In Memoriam
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The visual effects visionary who, without CGI, fashioned the kaleidoscopic finale for 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, concocted the creepy cloud formations in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, filled the BLADE RUNNER universe with smoke and fireballs and helped create the birth of the universe that opens THE TREE OF LIFE, has died. He was 79.
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Jon Landau (1960-2024)

Jon Landau, the Oscar-winning producer of TITANIC and both AVATAR movies, died of cancer on Friday, July 5. He was 63.

Landau, a longtime producing partner to James Cameron, was behind three of the top four highest-grossing movies of all time. Landau helped make history with TITANIC, the first film to cross $1 billion at the global box office. He topped that movie’s record-breaking grosses twice, with 2009’s AVATAR and its sequel, 2022’s AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER.

Before his death, Landau was deeply involved in the production of the AVATAR sequels. Cameron is planning to fill his blockbuster sci-fi franchise with five movies in total, with the fifth tentatively coming out in 2031.

Speaking to Variety at the WAY OF WATER premiere, Landau recalled screening the movie for the principal cast. “When I saw them tearing up, I had to tear up,” he said.

At age 29, Landau became the executive vice president of feature film production at 20th Century Fox, where he oversaw films such as DIE HARD 2, POWER RANGERS, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS and 1994’s TRUE LIES, on which he worked with Cameron. When Landau left Fox, Cameron asked him if he wanted to read the script for a project with the code name “Planet Ice”, which Landau boarded and which eventually became 1997’s TITANIC.

Landau would go on to work with Cameron for the rest of his life, becoming chief operating officer at Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment banner. He additionally was the architect of Lightstorm’s ancillary projects, such as Dark Horse Comics and Penguin Random House’s various AVATAR print spinoffs. Landau also advised the creation of AVATAR: FRONTIERS OF PANDORA, the well-received Ubisoft game that released in December, as well as an online multiplayer role-playing game from Tencent Games’ Level Infinite called AVATAR: RECKONING.

Landau’s other producing credits include 1987’s CAMPUS MAN, 2002’s SOLARIS and 2019’s ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL.

In a 2022 interview with The Talks, Landau said of his career in Hollywood: “I could never just sit at a desk and sign off on anything. Not just as a producer, but in life. I want to participate, I want to have a voice, I want to have an influence. I want to be able to inspire people to go beyond what they think their own capabilities are, for them to feel pride in what we’re doing. I think that’s a very big thing. I never want to be that guy just at a desk anywhere in life.”

He leaves behind his wife, Julie Landau, to whom he was married for almost 40 years, as well as their two sons, Jamie and Jodie Landau. He is also survived by his siblings, Tina, Kathy and Les Landau.

Those who worked with Landau offered tributes, including co-chairman of Disney Entertainment Alan Bergman, who said, “Jon was a visionary whose extraordinary talent and passion brought some of the most unforgettable stories to life on the big screen. His remarkable contributions to the film industry have left an indelible mark, and he will be profoundly missed. He was an iconic and successful producer yet an even better person and a true force of nature who inspired all around him. Our thoughts are with Jon’s wife, Julie, and his family and loved ones during this difficult time.”

Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, whose Wētā FX company was the visual effects house for the AVATAR movies, also released a statement: “We speak for the entire Wētā FX team when we say we are devastated by the loss of Jon Landau. Jon was not only a monumental figure in the film industry but also a cherished collaborator and friend. Jon brought unparalleled passion to the projects he worked on and his influence will continue to inspire for years to come. Our deepest condolences are with Jon’s family and loved ones, as well as Jim and the Lightstorm Entertainment team.”

Joe Letteri, VES, who was the VFX supervisor on the AVATAR films, added in his own statement, “I am heartbroken at the loss of our friend Jon Landau. He was an amazing and generous man, and a world-class film maker who leaves a legacy that will last for generations. On behalf of all of us at Wētā FX, it was an honour to work beside him. His dedication to the art of filmmaking inspired us every day. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones.”

Stephen Rivkin, an editor on the first three AVATAR films, said in a statement, “Jon was our hero. He is and will always be the greatest champion of the AVATAR movies and the guiding light of the AVATAR family who have worked and continue to work on these films. He was a one-of-a-kind giant in our industry. I am so fortunate to have known him and to have had him in my life, both professionally and as a dear friend. We will miss him beyond what words can express. He will continue to live in our hearts forever.”

TITANIC actor Frances Fisher paid tribute to Landau on X, writing, “Rest in Power Jon.”

Landau was born in New York, N.Y., on July 30, 1960, to Ely and Edie Landau, who were also both film producers. He attended USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.

Compiled from VARIETY

Thad Beier (1960-2024)

Long-time Director of Image Platform Workflow at Dolby Labs Thaddeus Beier passed away after a long and brutal course of frontotemporal dementia. Thad was brilliant, loving and gentle man who leaves behind his wife of 40 years Cathy Beier, daughter Elizabeth and son Thomas.

Beier left Johns Hopkins at the age of 18, and started working at New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab in 1978. He spent five years there doing innovative CG software and animation. Thad then went to Pacific Data Image (PDI) as they were just starting doing computer graphics commercial work, again writing software and creating animation, and began leading teams in both of those fields. He then started Hammerhead Productions to do VFX work in Hollywood, eventually became a VFX supervisor on a dozen films, including at Digital Domain. Thad won the Technical Achievement Academy Award in 1998 for the design and implementation of ras_track, a system for 2D tracking, stabilization and 3D camera and object tracking. Thad most recently worked on high-dynamic-range content creation at Dolby Laboritories where he retired in 2019 due to illness.

Among his many acts of generosity, he completed three exhaustive annual workups for, and donated his brain to, the ALLFTD research consortium. That entire file and accompanying tissue slides will be shared with every major research center fighting this hideous disease. Thad is finally at peace

Laurie Blavin (1961-2024)

It is with immense sadness that we announce the passing of former VES Treasurer Laurie Blavin at the age of 63. She joined the Society in 2012, and shortly thereafter was elected to the Bay Area Section Board of Managers where she helped produce the VES Bay Area Summit. She then served for six years on the global VES Board of Directors, and was part of the historic all-female Executive Committee in 2022.

Blavin’s long career spanned the culture, creativity, and technology of both Hollywood and Silicon Valley. A proven leader with expertise in building and managing creative and technical teams, she counseled companies and professionals in strategy, brand value stewardship, and provided full-cycle staffing and recruiting for international companies large and small, startups as well as established businesses. She had a passion for humanizing the technology side of organizations, while supporting the perceived chaos that sometimes accompanies visionary innovation.

Throughout more than 20 years in the visual effects and entertainment industry, Laurie worked as Art Department Manager at Lucas Arts on their early point-and-click adventure games, Senior Staffing Consultant at MPC and Technicolor, Senior Recruiter at both DreamWorks Animation and The Orphanage and finally at Scanline VFX as their Global Head of Talent Acquisition. Prior to focusing on VFX, she worked at AOL, Vivid Studios, Walmart.com and Blurb.

As a recruiter, Laurie cared deeply for the wellbeing of the artists who she placed. She was a collector and curator of fine art photography and spent time behind the camera on personal projects. She is survived by her daughter Amelia Paris Blavin-Kakone and Laurie’s long-time partner Nathalie Kakone. Our hearts go out to her family and friends during this difficult time.

Roger Corman (1926-2024)

The Visual Effects Society is sad to announce the passing of Roger Corman at 98. He was inducted into the VES Hall of Fame in 2017. Corman was the legendary B-movie king who directed and produced hundreds of low-budget films and discovered such future industry stars as Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro.

Corman died May 9 at his home in Santa Monica, California, surrounded by family members, the family confirmed to Variety.

“His films were revolutionary and iconoclastic, and captured the spirit of an age. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a filmmaker, just that,’” the family said in a statement.

Corman’s empire, which existed in several incarnations, including New World Pictures, and Concorde/New Horizons, was as active as any major studio and, he boasted, always profitable. He specialized in fast-paced, low-budget genre movies – horror, action, science fiction, even some family fare – and his company became a work-in-training ground for a wide variety of major talents, from actors like Nicholson (LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS) and De Niro (BLOODY MAMA) to directors like Francis Ford Coppola (DEMENTIA 13) and Scorsese (BOXCAR BERTHA).

When Corman was awarded an Oscar at the AMPAS’ first Governors Awards ceremony in November 2009, Ron Howard saluted him for hiring women in key exec and creative jobs, as well as for giving them big roles, and Walter Moseley was quoted as saying Corman offered “one of the few open doors,” looking beyond age, race and gender.

Corman hailed film as “the only truly modern art form.” But he pointed out that the need of cast and crew payments mean a constant compromise between art and business.

Howard also joked that when he directed his first film, GRAND THEFT AUTO, he complained to Corman about the low budget and the sparse extras for a crowd scene only to be told, “If you do a good job on this film, you won’t ever have to work for me again!”

Quentin Tarantino toasted him with “the movie lovers of planet Earth thank you.” Jonathan Demme praised his acting, saying Corman gave “tremendous value at a really affordable price.” In several movies for Demme, Corman wanted the same fee he gave actors in the 50-plus films he’d directed: scale plus 10%.

Over almost half a century, he took over the B-movie market, which had largely disappeared in the wake of television, and kept it alive almost single-handedly (along with 2023 VES Hall of Fame inductee Sam Arkoff of American Intl. Pictures, who financed most of Corman’s early directing/producing efforts). Well into his nineties, he was producing Bs for $5 million and under and rolling them out for video and television release.

After he left off directing in the late ’60s (to return only briefly for the 1990 picture FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND), he formed New World Pictures, which also imported foreign art films like Ingmar Bergman’s CRIES AND WHISPERS and taught the industry how to effectively market and distribute such rarefied films.

Born in Detroit, Corman moved with his family in 1940 to Los Angeles. He attended Beverly Hills High School and then Stanford U., majoring in engineering. He admitted to being infatuated by movies from the time he came to California. “There was no way I couldn’t be interested in movies, growing up where I did,” he once said.

Service in WWII and his education (he also attended Oxford for a term, studying English literature) slowed him down. After Stanford he worked for four days at U.S. Electric Motors and then tried to break into the business by working as a messenger at 20th Century Fox. When he returned from Oxford (and a short stay in Paris) he became, in his own words, “a bum.” From 1951-53 he did odd jobs and collected unemployment. He briefly worked as a script reader; convinced he could do better, he wrote HIGHWAY DRAGNET and sold it to Allied Artists for $4,000.

With the money he made from the 1954 release and contributions from family and friends, he produced THE MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR and struck a deal with Arkoff’s AIP. In return for cash advances, Corman agreed to make a series of movies.

