Battle of Galactica rare matte shot

Battlestar Galactica was so popular during the late 1970s that Universal Studios created a special Galactica themed “ride” or event as part of their back-lot tram tours. It was named “The Battle of Galactica” and opened in 1979 and ran to1992. 

Courtesy of Dale Long. http://byyourcommand.net

While the ride was being designed and constructed, Universal wanted to generate excitement and buzz about their new attraction. A promo / publicity film was to be shot and shown to generate excitement and attract people to the show. The major drawback was that nothing was finished enough to be photographed or to show off. Read the rest of this entry »

Phil Kellison makes forced perspective easier

Phil Kellison was one of the unsung greats in the visual effects business. He was a visual effects supervisor and designer long before that position was acknowledged in movie credits. He had an almost 40-year career that ranged from the George Pal Puppetoons to industrial films, commercials, and feature films. He had that unusual aptitude of being both the right-brained artist and the left-brained engineer.

Phil was the supervisor and boss at Cascade Picture of California when I began working there in 1969-70. I learned a lot by watching and listening to him. Phil loved the challenge of doing visual effects in-camera and his specialty was forced perspective (more correctly known now as “mixed scale”.) To market the technique to the T.V. commercial business, he dubbed it “Magnascope”.

The Jolly Rancher as seen through the camera.

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50 most influential visual effects films

VES 50 most influential visual effects films

One of my students asked for a list of visual effects films to look at during the break between quarters at school.  

I directed him to the Visual Effects Society (VES) and their list of films.

 http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/documents/ves50revelfin.pdf

 This was their list on May 10, 2007.  We have had a few new VFX films since ’07.  Do you agree with this list?   If not, what are your choices?

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Digital vs. physical Jem’Hadar

In the last posting I shared images of the Jem’Hadar cruiser model. RKW asked for some comparison shots between the physical model and the CGI model used on DS-9.

Physical model from episode, "Ties of Blood and Water" (Gary Hutzel, vis efx supervisor)

As you could see from the photo above and next below, the physical model was pretty good looking and would have been used as long as possible on the series.

Physical model from episode, "Call to Arms"

With season 6 episode  #546,  “Valiant,”  we were forced to create a CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) version of a Jem’Hadar ‘Battleship.’  The main reason was compelled by the story. If possible we would have used the physical model for both the cruiser and the Battleship, with the scale of the model being the only difference. Read the rest of this entry »

“V-The Final Battle”

Here are two more shots from “V-The Final Battle.”   The saucer was an approx.  30″ model constructed by Greg Jein. It was composited with the live action using two rear projection images with matte painting blends by David Stipes.

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