and Motion control systems make such complicated sequences as this chase feasible.

92 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill Lightsaber effects were added optically in post production.

One of q Kind The ILM “Quad” printer is probably the only one of its kind and quality in the world. “There are no problems in particular with designing this sort of system, generally,” says

Edlund, “though it can’t be built or designed with ‘off-the-shelf’ optics. The optical path [of light through the lens] was completely designed from scratch before we settled on how the lenses would be mounted or what the configuration of the printer would be.

So, it was basically a matter of starting with the most important element of the printer (the optical path), designing that and then wrapping the mechanics and electronics around it. Richard Edlund, Irv Kershner and Brian Johnson discuss ILM’s custom built Quad Printer in the This turned out to be extremely suc- Optical Department at the San Rafael facility. cessful and I believe it to be the best printer in the world.” The lenses are of such high quality The equipment has flexibility. We the miniatures are added the that the line resolution of the Nikon aren’t saddled with something that recorded moves can be fed into lenses used on the motion-control can’t be changed without completely another camera to duplicate the camera is exceeded by the anamorph rewiring the entire device. If some- moves in scale. In this way, on the printer. David Grafton was the body comes up with something else miniatures and live action can be designer of the anamorph lens, which they want the system to do, the soft- combined without having to rely on was manufactured by J.L. Wood. ware can be rewritten, loaded into static tied-down camera shots. The printing functions of the Quad the computer so that the printer may “The other VistaVision camera is a printer are all computer-controlled. be off-line for only five or 10 minutes. high-speed camera, which the Mit- “Jerry Jefress and A1 Miller are sort ILM’s commitment to the Vista- chell Company built for us,” Edlund of the grandfather of the motion- Vision format has gone so far as to explains. “It can operate at about 96 control systems here in Hollywood. have new VistaVision cameras built. frames per second, but we are work-

Jerry is on staff here in San Rafael, “We had two cameras built for ing on a redesign of part of the move- now,” Edlund explains. “He has Empire. One is a motion-control ment that will give us even higher designed the system so that it is micro- camera designed for location work. It capability. Both cameras are reflex, processor based and completely simply records the movements of the so that you can see exactly what changeable at the will of the operator. camera, pans and tilt, so that when you’re shooting.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoI. Ill 93 The various elements that make up a special effects shot must all be photographed separately, using specialized camera systems. These pieces of film are then synchronized and re-photographed in the optical printer, combining all the visual elements onto one piece of film. In this scene, the live action shot of the actors looking out the window of the Rebel cruiser at a blue screen background is combined with separate film strips of the Nebula, the Rebel transport and y-wing models and a star field painting.

Sky plate, models and motion control all add up to a shot of breathtaking beauty and excitement.

The Ultimote System Edlund is seeking to create. All of the tle in space, which made up a good That brings the total to three equipment is designed to be as easy portion of Star Wars. There are a motion-control cameras—the two and as fun to use as possible. “We tremendous variety of shots, most of originally built for Star Wars and the don’t want our people to carry around which have depended on the develop- new VistaVision sound-speed built for 1,000 lb. weight just to get a shot. If ment of little techniques in lots of

Empire. But Edlund is looking to the the equipment is difficult and areas. To get all of these techniques future, and another system is being cumbersome to use, then the tenden- developed, working and looking good built which has been dubbed the cy will be to use only the easiest parts on the screen has been a challenge.

VistaCruiser. This new camera will of it; people will tend to avoid the more “For example, in the snow battle se- have an 80-foot track (instead of the complex shots because of the pres- quence, it was very difficult to 42-foot track that the current motion- sure and the amount of work. generate a traveling-matte system control system utilizes) with improved “Empire is probably two orders of that was capable of producing matte- motion-control capability, increased magnitude more difficult than Star line-free shots. It’s a technical prob- In have a far lem, but there’s an esthetic too. film capacity, a better follow-focus Wars. Empire , we system and video viewfinder. greater variety of situations to deal “You have a situation in which you Ultimately, Edlund hopes that a with— it’s much more than just a bat- have to create a shot that can only motion-control system can be developed that is compatible with every piece of camera equipment, including the Oxberry animation stands and the optical printer. If all of the cameras and printers can “talk” to one another, the range and flexibility of the entire system will be greatly increased. For example, if for some reason the track was too short for the motion controlled camera, the move could be completed in the printer at the same rate, at the press of a button. LTD.

it Or may be necessary to interlock a LUCASFILM move on the model stage with the

The possibilities are endless; and Richard Edlund manipulates the remote controlled motion controll camera that’s just the sort of system that in the new effects facility.