From 1955-60 Corman produced or directed more than 30 films for AIP, all budgeted at less than $100,000 and produced in two weeks or less. There were Westerns (FIVE GUNS WEST, THE GUNSLINGER); horror and science fiction (THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED, THE UNDEAD in 1956 and 1957); as well as teen movies like CARNIVAL ROCK and ROCK ALL NIGHT.

Soon he was the hero of the drive-ins.

Critically, it wasn’t until MACHINE GUN KELLY in 1958 that Corman was noticed. That pic was followed by a studio film I MOBSTER for Fox. After LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS in 1960, Corman convinced Arkoff to bankroll some more ambitious projects, in particular, a series of films based on the works of one of Corman’s favorite authors, Edgar Allan Poe. The horror series, which starting with THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER in 1960, spawned eight low-budget hits including THE TOMB OF LIGEIA and THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. They revived the careers of Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone and Peter Lorre and became classics of a kind.

During the same period he was giving unknown actors like Ellen Burstyn, Nicholson and De Niro, screenwriters like Robert Towne and directors like Scorsese, Demme, Joe Dante and Peter Bogdanovich their starts.

His one and only “message” film, 1962’s THE INTRUDER starring William Shatner, was about racism. Reviews were good, but because the film used the “N” word it was denied the Production Code Seal, so bookings were few. “I decided then and there I would never again make a movie that would be so obviously a personal statement,” he once told a New York Times interviewer.

Nor was he satisfied with his venture into “big” movies for Columbia Pictures when execs there tried to stint on his budgets. Back at AIP, he made THE WILD ANGELS, a biker movie with Peter Fonda that cost $360,000 and grossed more than $25 million.

It was followed by THE TRIP, about LSD, and other youth-oriented hits. But he started to run out of steam around the time of BLOODY MAMA in 1970 and withdrew from directing after VON RICHTOFEN AND BROWN. In 1970 he formed New World Pictures to produce and distribute the kinds of films Arkoff had once bankrolled. By the end of his first year, with releases like WOMEN IN CAGES and NIGHT CALL NURSES, he was in the black. Later he would produce such films as PIRANHA, EAT MY DUST and DEATH RACE 2000.

His hunger for art films began in 1972 with Bergman’s CRIES AND WHISPERS and continued with AUTUMN SONATA, THE STORY OF ADELE H, AMARCORD and FITZCARRALDO. He reinvented their marketing and distribution, booking them in a wider variety of venues and giving audiences outsides the major cities a taste of world cinema they had not previously enjoyed.

Foreign films were one fifth of New World’s $55 million annual revenue by 1980. He also added family films like A HERO AIN’T NOTHIN’ BUT A SANDWICH to his mix and higher-priced (as in $5 million) projects like the sci-fier BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS. In 1983 he sold New World for $16.5 million and started Concorde/New Horizons. He continued to unearth new talent like director Luis Llosa and by 1989 was boasting in Variety of a string of 40 consecutive profitmakers. But the market had changed, and his profits never reached the heights of the AIP or early New World days. Fortunately for Corman, the ever-burgeoning foreign market took up some of the slack — it came to represent half or more of his business — and CNH came about at the perfect time to capitalize on the new home video market. With his massive back catalog, he was perfectly positioned to bring out his old pics on video while making new ones specifically targeted to that market.

Returning to the director’s chair for the first time in two decades for 1990’s FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND, Corman disappointed genre fans and did not direct again.

There is no question, however, that his high volume for homevideo strategy was financially successful. Corman renamed the business New Concorde in 2000 and reorganized to form New Concorde Home Entertainment.

Corman had produced a movie called THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS in 1955, and when producer Neal Moritz discovered the film back when he was launching a car-fueled franchise of his own starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, Moritz decided that he had to have that title for the movie. The two men came to an agreement under which Moritz swapped stock footage for name rights to the 2001 film and its successors.

Corman also found new outlets for his pics on Showtime and the Sci Fi Channel (now Syfy). CNH produced a ROGER CORMAN PRESENTS series of science fiction, horror and fantasy films for the pay cabler. The 2001 Sci Fi Channel BLACK SCORPION series was based on two of his more popular straight-to-vid films. Telepics for Syfy included DINOSHARK, DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR and SHARKTOPUS.

In 2005 Concorde signed a 12-year deal with Buena Vista Home Entertainment giving the latter distribution rights to the more than 400 Corman-produced pics, then in 2010 Corman signed a deal with Shout Factory giving the latter exclusive North American homevid rights to 50 Corman-produced films.

Together they launched a home entertainment series called Roger Corman’s Cult Classics. The first titles made available were PIRANHA, HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP, UP FROM THE DEPTHS and DEMON OF PARADISE.

In 1990 Corman published his memoirs Maverick: How I Made 200 Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime.

He frequently made cameos in the pics of the successful filmmakers who got their start with him, appearing, for example, in Demme’s PHILADELPHIA, Howard’s APOLLO 13, Coppola’s THE GODFATHER: PART II and Dante’s LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION.

In 1998 he received the first Producers Award ever presented by the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2006 Corman received the David O. Selznick Award from the Producers Guild of America. The same year, his film FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER was among the 25 pics selected for the National Film Registry, a compilation of significant films to be preserved by the Library of Congress.

Alex Stapleton’s 2011 feature documentary CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL explored the filmmaker’s activities. Last year, Corman was honored by the Los Angeles Press Club with its Distinguished Storyteller Award recognizing his contributions to the film industry.

Corman is survived by his wife, producer Julie Corman, and daughters, Catherine and Mary.

Please click here to watch Roger Corman’s amazing luminary interview in the VES Archive.

Compiled from VARIETY

Roger Dicken (1939-2024)

Roger Dicken, the Oscar-nominated British special effects artist, sculptor and model maker known for his work on ALIEN and WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH, has died. He was 84.

Dicken died Feb. 18 at his home in North Wales, Mick Cooper, a friend of more than five decades, told THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

On his first film, Dicken was a member of the effects team for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968); later, he created and operated the dinosaur puppets seen in THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1974).

Dicken sculpted several prehistoric creatures — plus a pair of full-sized pterodactyl feet — for the stop-motion adventure tale WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH (1970), written and directed by Val Guest for Hammer Films. He and American animator Jim Danforth shared the Oscar nomination for visual effects.

For Ridley Scott’s ALIEN (1979), Dicken constructed and controlled the terrifying chest-bursting creature that kills Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt) in the film’s most iconic scene.

“I got underneath the set with my activated hand-operated alien, and it was this, of course, that ended up appearing revoltingly through his body and pausing momentarily to twitch and breath, etc., before zipping off the table,” Dicken recalled in a 1992 interview.

“Two assistants, holding simple squeeze bubbles fixed to plastic tubes, made the small sacs in the body pulsate, etc. The monster’s exit was accomplished by pulling me along under the table, laying on a trolley with my arm holding the puppet, working it through a slot as it knocked off strategically placed utensils in the process of disappearing.”

Five people shared the visual effects Oscar for their work on the film; Dicken was not one of them.

Born on April 15, 1939, in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, Roger Maxwell Dicken said he loved the “old gorilla suits in the 1940s films. I always wanted to make one of these but only got as far as creating an overhead ape mask with fur and papier-maché with which I scared the life out of a couple of local girls returning home from a dance late at night.”

He and friends came up with a comedy/horror routine for clubs in which he played Doctor Lugani, a master of “cemeteries” who introduces such characters as The Hunchback, Dracula and The Wolf Man.

“I would do a quick change toward the end and play the Frankenstein monster, which went down very well in those days, carrying off a girl planted in the audience to finish off the show,” he recalled.

A meeting with VFX legend Ray Harryhausen inspired him to try the movies, and he landed jobs with the BBC and made models for the THUNDERBIRDS TV show before going freelance to join the team on 2001.

Dicken then created the moth monster for THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (1968), starring Peter Cushing, and worked on WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968), starring Vincent Price.

He also came up with bats for SCARS OF DRACULA (1970) and octopuses for WARLORDS OF THE DEEP (1978) and wrapped his career with WHITE DOG (1982) and THE HUNGER (1983).

Survivors include his wife, Wendy.

Taken from THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Dan Goozee (1943-2024)

Dan Goozee, the acclaimed artist who created posters for such films as CLASH OF THE TITANS, SUPERMAN IV and the James Bond movies MOONRAKER, OCTOPUSSY and A VIEW TO A KILL, has died. He was 80.

Goozee died April 7 at West Hills Hospital & Medical Center of an age-related condition he had battled for two years, his son, Rob, told THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

The unassuming Goozee spent years as a Walt Disney Imagineering theme park consultant, crafting conceptual artwork for Disneyland Paris and Tokyo DisneySea, for Splash Mountain and Big Thunder rides, for the Imagination Pavilion and Seas Pavilion at EPCOT and for the Tree of Life attraction at Animal Kingdom.

He also handled effects work for BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA (1978) and BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY (1979).

Born in 1943 in Astoria, Oregon, Daniel Goozee worked on weekends at movie theaters that his father and uncle owned and operated in nearby Seaside, then graduated from the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena in 1965.

A year later, he landed a job in the art department at Fox and was a production illustrator on DOCTOR DOLITTLE (1967), TORA! TORA! TORA! (1970), THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) and THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) and a set illustrator on BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973).

After working on LOGAN’S RUN (1976) and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977), Goozee joined Walt Disney Imagineering as a developmental/consulting artist.

For MOONRAKER (1979), OCTOPUSSY (1983) and A VIEW TO A KILL (1985), Goozee captured 007 star Roger Moore in close contact with, respectively, Lois Chiles, Maud Adams and Grace Jones.

In addition to CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981) — the final film from effects legend Ray Harryhausen — and SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE (1987), Goozee worked on posters for SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II (1980), THE BLACK STALLION RETURNS (1983), STREETS OF FIRE (1984), CROCODILE DUNDEE (1986), THE MISSION (1986) and more. He did a lot of his posters at Seiniger & Associates.

Along the way, Goozeé was honored by the Oil Painters of America, Watercolor West and the California National Watercolor Society, among others. He produced a 19-foot mural for Robert Mondavi’s Golden Vineyard Room at Disney’s California Adventure, and his work can be seen at the Los Angeles Athletic Club and the Autry Museum of the American West.

In addition to his son, survivors include his wife, Michi; daughter-in-law Sarah; and twin grandsons Christopher and Jonathan.

“You will always be with us even as your work lives on from all things Disney, movies, fine art and more,” Rob wrote. “I’m sure you’re enjoying the views from up there. Look forward to one day seeing them with you again.”

Taken from THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Tim McGovern, VES(1955-2024) It is with a heavy heart that we share the awful news that Tim McGovern, VES Fellow, Founders Award recipient, Lifetime Member and VFX veteran who earned an Oscar for his work on 1990’s TOTAL RECALL died at 68.

His wife, Reena NeGandhi, posted the news on Facebook.

