Revised Galactica.TV 2009 interview: Marcel Damen & David Stipes

Part 1 of 2009 interview. The original online Galactica.TV website postings appear to be lost. This article was recreated from transcriptions generated during the original interview between David Stipes and Marcel Damen. Minor editing was done for info corrections, clarity, and updates. Galactica.TV questions in boldface type are by Marcel Damen.

You started creating your own visual effects for movies at a young age. What brought this about? What movie made such an impression on you to get you involved in this field?

That’s pretty straightforward, King Kong and The Son of Kong. When I was in the third or fourth grade, the films were shown on television. I was amazed. I didn’t know what was going on exactly, but I knew something was. So I asked my mom, “How did they get King Kong to do all this stuff?” and she said, “Oh, David, it’s a trained chimpanzee.” Well, of course, they didn’t look or move like chimpanzees, and I thought, “That’s not right.” So even though I was very young, I knew something was going on, and it wasn’t what my mom said.

So it fascinated me. When I was about eleven, I discovered Famous Monsters of Filmland, Forrest J Ackerman’s magazine. Forry wrote about Willis O’Brien, King Kong, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Ray Harryhausen. I thought, “Wow! This is terrific.”

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Multi-pass photography of miniature spaceships for Star Trek

For Star Trek, the original series, the model of the Enterprise was shot in one pass at live action speed over blue screen.  Live filming and blue screen exposure requirements necessitated a more open f/stop so focus was shallow when close to small models.

The TOS Enterprise model was huge at about eleven feet long.

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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 »

Night of the Creeps on DVD finally.

Finally, after years of waiting, “Night of the Creeps” has made it to DVD release. The 1986 horror / sci fi film, written and directed by Fred Dekker, has been a somewhat hidden away cult classic. My son, Nathan, and I found it at Wal-Mart for about $15.00. It has the cemetery ending Dekker originally planned for the film.

DVD cover art.

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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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