The Big Why
My love for VFX goes as far back as I can remember.
As a little kid in the early 1970s, I was fascinated by John Chambers’ makeup effects for The Planet of the Apes (1968) and would often try to make appliances of my own with Plasticine. I wanted to figure out how The Six Million Dollar Man (1973) could run so fast and jump so high and make those cool noises when he did it. I wanted to know how it was done and it didn’t spoil the magic when I found out — it made it even more magical.
Then Star Wars (1977) came out and my little mind was about to be blown. Robots, spaceships, lasers, lightsabers, The Force — so many amazing things and it all looked so real!
I watched “The Making Of…” specials when ever they would air on TV and I’d be inspired by the wild looking men and women who made it all happen. The had giant cameras and blue screens. All the giant spaceships were actually really detailed models. The creatures were either people in very elaborate makeup, or small rubber puppets that were animated a frame at a time! Facsinating.
I wanted to do what they did, but they were in California in the States, and I was in Richmond, BC in Canada — which want going to be “Hollywood North” for at least another 7 years. They were adults and I was just a kid. They had big budgets and I was a poor kid with hand-me-down clothes from my sisters.
All I could do was dream.
When I went to high school, things were no better. But I did find a book in the school library on “Special Effects in the Movies” and borrowed it over and over and over. At the end of the year I mysteriously lost the book and gladly paid the money for the school to replace it.
I still own it.