“Today is the saddest day of my life,” she wrote. “My Husband Tim McGovern, an Oscar winner for the VFX in 1990 for TOTAL RECALL and several more awards from the VES has died today. He passed away in his sleep.”A digital effects pioneer, McGovern was a Visual Effects Society Board member for nearly two decades. He served as Vice Chair as well as founding Co-Chair of the VES Awards Committee. In October, McGovern received the VES Founders Award and was bestowed Lifetime Membership in the Society.

“We were saddened and shocked by the sudden news of Tim’s untimely passing,” said VES Chair Kim Davidson. “Tim and I have been VES members and colleagues for many years, and his passion and loyalty to the Society were exemplary. Tim’s insights, expertise and volunteer leadership have been key to our global expansion, and he will be terribly missed by us all.”

“On behalf of our entire global community, the Visual Effects Society extends our deep condolences to the family and friends of Tim McGovern, VES. Tim was a devoted, venerated and dynamic member of the Society. His enormous contributions made an indelible mark on our Society and our industry, and we are grateful for our time together.” said VES Executive Director Nancy Ward.

McGovern has numerous film credits on his resume, starting with 1982’s TRON, which he worked on while employed with the former Robert Abel and Associates.He went on to become a founding member of Sony Pictures Imageworks, where he worked on such movies as 2015’s MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION, 2017’s DUNKIRK, 2018’s ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, 2019’s MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL and 2021’s JUNGLE CRUISE.

Other credits include 1993’s LAST ACTION HERO, SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER and LOOK WHO’S TALKING NOW; 1997’s AS GOOD AS IT GETS; and 2023’s SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS.

More recently, he worked at DNeg Mumbai and served as Chief Creative Officer at Whisper Pictures, a company that develops and produces animated family films.

In 1991, McGovern was bestowed with a special achievement Oscar for his work on TOTAL RECALL. He also won multiple Clio Awards throughout his career and was a member of the Academy’s Visual Effects Branch Executive Committee.

According to his bio on IMDb.com, McGovern was born on June 24, 1955, in Chicago. He attended the University of Illinois at Chicago, double majoring in photography and graphic design, in the late ’70s. He earned a doctorate from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2001.

In her post, NeGandhi said that McGovern had written a film and novel that she plans to “take over to get it made for him.”

“He had so many life dreams for his film and now he’s gone,” she wrote. “He’s left it in my hands to make it happen now. I have no idea how I will live without him. He took such good care of me and he was my world. May his soul rest in peace.”

Compiled from VARIETY

Eli Noyes (1942-2024) Eli Noyes, the Oscar-nominated animator who revolutionized stop-motion filmmaking with his innovative use of clay and sand, has died. He was 81.

Noyes died Saturday of complications from prostate cancer at his home in San Francisco, TOY STORY producer Ralph Guggenheim told The Hollywood Reporter. The two formed Alligator Planet in 2003 to create film, print and media works.

As an undergraduate student at Harvard University, Noyes received his Oscar nomination for his 8-minute animated film CLAY OR THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES (1965), which established clay stop animation as a genre and would influence the work of WALLACE AND GROMIT creators Peter Lord and David Sproxton.

For two other short films, he employed sand animation for SANDMAN (1973) and pixelated stop motion for PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY (1976).

Noyes later shaped the look and spirit of children’s programming in the early days of cable TV, especially for Nickelodeon. The rebranded network’s first show, Pinwheel, featured his animated pinwheels made with sand.

In 1983, he and animation producer Kit Laybourne launched Noyes & Laybourne Enterprises, an independent studio located in Soho in New York City. Their company contributed playful network IDs to Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite while creating animation for such shows as EUREEKA’S CASTLE and GULLAH GULLAG ISLAND.

And for MTV, they produced network graphics and animation for Liquid Television, a showcase series that launched Mike Judge’s BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD and Peter Chung’s Aeon Flux.

Eliot Fette Noyes Jr. was born on Oct. 18, 1942, in Amherst, Massachusetts. His parents were modernist architect Eliot Noyes (one of the “Harvard Five”) and interior designer Molly Duncan Weed.

After leaving college, he and Claudia Weil co-directed (non-animated) documentaries, including two in 1970: THIS IS THE HOME OF MRS. LEVANT GRAHAM, a cinema verité look at a Black family’s life in a slum apartment in Washington, D.C., and ASPEN: 1970, which revolved around a generational clash of architects.

In 1988, Noyes and Laybourne joined Colossal Pictures, known for its special effects and animation techniques. Noyes created RUFF’S BONE, a groundbreaking interactive CD-ROM product for Broderbund Software, at Colossal in 1994.

Noyes and his family had moved to San Francisco in 1991, and he would work on interactive projects at Pixar and with Disney Channel and Imagineers programmers to create Zoog Disney, an afternoon programming block for kids that combined TV and the internet.

He then brought that experience to the so-called “convergence network” Oxygen as creative director in the late 1990s. (Kit Laybourne’s wife, Geraldine Laybourne, co-created Oxygen Media.)

At Alligator Planet, Noyes was animation director on the Oscar-nominated documentary THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS (2009). And his “Go Green” stamps for the U.S. Postal Service, created in 2011, featured simple actions everyone can take to conserve natural resources and promote the health of the environment.

Survivors include his wife, Augusta; children Isaac and Abigail; and granddaughter Esme. Donations in his memory can be made to International Rivers or the Coalition of Natives and Allies.

Taken from THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Mathew Sweeney (1948-2024) Matt Sweeney, the inventor and special effects artist who received the BAFTA Award and an Oscar nomination for his work on APOLLO 13 and also won three (3) Technical Achievement Academy Awards during his long career, has died. He was 75, and had been a member of the VES for 20 years.

Sweeney died Monday at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank after a long battle with lung cancer, Dave Burle, who worked alongside Sweeney at his company for many years, told THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

Sweeney also handled effects for films in the LETHAL WEAPON and FAST & FURIOUS franchise and for 1941 (1979), 9 TO 5 (1980), ON GOLDEN POND (1981), GOONIES (1985), THE COLOR PURPLE (1985), THE LOST BOYS (1987), BIG TOP PEE-WEE (1988), ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990), NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994) and GALAXY QUEST (1999), among many other movies.

Sweeney won his Technical Achievement Awards in 1987 for an Automatic Capsule Gun, which simulates bullet hits and is known as the “Sweeney Gun”; in 1998 for a Liquid Synthetic Air system, which mixes liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen to produce safe, breathable fog; and in 2002 for the Mic Rig, an auto carrier and camera platform for shooting car chases.

He shared his Oscar nom for best visual effects on Ron Howard’s APOLLO 13 (1995) with Robert Legato, Michael Kanfer and Leslie Ekker and his Technical Achievement honors with Lucinda “Lulu” Strub (his late wife), Bob Stoker and Mic Rodgers, respectively.

Born in April 1948 and raised in Studio City, Sweeney and Strub, who was also a VES member, died in 2014, launched Matt Sweeney Special Effects Inc. in 1984 in Van Nuys to build those bullet-hit capsule guns.

The company expanded its line of products to include rigging equipment, stunt flying suits, pyrotechnic devices, glass breakers and devices for industrial use before merging with Roger George Special Effects at the start of this year.

Sweeney married fellow special effects artist Lucinda Foy about four years ago, and she survives him, as does his beloved dog, Xena.

Cary Phillips, director of R&D at ILM, worked with Sweeney on the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Committee for the past several years and called him “an old school special effects guy without much experience with computer graphics.”

“But he was always open to new things, always insightful and wise and a warm and generous craftsman full of great stories for the new folks.”

Taken from THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Daniel Langlois (1957-2023)

Daniel Langlois was born in Quebec, Canada in 1957 and is the founder of SOFTIMAGE, the Daniel Langlois Foundation, and Coulibri Ridge.

Daniel Langlois founded SOFTIMAGE in 1986 and served as its President and Chief Technology Officer from its inception until July 1998; the company is recognized internationally in the fields of cinema and media creation for its advanced digital technologies and especially its 3D computer animation techniques. SOFTIMAGE software is used to create the dazzling 3D effects in many blockbuster movies such as JURASSIC PARK, TITANIC, MEN IN BLACK, THE MATRIX, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, MOULIN ROUGE, HAPPY FEET, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, HARRY POTTER and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN as well as numerous 3D video games.

In 1992 SOFTIMAGE went public on the American stock market NASDAQ. Two years later, with the objective of expanding the access and availability of 3D computer animation technologies, Mr. Langlois negotiated a merger agreement between SOFTIMAGE and Microsoft which became a milestone that triggered a global consolidation of the computer graphics software industry. SOFTIMAGE was later acquired by Avid in 1998 which then sold the SOFTIMAGE 3D software division to Autodesk in 2008.

Daniel Langlois holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Design from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Before founding SOFTIMAGE, he worked for eight years as an Animation director for private companies and for the National Film Board of Canada, during which time he made significant contributions to the film industry and the field of computer graphics. He gained recognition worldwide as Co-Director of the groundbreaking computer animated film TONY DE PELTRIE (1985) and for his work on the first stereoscopic 3D computer animation in IMAX format, presented at Expo 86 in Vancouver.

Daniel Langlois has received many significant honors throughout his career. In 1994, Ernst & Young chose him as Canada’s National Entrepreneur of the Year. In 1997, he received a Scientific and Technical Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1999, he was appointed Knight of the National Order of Québec and named Officer of the Order of Canada the following year during which he also was named Personnalité Arts-Affaires of the city of Montreal. In 2003, he was awarded the Octas Prize as a Great Pioneer in Information and Communications Technologies (ITC) for the integration of advanced digital technologies in film and media creation.

Daniel Langlois has received Honorary Doctorates from Université de Sherbrooke, McGill University, Concordia University, Université du Québec à Montréal and Ottawa University in recognition of his work in the fields of art, science and technology.

The Daniel Langlois Foundation is a private, philanthropic charitable organization created in 1997. The purpose of the Foundation is to further artistic and scientific knowledge by fostering the meeting of art and science in the fields of technology. The Foundation seeks to nurture a critical awareness of technology’s implications for human beings and their natural and cultural environment as well as to explore the characteristic aesthetics of new human environments. The foundation has granted funding to numerous projects worldwide and the foundation website is considered one of the most important online resources regarding new media and digital art. www.fondation-langlois.org

One of the important undertakings of the foundation is an ongoing program with a focus on establishing long term resilience and self-sustainability for small communities in emerging countries that are directly affected by the devastating impacts of natural disasters and global warming. The goal of the project is to research, define, design and implement realistic and viable technological solutions and interventions that will improve the quality of life for the inhabitants following natural disasters while incorporating future resilience and self-sustainability: www.rezdm.org

In recent years, Daniel Langlois has also been involved in sustainable development and research projects for some industrial sectors such as the hospitality sector. Coulibri Ridge is part of this research process in Dominica: www.coulibriridge.com

Coulibri Ridge has been awarded Gold and Platinum Winner as well as Grand Winner in the Hotel and Tourism Development category at the 15th Edition of the Grands Prix du Design 2022. Evaluated by a multidisciplinary international jury made up of professionals, academics and members of the press, Coulibri Ridge was the overall winner in the Hotel and Tourism Development category. The international award recognizes excellence in design and celebrates the talented professionals who inspire through their creative vision.