96 SPECIAL EFFECTS/Vol. Ill Note the live action insert in this close-up shot of Bespin.

which you have to match both ends against the middle. You have to shoot Gary Kurtz and Irv the middle which has to match both Kershner assemble ends of shots that someone else has the meticulous shot done. In this case, it was a relatively for shot storyboards from Empire. difficult-to-control, high-speed shot with blowing snow and flurries.’’ But even though the planetbound shots created a whole new area of challenges, the deep-space shots became very complex in Empire. “The asteroid sequence has probably got some of the most complex blue-screen exist through the use of trick photo- on the screen, he just knows it looks shots ever filmed. There is one shot graphy—sometimes using painted funny and he’s not going to buy that has 20 separately photographed backgrounds, sometimes using plates it. . . and that disrupts his tension and elements in it. All of which have to that were shot in Norway intercut involvement in the drama. The match. There are individual aster- with live-actions footage. They have material has to look real.’’ oids, the Millennium Falcon, three TIE to match. fighters with lasers going, an asteroid “People have seen snow, they know Tricky Crash Scene belt in the distance (which is a multi- what it looks like; they’ve seen the Edlund then explains another plane shot), four paintings, shadows live-action footage, so there can’t be tricky effects sequence. “There is the moving across the asteroids .... any giveaway with the effects foot- shot in which Luke crashes in his There are easily 100 pieces of film age. Even the atmospherics of the snow speeder. The first part of the necessary to composite this shot, con- miniatures have to match the live shot is stop-motion created by Phil sidering all of the separations and action. Tippet and John Berg, with the cam- mattes and rotoscoped elements.

“What you can get away with in a era coming almost to the ground. I “Surprisingly, it did not take that deep space shot is phenomenal, since had to shoot a high-speed sequence of long to assemble the scene on the noboby’s ever been there, no one’s go- 30 or 40 frames that would take him Quad printer, which is a tribute to ing to question you about how things from a few feet off the ground into a Bruce Nicholson, who has done an un- look on the screen. But when you’re crash from an over-the-shoulder point believable job of putting together trying to pull the wool over the eyes of of view. So it actually looks like he is something like 420 effects shots. Our a 10 year old, who is your severest crashing into the snow and settling. re-comp [re-compositing] rate is may- critic, you’re in trouble. He’s seen And that has to match the next shot, be a third of what we had to do on Star millions of feet of film and he doesn’t which is a plate of him getting out. Wars. There has been a lot of experi- care why something doesn’t look right “We are constantly in a situation in ence gained and a lot of techniques re-

SPECIAL EFFECTS/VoJ. Ill 97 Brian Johnson pauses for a moment beside the model of an Imperial cruiser. Johnson shared the effects supervisor credit with Richard Edlund.

fined since Star Wars and our new pass those two obstacles, you must test on a shot and then walk equipment is precision equipment, so deal with problem of relative quality. away—leave that camera where it is, that instead of having to re-comp a How sharp, how grainy is the element go on to another camera and work for shot eight or nine times to get it right, being matted in comparison to the another shot. In this way, we can we are able to do it, in a lot of cases, rest of the plate? That takes a lot of develop each shot more carefully, only three times. experience and time to get it right.’’ without the fear of tying the equip-

“There are always the headache For the future, Edlund is pleased to ment up for too long. shots, which are sometimes the real be in a work situation with an on-go- “We are going to build another ‘simple’ shots, but for some reason, ing facility. He can continue to build printer, not another Quad, but a print- the god of matte lines is not on our and refine the system that has helped er to handle other jobs. We will build side, or the color balance is elusive or bring the Lucas vision to the screen. a rear-projection matte system for the something like that.’’ Here, too, says Edlund, “the camera- matte artists. And we are beginning men have a good deal of autonomy. Ev- to make inroads into electronic com- Priority System eryone here has a talent that they positing. ...” Edlund has a priority system for were hired for and everyone exer- Richard Edlund has been spending judging special-effects footage. The cises their own creative judgment in more time in a supervisory position, first commandment in the laws of spe- doing shots. Our by-word here is gen- but he has been able to get to the cam- cial effects states that “the color bal- erally for people to take the ball and era for the highspeed shots and some ance has to be right. The matte line run with it.’’ of the planet shots. “I’ve gotten to the can be the size of a halo,’’ believes Ed- Soon Edlund hopes to have four or camera maybe about 20 percent of lund, “but you’ll have a better chance five additional motion-control cam- the time, but most of the job has been of getting by than if it has a pink cast, eras in VistaVision format up and trying to keep the style of the photog- for example, or green on one of the running. “More cameras to use raphy consistent and integrated, and elements. means that we can devote more time I must say I’m very happy with my cur- “Then comes matte lines. If you to a particular shot. A guy can do a rent position.’’ •

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