Daniel Langlois and his partner Dominique Marchand died in tragic circumstances on December 1, 2023 in Dominica near their Coulibri Ridge resort.

Taken from the Daniel Langlois Foundation

Marc Thorpe (1946-2023)

We regret to report the passing of Bay Area Visual Effects Artist Marc Thorpe – professional VFX Creature Designer and Model Maker. Marc passed away due to complications resulting from Parkinson’s disease on November 24, 2023 at the age of 77.

His credits include STAR WARS: EPISODE V – THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980), RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981), DRAGONSLAYER (1981), POLTERGEIST (1982), STAR WARS: EPISODE V – RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983), EXPLORERS (1985), HOWARD THE DUCK (1986), *BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED (1987), INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989) and THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990). Such films were revolutionary in advancing the art and technology of visual effects in the 1980’s. The creature and miniature model making VFX crews that Marc Thorpe worked with were vital to each project’s success and their enduring place in VFX cinematic history.

In the early 1990’s, Marc also founded “Robot Wars” – the popular sport of robot combat that is still wildly successful to this day, 30 years later.

The Visual Effects Society Bay Area Section salutes the life and times of Marc Thorpe – talented artist, designer, mechanical engineer, electronics specialist – and we offer our sincere condolences to this family, friends and colleagues.

Don Howe (1962-2023)

Long-time VES member Donald “Don” Edward Howe passed away peacefully at his home in Sacramento on Sunday, November 26 aged 61.

For many years, Don served Tippett Studio as a Department Manager on such VFX productions as HOLLOW MAN (2000), EVOLUTION (2001), HELLBOY (2004), ENCHANTED (2007), DRAG ME TO HELL (2009), PRIEST (2011), IMMORTALS (2011), THE SMURFS (2011), THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PARTS 1 & 2 (2011 & 2012), MIRROR, MIRROR (2012), TED (2012), and AFTER EARTH (2013).

David Tanaka, VES 2nd Vice Chair said that Don looked “forward to local events with his wife, Jaynée, and son, Oscar. It was always a pleasure to see him, as well as meet for a quick lunch or dinner in subsequent years, talking about the industry, immersive technology, and, of course, friends and family.”

Don shared his professional interests with Oscar – together catching a VES screening or enjoying a VFX Q&A presentation. The family has extended the invitation for all of Don’s colleagues and friends are invited to click here to contribute to a memorial video. Our deepest condolences go out to the Howe family as well as Don’s friends and colleagues.

Diana Giorgiutti (1962-2023)

The VES Australia Section and the VFX industry at large mourn the passing of Visual Effects Producer and long-time VES member Diana Giorgiutti. Her journey was one of unwavering dedication, innovation, and a passion for pushing the boundaries of visual storytelling.

Diana’s extraordinary life was marked by her relentless pursuit of art and mathematics, upon which she built the foundation for her remarkable career. A native of Sydney, Australia, her curiosity after seeing STAR WARS led her to learn the technical aspects of the entertainment industry.

Diana’s ambition took her to London, where she produced music videos and witnessed the evolving landscape of the visual effects industry as it transitioned from generalists handling every aspect of a shot to more specialized artists working in various departments at larger facilities.

Giorgiutti contributed to the VFX of the Oscar-winners BABE and THE MATRIX as well as Visual Effects Producing AUSTRALIA, for which she won the Satellite Award. Her career took her to Marvel Studios, Luma Pictures and Sony Pictures Imageworks; but she always returned to producing on the show side of visual effects. She understood the importance of fostering strong relationships with vendors and her team, believing that taking care of people was the key to success.

Upon learning of her passing, former Society Chair Mike Chambers, VES said, “Di Giorgiutti was an accomplished VFX Producer with dozens of high-profile film projects among her credits over the last 30 years. She was wonderful woman and a dear friend & mentor to many in our industry. She will be truly missed.”

Diana’s legacy will live on through all of those in our industry whose career paths she shepherded. Our thoughts are with her family and friends.

Peter Kozachik, ASC (1951-2023)

The visual effects Bay Area community and the world have lost a cinematic legend. Director of Photography/Cinematographer, Visual Effects Supervisor and Stop-Motion Animator, Peter Kozachik passed away on September 12, 2023 due to complications resulting from primary aphasia.

A longtime collaborator with Industrial Light & Magic and filmmakers Tim Burton and Henry Selick, Pete’s contributions to the craft of visual effects and animation are undeniable. To name just a few, his credits include STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986), INNERSPACE (1987), WILLOW (1988), GHOSTBUSTERS II (1989), ROBOCOP 2 (1990), THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993), JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH (1996) STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997), MONKEYBONE (2001), STAR WARS: EPISODE II – ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002), THE MATRIX: RELOADED (2003,) CORPSE BRIDE (2005) and CORALINE (2009). Such movies were not only “box office hits,” but vitally integral to the sustainability of visual effects and animation filmmaking in the Bay Area.

Along with fellow Skellington Productions VFX colleagues Eric Leighton, Ariel Velasco-Shaw and Gordon Baker, in 1993 Pete was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS – the stop-motion animated feature film (directed by Henry Selick with story by Tim Burton) beloved by fans across the world, now for 3 decades and counting.

In recent years, he authored “Tales From The Pumpkin King’s Cameraman” (2021) – a memoir of his work on THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS as well as other productions, offering a behind-the-scenes look and personal accounts of his time in the movie industry. He also contributed to MAD GOD (2021) – the dark and deeply personal stop-motion animated opus by Bay Area artist and filmmaker Phil Tippett, VES.

The visual effects Bay Area community and the world has lost a cinematic legend, but most importantly we have lost a beautiful human being.

The Visual Effects Society Bay Area Section offers our sincerest condolences to the Kozachik family, friends and colleagues, and together we salute the life and times of Pete Kozachik. Thank you, Pete, and All Hail The Pumpkin King!

David H. Tanaka Vice Chair of the Visual Effects Society, Executive Committee and Former Chair of the VES Bay Area Section

Jeff Casper (1964-2023)

It is with a heavy heart that we remember Jeffery Casper who passed away at his home in June at 59. Jeff started at the Visual Effects Society in 2012 as Media and Graphics Manager where he served the Board, Committees and membership on our small staff for more than a decade. He was a fixture at scores of VES events during his tenure where he recorded, edited and posted many of the videos on our site and in our archive.

Jeff loved music, and was an avid guitarist and singer who played shows as often as he could. He made us all sound better when he sang Happy Birthday accompanied by his ukulele. His wry wit brought laughter to the VES office, and everyone who knew him will miss his zingers. Jeff was a devoted husband to his high school sweetheart whom he adored. He is survived by his loving wife Angie and their cat Phoebe, and the world is a better place for having him in it. We will miss him always.

Raulette Woods(1956-2023)

Long-time VES member and tireless volunteer Raulette Woods has passed away. Her first credit in the industry was in the animation department on TRON in 1982, but she was also a dancer at the sock hop in AMERICAN GRAFITTI from 1973. She was a Co-Founder and Co-Owner of Stargate Films and Stargames Interactive. She did scholarly research supported by UC Berkeley’s Research Studies in Neurology and Psychology, UC Irvine’s MIND Institute and was an American MENSA referred Mathematician.

Raulette volunteered at the Visual Effects Society for 5 years at VES Awards nomination events, VES Festivals, screenings and more. During her tenure at Stargate, she worked in visual effects, miniature photography and main titles on such projects as DANTE’S PEAK, TWISTER, THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD, THE OUTER LIMITS, NAKED GUN: 33 1/3, PASSENGER 57, GHOSTBUSTERS II, BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II, MAX HEADROOM and many others as well as numerous games, commercials and music videos.

She will be missed by all who knew her, and her legacy in the VFX industry will live on. Our sincere condolences go out to her family and friends.

Chris Shaw (1975-2023)

Having graduated in computer science from Cambridge in 1996 Chris joined Cell Animation where he was an early pioneer in interfacing motion control with 3D animation software, allowing revolutionary techniques to be developed which are used to this day in the VFX industry. He moved with a small team to help set up Ridley and Tony Scott’s Mill Film, where he was instrumental in writing various software used on a number of projects, including the Oscar winning VFX of GLADIATOR.

Chris was always known as an expert problem solver, and was able to come up with unique and imaginative solutions to any situation which arose on set. His talents did not go unnoticed, and he rose through the ranks of the VFX department on successive HARRY POTTER films to become one of the VFX supervisors, and was nominated for a BAFTA in 2008. He moved into the specialised field of creating VFX content for interactive theme park rides, winning a VES Award in 2016 for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project for his work on FAST & FURIOUS: SUPERCHARGED.

Throughout his long and illustrious career he has worked with all of the major studios including, Marvel Studios, Warner Bros., Dreamworks, Universal and Columbia Pictures. He will be greatly missed in the VFX industry by the many people who have had the pleasure of working with his unique talents and infectious personality.<

Thilo Kuther (1964-2022)

Long-time VES member Thilo Kuther, founder of Pixomondo, passed away on December 1st in Marina del Rey at the age of 58.

In 2001, Thilo founded Pixomondo in the small town of Pfungstadt, with offices in Stuttgart and Frankfurt am Main. Almost ten years later, he had led Pixomondo into a global company with locations in Berlin, Beijing, Shanghai, Los Angeles and Montreal, among others.

Pixomondo’s greatest achievements include the 2011 Oscar® for Martin Scorsese’s HUGO and the 2012 Emmy® for GAME OF THRONES Season 2.

In 2018 Thilo sold his company to Mayfair Equity Partners but stayed on board as CEO and Executive Producer. In October of this year, Pixomondo was bought by Sony Pictures Entertainment, by which time Thilo had already retired.

Our deepest sympathy goes to his family and companions.

Lenny Lipton (1940-2022) Lenny Lipton, 3D Filmmaking Pioneer and “Puff the Magic Dragon” Lyricist, Dies at 82

After the huge success of the Peter, Paul and Mary hit, he founded StereoGraphics and developed an electro-optical modulator known as ZScreen.

Lenny Lipton, who wrote the poem that became the Peter, Paul and Mary hit “Puff the Magic Dragon” and developed technology used for today’s digital 3D theatrical projection systems, has died. He was 82.

Lipton died Wednesday of brain cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Noah told The Hollywood Reporter.

While studying engineering as a freshman at Cornell University, Lipton, inspired by a 1936 Ogden Nash poem, “The Tale of Custard the Dragon,” wrote a poem in 1959 on a typewriter owned by another physics major at the school, Peter Yarrow.

Yarrow discovered the poem — about a boy named Jackie Paper and his imaginary dragon friend in a land by the sea — in the typewriter and years later used it for the lyrics to “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

Yarrow’s Peter, Paul and Mary recorded the song in 1962. It was released in January 1963 and peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 as one of the folk trio’s most enduring hits.

“Pirates and dragons, back then, were common interests in stories for boys,” Lipton told L.A. Weekly in a 2015 interview. “The Puff story is really just a lot like Peter Pan.”

The tune spawned a 1978 animated CBS special and two sequels, 1979’s PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING LIES and 1982’s PUFF AND THE INCREDIBLE MR. NOBODY, with Burgess Meredith voicing the dragon in all three.

A children’s picture book based on the song has sold more than a million copies and has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Over the years, Lipton denied that “Puff” was about drugs, a “myth” he said was started by New York newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen.

Yarrow had tracked down Lipton and granted him half the songwriting credit, and royalties allowed him to pursue his interest in filmmaking.

In the Hollywood 3D community, Lipton is known for developing the ZScreen electro-optical modulator – a tool used in digital 3D projection – through his company, StereoGraphics. After StereoGraphics was acquired by RealD in 2005, Lipton continued development of his technology as RealD’s chief technology officer.

Lipton also authored books including 1979’s Lipton on Filmmaking; 1982’s Foundations of the Stereoscopic Cinema; 1983’s Independent Filmmaking; and 2021’s The Cinema in Flux: The Evolution of Motion Picture Technology From the Magic Lantern to the Digital Era.

Born in Brooklyn on May 18, 1940, Leonard Lipton was 8 when his dad gave him a 16-millimeter projector. “It was a toy, but I really understood how it worked,” he said. “I didn’t take it apart as much as I really understood how it worked, so I made other things like it.”Comic books and 3D movies in the early 1950s got Lipton interested in the stereographic medium, and in the ’60s, he shot several experimental films, including LET A THOUSAND PARKS BLOOM, about People’s Park in Berkeley, California.

He served as a production assistant on ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975), founded StereoGraphics in 1980 and served as a convergence setter for the 3D film DOGS FROM HELL (1983).

As of 2015, Lipton held 68 patents and had dozens more pending. “The motion picture industry has made billions of dollars from my [ZScreen] invention, and they would be in the red and not the black if I had not done what I did,” he said.

The Smithsonian Institution honored him in 1996 for StereoGraphics’ invention of CrystalEyes, electronic eyewear for computer graphics and video applications such as molecular modeling, aerial mapping and medical imaging. (NASA selected it to remotely pilot the Mars Rovers, and it was used by Lockheed to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.)

In 2011, the International 3D Society (now the Advanced Imaging Society) presented him with its Century Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Survivors include his wife, Julie, and children, Anna, Noah and Jonah.

Taken from The Hollywood Reporter

Margaux Durand-Rival (1985-2022)

With a heavy heart, we are sad to announce the passing of VES France Board of Managers Co-Secretary, Margaux Durand-Rival.

After graduating from Supinfocom Arles, Margaux began her VFX journey in the creative studio Sabotage in Paris before moving to The Third Floor Inc. in London where she solidified her burgeoning career working as Lead Previs Artist on feature films such as MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION, EDGE OF TOMORROW, EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS and ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY, for which she was nominated for a VES Award.

She brought her experience back to Paris and became a partner at Les Androïds Associés, the only Previs company working on, among other shows, TERMINATOR: DARK FATE. She recently co-founded Dark Matters, a company specialized in Virtual Studios.

Margaux dedicated her time to the passionate promotion of VFX in Paris, and was a true ambassador for our Industry. She was a member of the French Academy (The Césars) and was committed to the French Film Council (CNC).

Her kindness, generosity and talent will be missed. Margaux leaves behind a husband and their two children and we send our deepest and sincere condolences to her family, friends and colleagues.

VES France Board of Managers

Le Board de la VES France a la tristesse d’annoncer à ses membres la disparition de notre si talentueuse co-secrétaire Margaux Durand-Rival.

Margaux s’est dédiée à travers sa carrière de superviseuse des effets visuels à la promotion et l’amélioration de notre art. (ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION, EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS, EDGE OF TOMORROW, LOVE DEATH AND ROBOTS, ASSASSIN’S CREED VALHALLA…pour ne citer qu’eux), elle est une précurseure et une véritable inspiration quant à son engagement.

Margaux, après une longue collaboration chez Les Androids Associés était dernièrement devenue cofondatrice du studio Dark Matters. Elle a pris part aux plus hautes instances techniques et artistiques, le CNC, l’Académie des César, la VES,.. toujours en honorant les traditions les plus nobles à son esprit de pionnière, alliant avec brio la technicité comme vecteur artistique.

Sa carrière est exemplaire.

Collègues, membres et ami.e.s, nous nous associons de tout cœur au deuil de sa famille et de ses proches, dans sa perte inestimable.

Ta bienveillance et ta bonne humeur nous manqueront.

Pour Margaux, bien à toi.

Le Board de la VES France

Gregory Jein (1945-2022) Gregory Jein, the acclaimed model maker and artist who worked on eight STAR TREK properties and earned Oscar nominations for Steven Spielberg’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and 1941, has died. He was 76.

Jein died May 22 in his Los Angeles home after a long history of health issues that included a battle with diabetes, a family spokeswoman told THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. His family elected to keep his death quiet until this week, she added.

According to the website Memory Alpha, Jein began his association with STAR TREK in 1977 by designing a Klingon battle cruiser for STAR TREK: PHASE II, which would have been the first live-action spinoff of NBC’s original STAR TREK had it gone forward.

He collaborated with visual effects maestro Douglas Trumbull, VES on STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979), then followed with STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989), STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991), STAR TREK: INSURRECTION (1998) and STAR TREK X: NEMESIS (2002) and the STAR TREK shows THE NEXT GENERATION, DEEP SPACE NINE and VOYAGER.

Much of his work was done through his company, Gregory Jein Inc., which he launched in 1979.

He shared Emmy nominations for the 1996 DEEP SPACE NINE episode “Trials and Tribble-ations” and for the 2003 HBO miniseries ANGELS IN AMERICA and received eight excellence in production design noms from the Art Directors Guild, the most recent for his contributions as a model maker to the live-action MULAN (2020). Jein received an Honorary Membership in the Visual Effects Society in 2020.

The modest Jein shared visual effects Oscar noms with Trumbull, Roy Arbogast and brothers Matthew and Richard Yuricich on CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) and with William A. Fraker and A.D. Flowers on 1941 (1979). He spent about two years on the latter, which he called one of his most rewarding jobs.

His résumé also included Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012) and INTERSTELLAR (2014), plus ONE FROM THE HEART (1981), THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACRSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (1984), THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990), JUDGE DREDD (1995), THE SCORPION KING (2002), FANTASTIC FOUR (2005), AVATAR (2009), REEL STEEL (2011), JOHN CARTER (2012) and ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (2016).

He worked for ILM, Boss Film Corp., Walt Disney Imagineering and other production houses.

“We look to have fun and make everything the best we can on any project we work on,” he explained in a 2015 interview for StarTrek.com.

Born in Los Angeles on Oct. 31, 1945, Jein spent most of his life in the Crenshaw district and attended Audubon Junior High, Dorsey High School and Cal State Los Angeles. He was especially fond of telling stories from his childhood of stuffing fortune cookies fresh from the oven at the Famous Hong Kong Noodle Co.

He did special effects for the X-rated FLESH GORDON and John Carpenter’s DARK STAR both released in 1974, then worked on the NBC telefilm THE UFO INCIDENT and the WONDER WOMAN pilot for ABC the next year.

His work with Trumbull began with a three-month assignment at the Future General Corp. His major contribution as chief model maker to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was the ethereal Mothership, a virtual city in the sky that rose above Devil’s Tower. (The model is now housed in the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Hazy Center.)

On Facebook, longtime STAR TREK graphic designer Michael Okuda said he was “deeply saddened” by Jein’s death.

“Greg had a wry sense of humor and was endlessly inventive,” the three-time Emmy nominee wrote. “He always seemed to find a way to provide us with spaceships, even when only a tiny budget was available. He genuinely loved STAR TREK and was always generous with his expertise and his experience, giving many top modelers their start in the business. Greg had been ill for some time, but his passing is nevertheless a gut punch.”

Survivors include his cousins Eleanor, Cheryl, Jerry, Vivian, Laura and Janice and their families. A celebration of his life is being planned.

In the StarTrek.com interview, Jein called himself “a collector and an accumulator” of comic books, pulp magazines and movie/TV memorabilia and revealed that he once bought a script from the original STAR TREK series before the episode even aired.

“I have a hard time throwing anything away,” he said.

Taken from THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

Eric Grenaudier (1964-2022) Long-time VES member Eric Grenaudier passed away unexpectedly, at the age of 57 years old, on May 29, 2022.

Eric is survived by his teenage daughter, Luciana, and her mother, Angela who both live in Australia. Eric’s eldest sister, France, who lives in New Zealand, his parents François and Béatrice, and his sisters, Florence and Nathalie, who live in France.

Eric holds a very special place in the hearts of all those who were lucky enough to call him a friend, a brother, a son, a father, a partner or a colleague. He was a worldly, intellectual and curious person, and his understanding of world politics and history always yielded meaningful conversation and debate. One always came away more informed from those interactions.

Eric worked at Stargate Films since the 1990’s where he became a respected Visual Effects Supervisor. Among his many professional accolades, Eric was a six time VES Award nominee and two time winner, and five time Emmy nominee and two time Emmy winner. Those who knew him know that he was a force of nature on set, and beloved by cast, crew, and directors alike.

Sari Gennis (1954-2022) The VFX and animation world lost a bright light in 25-year VES member Sari Gennis. Sari was an active member of the Visual Effects Society, The Animation Guild, WGA West and was a founding member of Women in Animation.

As a VES member since 1997, Sari served for many years on the Education Committee where she worked tirelessly for the improvement of our members and future artists. She helped grow our numbers over many years through her service on the Membership Committee. During her three terms on the VES Board of Directors she brought her experience as a VFX animator and animator to that body. Despite her significant physical challenges, she lit up every room she entered.

“I was fortunate enough to serve with Sari on the VES Board a few times and alongside her on the Education and Membership Committees”, said VES 2nd Vice Chair Susan O’Neal. “Sari was an incredibly talented animator, a lifelong learner and teacher, and a truly extraordinary human being. She fought her battles valiantly and with amazing good humor, never missing an opportunity to pay witness to the beauty around her in the work she created. We will sorely miss our playful, beautiful, and compassionate Animatrix.”

Sari worked at many studios, including Robert Abel & Associates, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Kroyer Films, Digital Domain, Deluxe, The Third Floor and as an independent animator. Her credits include: STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, FERNGULLY: THE LAST RAINFOREST, JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, FANTASIA 2000, THE CHRINICLES OF RIDDICK, THE AVENGERS, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS and many others. Sari was a quiet, determined, joyous groundbreaker, beginning as a student at CalArts in the animation department.

She will be greatly missed by all those whose lives she touched.

Michael Pecchia (1969-2022) On February 18 long time VES member Michael Pecchia unexpectedly passed away, leaving behind his 17-year-old daughter, Mya. During his time at Aaron Sims Creative, Prime Focus, Cafe FX, Digital Domain, Rhythm & Hues and many more, Michael shared his immense warmth, kindness and encouragement.

Everyone who spent time with Michael will agree that he was one of those rare shining lights who, despite personal challenges or the stresses associated with a project, had the innate gift to make people feel good about themselves and the world around them. An Active member of the Society, Michael’s contributions to our industry are accented by his sincere and positive attitude towards our craft and the lives of those around him. He will be missed by all who knew him, and the world is a better place for having him spend far too little time in it.

Alan Ladd, Jr. (1937-2022) Oscar-winning producer and influential motion picture executive Alan Ladd Jr., who ushered in the STAR WARS era of motion pictures, died Wednesday. He was 84.

“With the heaviest of hearts, we announce that on March 2, 2022, Alan Ladd, Jr. died peacefully at home surrounded by his family. Words cannot express how deeply he will be missed. His impact on films and filmmaking will live on in his absence,” his daughter Amanda Ladd-Jones, who directed the documentary “Laddie: The Man Behind the Movies,” wrote on the film’s Facebook page.

During his tenure at 20th Century Fox in the late 1970s, Ladd greenlit STAR WARS, a $10 million sci-fi film that would become the yardstick for blockbuster movies and tentpole film franchises thereafter. He was the son of golden age film star Alan Ladd, best remembered for SHANE, but in many ways, Ladd Jr. had a more substantial effect on Hollywood than did his famous dad.

In later years, Ladd became an independent producer, and his most notable accomplishment was 1995 Oscar best picture winner BRAVEHEART, starring and directed by Mel Gibson.

Ladd led Fox through a crucial period in the ’70s and later topped MGM (twice). He also ran the Ladd Co., one of the first major boutique production companies as well as an independent distributor of many of its own films. Despite financial troubles, the Ladd Co. was responsible for such major films as ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, THE RIGHT STUFF, BLADE RUNNER and, more recently, Ben Affleck’s GONE, BABY GONE.

Affectionately known in the industry as Laddie, Alan Ladd Jr. was noted for his good taste, his warmth and general low-key (some said inaudible) manner, which made him a singular personality among top studio executives. He had the scruples to quit his $2 million-a-year job as head of 20th Century Fox because his staff was not being compensated well enough for its efforts on such blockbusters as STAR WARS and ALIEN. He represented an older era in Hollywood when executives and even agents (he started his career as an agent for the likes of Robert Redford and Judy Garland at CMA under Freddie Fields) still possessed a modicum of gentility. While that made him popular with filmmakers like George Lucas, Norman Jewison and Ridley Scott, it also brought criticism from a new generation of executives and agents who were more bold, brash and cutthroat.

But then, most of them did not come from Hollywood royalty like Ladd (and fellow executive producer Richard Zanuck). Alan Walbridge Ladd Jr. did not come to live on his father’s Holmby Hills estate, where the likes of Bing Crosby and Gary Cooper would stop by, until he was in his teens, having spent most of his formative years with his mother, following his parents’ divorce. His father died at age 50 in a possible suicide. Ladd Jr. rarely spoke of his father and bridled (or rather shuddered) when questions about him were raised in his presence.

He worked briefly in his stepfather’s real estate business after serving in the Air Force. Then, in 1963, the self-professed movie buff he took at job at Creative Management Associates and traveled between L.A. and London, where he got his first taste of independent production with such films as VILLAIN, THE WALKING STICK and A SEVERED HEAD.

In 1973 he joined 20th Century Fox as a VP of production, moving up to head of production in 1974 and president in 1976. His start was rocky, but thanks to such hits as THE OMEN, Mel Brooks’ SILENT MOVIE and the $500 million-grossing 1977 blockbuster STAR WARS, Ladd quadrupled income and net profits at the company from 1974 through his departure in 1979. He also nurtured prestigious pictures like ALL THAT JAZZ and BREAKING AWAY.

He was handsomely compensated for his success: the sum of $2 million a year was then a high point for studio executives. But besides the phenomenon of Lucas’ TAR WARS, which had been turned down by several other studios, Ladd was also responsible for another Fox franchise film, Ridley Scott’s horror sci-fier ALIEN, and such strong women’s vehicles as THE TURNING POINT, JULIA, AN UNMARRIED WOMAN and THE ROSE. (ALIEN featured a female heroine played by Sigourney Weaver – then unheard of in such a male-oriented genre). He also greenlit such high-concept, high-grossing comedies as YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and SILVER SREAK.

When he exited after a philosophical dispute with company chairman Dennis Stanfill, Fox went into a deep slump from which it would not start to recover until the arrival of Barry Diller in 1984.

Warner Bros. then offered to set up and help fund the Ladd Co., to which he brought his faithful cadre of executives. Jay Kanter (also a former agent), Gareth Wigan and Ashley Boone. Among the company’s early releases was BODY HEAT, which launched the careers of actors William Hurt and Kathleen Turner, as well as that of its director, Lawrence Kasdan. NIGHT SHIFT gave Ron Howard his studio movie start. CHARIOTS OF FIRE won the Oscar for best picture in 1981. As a favor to producer friend Paul Maslansky, he produced the inane POLICE ACADEMY, which began another profitable franchise.

But there were too many setbacks at the Ladd Co., which reportedly lost more than $150 million over its tenure through the mid-’80s. Ladd passed on Kasdan’s THE BIG CHILL, a definitive movie of that era, and Howard’s SPLASH, a major hit at Disney, and produced such prestigious but costly films as ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, BLADE RUNNER and THE RIGHT STUFF.

Ladd was then hired by Kirk Kerkorian to head up the United Artists company at his MGM/UA. He would later take over MGM as well. But it was the first of his two tempestuous tenures at the company. Saddled by Kerkorian’s dismantling of the two companies’ assets, Ladd was able to turn out little in the way of valuable and profitable productions – MOONSTRUCK, A FISH CALLED WANDA and RAIN MAN were three of the rare hits. After the studio was sold to Ted Turner and a shell of it sold back to Kerkorian, Ladd left in 1988.

He then, oddly, paired up with entrepreneur-con artist Giancarlo Parretti, heading up Parretti’s Pathe company, which acquired MGM/UA in 1990. But Parretti was always one step ahead of the law (here and abroad) and finally had to relinquish the studio amid a mountain of debt. During this period, saddled with debt and a lack of production and marketing funds, Ladd managed to get off only the hit THELMA AND LOUISE.

When Frank Mancuso, former head of Paramount Pictures, was brought in by MGM/UA creditors Credit Lyonnais, Ladd departed and set up an indie production shop at Paramount, receiving a reported $10 million settlement. At Paramount, Ladd settled into hands-on movie production again without the management responsibilities or bottom line worries of running a studio or funded company, reforming the Ladd Co. He had many ties to talent, but he was thought to be out of step with a new crop of directors, producers and stars, and his leadership style and taste in material were thought to be passe in the new mega-corporate Hollywood.

Yet in 1996, Ladd found himself on the podium at the Academy Awards accepting the best picture Oscar for BRAVEHEART, which had not been expected to win, though Gibson was the favorite for (and won) the best director Oscar. It was precisely the type of old-fashioned epic that had inspired Ladd to enter the movie business.

Ladd also produced well-regarded hit comedies THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE and A VERY BRADY SEQUEL during this period, along with underwhelming actioner THE PHANTOM, with Billy Zane, and was exec producer on the 1998 all-star take on THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK toplined by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Ladd took the Ladd Co. off the Paramount lot in the early 2000s and produced Lasse Hallstrom’s well-regarded AN UNFINISHED LIFE (2005), starring Robert Redford, Jennifer Lopez and Morgan Freeman, and Ben Affleck’s critically hailed 2007 Boston thriller GONE, BABY GONE.

Taken from VARIETY.

Douglas Trumbull, VES (1942-2022) The visual effects visionary who, without CGI, fashioned the kaleidoscopic finale for 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, concocted the creepy cloud formations in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, filled the BLADE RUNNER universe with smoke and fireballs and helped create the birth of the universe that opens THE TREE OF LIFE, has died. He was 79.

Trumbull died Monday after a “major two-year battle with cancer, a brain tumor and a stroke,” his daughter Amy wrote on Facebook. She told The Hollywood Reporter that he died in Albany, New York. “My sister Andromeda and I got to see him on Saturday and tell him that we love him and we got to tell him to enjoy and embrace his journey into the Great Beyond,” she added.

The son of a man who did effects work on THE WIZARD OF OZ, Trumbull also directed two sci-fi features: the eco-themed SILENT RUNNING (1972), starring Bruce Dern, and BRAINSTORM (1983), featuring Natalie Wood in her final film.

The Los Angeles native received three visual effects Oscar nominations (for 1977’s CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, 1979’s STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE and 1982’s BLADE RUNNER) in a six-year span. The Academy awarded him a Scientific and Engineering Award in 1993 for the creation of his Showscan Camera System and the Gordon E. Sawyer statuette in 2012 for his career contributions.

“Doug was a true giant and artistic genius.” said VES Chair Lisa Cooke. “He was incredibly inventive, and had such a deep love of visual storytelling and creating effects to advance our craft. A self-confessed ‘geeky creative,’ Doug changed the course of cinema with his exceptional talent and he leaves an enormous imprint on the industry, our Society and everyone he touched. His passion, generosity and pioneering spirit will be greatly missed.”

“Doug loved high frame rates,” said Dennis Muren, VES, “and he did a lot of terrific testing trying to sell it to the industry. He pushed it going all the way back to Showscan in the ‘70s. It wasn’t practical then, but a very few of us along with James Cameron and Ang Lee saw the benefits.”

“Doug was very open too” continued Muren. “I was shooting a 16mm project when he was at Graphic Films, and Doug offered me a little 2 foot track with ball-bearings for a smooth camera move. At the time, beyond buying film, it was really hard to get anything machined. Doug pioneered the age of precision filmmaking to make each shot repeatable. I give so much of the credit to Doug for 2001 along with Pederson and Kubrick.”

Doug Trumbull was granted a Lifetime VES Membership in 2009, was named a VES Fellow in 2010 with inaugural Fellows Dennis Muren and Jonathan Erland, VES, and was inducted into the VES Hall of Fame at its inception in 2017. Doug gave a Luminary Interview in 2019 for the VES Archives, and shared his wealth of experience in a VFX Pros: Home Edition discussion and a VES 70 talk about 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY in 2020.

Director Robert Wise hired Trumbull to handle special photographic effects skills for THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971), then asked him to helm two memorable sequences for the first STAR TREK movie — the docking sequence aboard the Enterprise and Spock’s spacewalk.

On Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, Trumbull’s responsibilities grew rapidly as production moved along, and he found himself tasked with what would become his signature creation, the out-of-this-world corridor of light finale dubbed the Star Gate sequence.

He recalled in a 2018 VFX Voice article a camera technique that he had seen animator John Whitney use at the 1964 World’s Fair where he left the camera shutter open “while you move things around under controlled situations so you can create a controlled blur, and repeat the moves.”

Expanding on that concept, Trumbull built a six-foot-tall rotatable rectangle of sheet metal and cut a narrow slit in it. The sheet was placed in front of a 12-foot-long backlighted glass panel through which various lighting patterns were shined.

By tracking the camera toward the light source with a long exposure, the kaleidoscope of lights appeared to dart toward the camera from a single point. The whole process took six months.

While on 2001, Trumbull began conceiving his concept for his directorial debut, SILENT RUNNING. The film’s ecological theme of a greenhouse botanist in space achieved cult status, all on a $1 million budget.

“I wanted to say something about the future that would be very much human, and very real, but I wanted to take the sterility and the mechanization out of it,” he said in the film’s making-of documentary. “I don’t think astronauts have to be automatons, I don’t think they have to be emotionless.”

Throughout the 1970s, Trumbull was so in-demand, he declined work on George Lucas’ STAR WARS.

Around the same time, Steven Spielberg, then 29, began principal photography on his own sci-fi epic, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. In preparation, he rewatched Kubrick’s 2001 and found the masterpiece intimidated him more than it inspired him.

He noted the visual effects crew were predominantly based in Britain, except for L.A. resident Trumbull, who was under contract at Paramount Pictures. Spielberg hired him on a loan-out to contribute special effects.

Early on, Trumbull suggested using motion control, a process that allowed filmmakers to pan, tilt and dolly while still locking their visual effects in the frame. It marked a huge leap in technology from the B-grade sci-fi movies of the 1950s in which a model UFO flimsily floated across a locked-off camera.

In one of the film’s most memorable sequences, ominous clouds begin encasing Devils Towers, warning of the alien mothership’s arrival.

Trumbull created the effect in a huge aquarium tank filled with fresh and saltwater and by injecting white liquid tempera paint to create the strange cloud formations.

He also contributed the idea to use hand signals, invented by John Curwen in the 1800s and later adapted by Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, to communicate with the aliens. He knew a woman who taught the method and got her to train Francois Truffaut, who played French scientist Claude Lacombe in the film.

Two years later, Trumbull answered an SOS from Wise, who was directing STAR TREK. He was unhappy with film’s visual effects in production, and a lawsuit loomed from exhibitors if the movie was not delivered on schedule.

Trumbull agreed to take on the tight deadline — six months to complete more composites than STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS combined — in exchange for a considerable fee and release from his Paramount contract. Three crews worked across 24-hour periods, seven days a week, to beat the deadline.

Wise allowed Trumbull to re-conceive and direct the film’s most celebrated sequence, the shuttle pod circling the majestic Enterprise before docking. It contains no dialogue, a decision Trumbull credits from working with Kubrick, who taught him to “stop talking for a while and let it all flow.”

Trumbull also helmed Spock’s spacewalk, which clearly borrowed from his 2001 Star Gate sequence. “I thought it would be fun to just get kind of abstract and make it a fantasy dream sequence in a way, not literal,” he said.

As special photographic effects supervisor for Ridley Scott’s BLADE RUNNER, Trumbull devised the concept of projecting images onto blimps and buildings and was the driving force behind the use of smoke to create the illusion of depth and distance.

For the famous opening of fireballs exploding over Los Angeles in November 2019, Trumbull used unreleased footage of explosions he had shot for Michelangelo Antonioni’s ZABRISKIE POINT (1970).

About one-third into principal photography, Trumbull left to begin work on BRAINSTORM, a sci-fi concept of transferring images and sensations from one human to another.

The film was to introduce his Showscan process (70mm film photographed at 60 frames per second) during the virtual reality sequences, but MGM balked at the idea because of the cost. Then, during a production break in November 1981, Wood drowned under mysterious circumstances during a boat trip to Catalina island.

MGM filed an insurance claim, and Lloyd’s of London put up the remaining money to complete the film. The dedication “To Natalie” appears after the closing credits.

The circumstances of her death and his battles with MGM affected Trumbull greatly, he said. “I just had to stop,” he told THR‘s Scott Feinberg in 2014. “I had been a writer-director all my life, and I decided it wasn’t for me because I was put through a really challenging personal experience. … I decided to leave the movie business.”

He redirected his passion into work on new technology for cinema and filmmakers and created the BACK TO THE FUTURE ride at Universal Studios.

Trumbull was lured out of a 30-year movie retirement by Terrence Malick to work as a visual effects consultant under Dan Glass on THE TREE OF LIFE (2011), and he came up with elements of the mind-blowing opening sequence that shows the creation of the life in about 20 minutes.

Trumbull used all his practical knowledge from the previous six decades — fluorescent dyes, smoke, high-speed photography, chemicals, frame rates and folded lenses — to create a sequence he was born to build.

During a 2011 appearance at the Museum of Moving Image in New York, Trumbull noted that Malick “doesn’t like drawings, doesn’t like storyboards, doesn’t even like planning. He hopes some mysterious unexpected event is going to happen while the camera happens to be running. And I thought, ‘This is totally cool, this is more what I think filmmaking should be like.’”

Douglas Huntley Trumbull was born on April 8, 1942. His father, Don, lent his special effects knowledge to the flying monkeys and talking apple trees and controlled the Cowardly Lion’s tail with a fishing rod and monofilament line for THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939).

(His dad received two Scientific and Technical Achievement Oscars and worked with his son on SILENT RUNNING and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS before his 2004 death at age 95.)

As a teenager, Trumbull constructed crystal-set radios, fell in love with sci-fi films and serials and dreamed of becoming an architect.

Southern Californian production company Graphic Films, which produced content for NASA, was impressed with his portfolio art of spacecrafts and planets and hired him to paint a rotating spiral galaxy for their 1964 New York World’s Fair film TO THE MOON AND BEYOND.

Shot in Cinerama and running 18 minutes, the experimental piece used a fish eye lens and was projected at the custom-built dome in the Transportation and Travel Pavilion.

Among the 51 million visitors to the fair were author Arthur C. Clarke and Kubrick, who then hired Trumbull (and Graphic Films director Con Pederson) to work on preliminary designs for 2001.

Trumbull began drawing sketches of moon bases and spacecrafts before Kubrick suddenly moved production to England, leaving him to make ends meet by working for a furniture company.

Frustrated, he asked Pederson for the reclusive director’s private phone number, which Pederson surreptitiously suggested just might be written on his office bulletin board. Trumbull cold-called Kubrick, who offered him $400 a week to come to England.

His initial remit was designing computer-screen readings and data that scrolled and flashed on the Discovery One spaceship monitors. A practical solution was to photocopy thousands of pages of graphs and charts from Scientific American magazine.

“We set up our own 35mm Mitchell camera with stop-motion motor, and with the help of a very talented and artistically oriented cameraman [Bruce Logan], we began the job of pasting up and juggling around artwork under the camera as we were shooting,” he told American Cinematographer magazine in 1968.

An impressed Kubrick began sharing his philosophy to the impressionable Trumbull. “If everybody is doing something one way, I want to do another way,” he told him. “I don’t care what it is, we’re going to do upside-down if right side up is correct.”

What many forget about Trumbull’s 2001 legacy is that he also was responsible for another key moment in the film: the killing of the hibernated crewmembers. Early script revisions had them remaining alive while Bowman (Keir Dullea) enters the Star Gate alone.

But in Michael Benson’s 2018 book, Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, Trumbull recalled entering Kubrick’s office with a suggestion.

“Isn’t it kind of messy to leave all those guys back on the ship?” he asked. “Isn’t there some way to kind of get rid of them? I don’t think this story’s going to work if you leave them behind, unresolved.”

Kubrick was incensed. “Get the fuck out of my office and pay attention to your own goddam business. I’m the director of this movie,” he replied.

But four days later, revisions to the script were passed around, and now the rest of the crew has been murdered by the HAL 9000 computer. “Drastic, but it seems right,” Trumbull wrote in his journal. “After all, Odysseus was the sole survivor.”

Trumbull later created the Star Gate-esque title sequence for the anthology series ABC Movie of the Week, was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2010 and received the George Méliès award from the Visual Effects Society at the 10th Annual VES Awards in 2012. Click here to watch his clip reel.

In addition to his daughters, survivors include his second wife, Julia. His first wife was the late Ann Vidor, a wardrobe adviser on SILENT RUNNING.

2001 may have kick-started his career, but it also caused him to have a falling-out with Kubrick — all over a film credit.

Trumbull is one of four men (along with Pederson, Tom Howard and Wally Veevers) who receive a standalone title card of “special photographic effects supervisor.” However, it was Kubrick, credited with “special photographic effects designed and directed by,” who received the visual effects Academy Award in 1969, the film’s lone Oscar.

Trumbull disputed that Kubrick designed the effects and thought the filmmaker should have lobbied the Academy to allow four recipients.

Subsequent interviews and articles about the film often referenced Trumbull as creating the special effects, a description that infuriated Kubrick to the point he sent stern letters to Trumbull.

In 1984, the issue reached a boiling point when Hewlett-Packard published an ad crediting Trumbull solely with the visual effects. Kubrick and MGM threatened legal action, and the ad was removed.

Kubrick then bought his own full-page ad that quoted the Hewlett-Packard ad and noted that “Mr. Trumbull was not in charge of the Special Effects of ‘2001’. He also listed all five men in order of their “comparative contributions,” and Trumbull came in third.

For a decade the two did not speak until Trumbull cold-called him (again) to thank him for the impact he had on his career. Kubrick replied, “Wow, thanks.” It was the last time they would speak.

Kubrick died in March 1999 of a sudden heart attack. Trumbull attended the funeral at the filmmaker’s estate at Childwickbury Manor in England, and Spielberg, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were among those who spoke. Mourners were invited to take a rose off the top of the casket, along with a pinch of earth, and drop them into an open pit at the base of an evergreen tree.

At one point, Trumbull managed to slip away and sat alone on a chair beside Kubrick’s open grave. He later told Benson what he said beside the casket:

“Stanley, all this crap that happened was stupid, and that’s not what it’s all about. We’ve had our disagreements, and that’s been challenging, but I don’t care. I don’t care. None of that is important to me. I’m here because I love you, and I think that what you did was so important to cinema, and to my art form and to my life, and I’m honored to be here. Thank you for changing my life.”

Click here to watch Doug Trumbull’s Luminary Interview in the VES Archives.

Compiled from THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER and other sources.

Robert Blalack (1948-2022)

Robert Blalack, the Industrial Light & Magic co-founder who shared an Oscar for his contribution to the groundbreaking visual effects employed on the original STAR WARS has died. He was 73.

Blalack died Wednesday[, February 7] of cancer at his home in Paris, his wife, writer Caroline Charron-Blalack, told THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.

Blalack also shared an Emmy for his VFX work on THE DAY AFTER, the 1983 ABC telefilm about a nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union that drew 100 million viewers and was the highest-rated TV movie in history at the time.

Born in Panama on Dec. 9, 1948, Blalack attended St. Paul’s School in London and Pomona College and Cal-Arts in California.

He had worked at Crest Digital and on Peter Davis’ Oscar-winning Vietnam documentary HEARTS AND MINDS (1974) when he met John Dykstra during production of a doc about Douglas Trumbull’s VFX house Future General Corp.

The two then teamed with George Lucas and others to launch ILM, and he, Dykstra, John Stears, Richard Edlund and Grant McCune won the effects Academy Award for STAR WARS (1977). Blalack designed and supervised the composite optical production pipeline that produced all 365 VistaVision VFX shots for the film.

“We discovered that building ILM from scratch during production was like jumping out of a plane and stitching up the parachute during free fall,” he said during an ILM reunion in 2017.

In 1980, Blalack produced the visual effects for the 13-part PBS documentary series CARL SAGAN’S COSMOS: A PERSONAL VOYAGE.

His film résumé also included METEOR (1979), John Landis’ THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980), AIRPLANE! (1980), Ken Russell’s ALTERED STATES (1980), WOLFEN (1981), Paul Schrader’s CAT PEOPLE (1982) and Paul Verhoeven’s ROBOCOP (1987), and he did lots of work for theme park rides as well.

In addition to his wife, survivors include his son, Paul.

Taken from THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Dobbie Schiff-Kristoff

Dobbie Schiff Kristoff and her identical twin sister loved to do that thing where they dressed exactly alike and confused people.

She helped design the miniskirted uniforms for the Flyerettes, the pep squad for the Philadelphia Flyers in the hockey team’s early years, and later worked as an executive producer at a computer animation company she founded in Los Angeles with her husband.

Ms. Schiff Kristoff, 84, a woman her family described as living life with “boundless energy,” died at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania on Dec. 2 from complications of leukemia.

When the NHL awarded an expansion franchise to Philadelphia in 1967, she was married to Jerry Schiff, one of the original partners in the Flyers. Her twin, Myrna, was married to Ed Snider, an owner of the team who built the Spectrum arena and later the sports-and-cable company Comcast Spectacor.

The two women helped set the “look” and feel of the franchise and the Spectrum, and they not only created but also modeled the Flyerette outfits, the family said.

They advocated for the players’ families and ensured the Flyers became the first NHL team to build a lounge for wives and children in its arena, said Lou Sheinfeld, a longtime vice president and spokesperson for the team.

“I called them the dynamic duo — they were like the glue,” Sheinfeld said. Ms. Schiff Kristoff and her sister “came to the building every day and made everybody from the janitors to the coaches and players feel like family.” He also said the pair kept spirits up in the organization. “We were working in a bunker in South Philadelphia that first year and we didn’t know if we were going to make it,” Sheinfeld said.

Ms. Schiff Kristoff also could be something of a prankster. She and Myrna liked to fool others — coworkers, friends, family — into mixing up the two. One time, Dobbie posed for photos with Snider at a charity event pretending to be her sister, according to her son Eric Schiff.

She was born to Shirley and Manuel Gordon in 1936 in Baltimore, and graduated in 1954 from Calvin Coolidge High School in Washington.

Her first marriage ended in divorce.

Ms. Schiff Kristoff helped run the campaign of former State Rep. Robert J. Butera in the 1978 Republican primary for Pennsylvania governor. Butera, the GOP floor leader in the House and a former Flyers president, finished third in a crowded field. She also was operations director for the Philadelphia Fever indoor soccer team at the time, and later sold Mary Kay cosmetics, among other jobs.

She married Jim Kristoff in 1986 and together a year later they founded Metrolight Studios in Los Angeles, which made computer-generated graphics and effects for TV and films. Ms. Schiff Kristoff won an Emmy for her work on the NBC broadcasts of the 1992 Olympics.

The two closed the firm in 2003 and moved to Newtown Square.

“My mom was a force,” said her son Eric, an actor, writer, and director in Los Angeles. She loved to paint and draw, and would sit in the front row near the instructor in her spin classes, “outpacing women half her age,” he said.

Ms. Schiff Kristoff would travel from coast-to-coast to attend concerts by her granddaughter Samantha Gongol, Philadelphia-based vocalist for the platinum-selling duo Marian Hill, her family said. Fans would tell Gongol they’d run into her grandmother and she was “amazing,” Eric Schiff said.

Just last year, she went to an Ariana Grande concert with another granddaughter and her friends. “She insisted on wearing glitter on her cheeks and collarbone like the 11-year-olds,” her son said.

“Most of all she cherished her big family and many friends, who always felt ‘seen’ by her,” he said.

In addition to her husband and son, Ms. Schiff Kristoff is survived by children Tracy Van Den Boomen, Kimberly Gongol, Steve Schiff, and Brian Kristoff, and seven grandchildren. Her twin sister died in 2014.

Services were held at West Laurel Hills in Bala Cynwyd on Dec. 6.

Memorial donations may be made to the Howard Fund for Camp PALS in honor of her brother, Howard, who had Down syndrome. PALS Programs, PO Box 843,Cranford, NJ 07016 or online or HostsForHospitals.org 326 Conshohocken St. Rd. #2 Gladwyne, PA 19035.

Taken from THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER.

David Prowse

David Prowse, the champion English weightlifter and bodybuilder who supplied his 6-foot-7 frame — but not the voice or the deep breathing — to portray Darth Vader in the original STAR WARS trilogy, died early Saturday morning following a short illness. He was 85.

Prowse’s death was confirmed to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER by his agent Thomas Bowington. Bowington Management also shared the news on Twitter, announcing his passing with “great regret and heart-wrenching sadness for us and million of fans around the world.”

Appropriately, the strapping Prowse also portrayed the Frankenstein monster in three movies: the James Bond spoof CASINO ROYALE (1967) and, for Hammer Films, THE HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN (1970) and FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL (1974), the last opposite a future STAR WARS co-star, Peter Cushing.

In Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971), Prowse appeared as the muscular manservant working for author Frank Alexander (Patrick Magee), and he later helped a slender Christopher Reeve bulk up for the role of the Man of Steel in the Superman films.

Prowse was well-known in the U.K. for portraying the Green Cross Code Man — a superhero-like character used in public-service advertisements to help children get across the street safely — from 1967 through 1990. For that, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2000.

“It’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever done,” he once said.

Born on July 1, 1935, in Bristol, England, Prowse was misdiagnosed with tuberculosis of the knee and forced to wear a leg splint for four years as a youngster (it turned out he actually had osteoarthritis). Yet he went on to compete for the Mr. Universe bodybuilding title in 1960 before capturing the British weightlifting championship three straight years running, from 1962-64. (At age 50, he was still able to dead-lift 700 pounds.)

Prowse’s first forays into acting included gigs on THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, THE SAINT and DOCTOR WHO, and he went on to star as “The Mighty Tonka” in a toy commercial directed by Ridley Scott.

George Lucas had seen him in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and offered him a part in the first STAR WARS (1977).

“Lucas said to me, ‘You’ve got a choice of two characters in the movie,’” Prowse recalled in a 2016 interview. “He said, ‘There’s a character called Chewbacca, which is like a huge teddy bear, or alternatively, there’s the main villain in the piece.’ Well, there’s no choice, is there? Thank you very much, I’ll have the villain’s piece.”

Prowse didn’t realize that his head and face would be covered by that now-iconic Samurai-inspired helmet and mask or that his outfit, made of fiberglass and leather, would weigh 40 pounds and be extremely, uncomfortably hot.

“Once [the mask] was fitted, I became virtually blind, and the heat generated by the suit obeyed the laws of physics and traveled upward, straight into the mask,” he wrote in his 2005 memoir, STRAIGHT FROM THE FORCE’S MOUTH. “This immediately misted up the eyepieces, which was inconvenient, to say the least, but was not an insurmountable problem so long as I could look down through the triangular cut-out beneath the mask’s nose molding and use it as a spyhole.”

Prowse spoke his lines in his West Country accent during the filming in London as Carrie Fisher playfully nicknamed him “Darth Farmer” because of his rural tone. He said he realized his voice was hard to make out through the thick mask but was told his dialogue would be added down the road.

But months later, back in the U.S., Lucas subbed in the deep voice of James Earl Jones for his during postproduction. “I think [Jones] did a wonderful job, but I still think I would have done equally as well given the right opportunity,” Prowse said.

Meanwhile, even Vader’s menacing, deep breathing wasn’t performed by Prowse — that was an effect created by sound designer Ben Burtt, who recorded himself though a scuba-diving respirator.

Jones, who reportedly got $7,000 for his work on the first film, then returned, as did Prowse, once again hidden, for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) and RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983).

Prowse said he figured he would be seen — finally! — in RETURN OF THE JEDI when Vader’s mask is removed, but moviegoers saw the scarred face of British actor Sebastian Shaw instead. And Prowse was replaced again by stuntman/fencing coach Bob Anderson in scenes featuring lightsaber duels in EPISODES V and VI.

With a nod to an actor who appeared in EPISODES II and III, STAR WARS legend Mark Hamill clarified this Darth Vader business quite nicely in a June 2018 tweet:

A-David Prowse IS Darth Vader.

B-James Earl Jones is his voice.

C-Bob Anderson is his stunt-double.

D-Hayden Christensen is my son’s age.

#HowIMetMyDads

To be sure, Prowse was proud of what he brought to the trilogy.

“Body acting and bodybuilding are more closely related than most people would image, and all that posing I’d done to impress the judges in my early years [paid] dividends,” he wrote in his book. “From within the black leather suit, I treated Vader’s every gesture as a bodybuilding pose, refining here and exaggerating there, until my character ‘spoke’ with every tilt of his head or movement of his arms.”

He was the subject of a 2015 documentary, I AM YOUR FATHER, and a script for an unproduced movie about this life, t