So Hunts, how come a guy with such a lame excuse of a website (yes I bothered to drop a visit to www.highgrounddesign.co.uk!) knows so much about both classic and modern visual FX? By the way I'm a huge Phil Tippet fan. His work on Starship Troopers was state-of-the-art! Remember Willis O'Brien?
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Hey Huntsman! Over here!
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George we do not advertise or sell our wares. Our website is present so clients can access a map, and to access contact details. We sell by word-of-mouth.
My business partner is a Star Wars aficionado, and I am a Sinbad / Harryhausan old school type. Combined, we are a potent force. Sometimes we can argue over the shoe size of a cyclops or tauntan for over an hour, and it is rarely resolved. Tippet is legendary in our discussions, and the hit movie 'Starship Trotters' seemed to transverse the then quality of digital fx. Personally, until Ep. II Starship was the most realistic graphics in motion picture history (better even than Jaws III which was filmed in 3 dimensions).
Unfortunately I have to leg it on several missions but I am keen to discuss further. A client of ours is heading to Skywalker ranch and attended the Ep. II premiere so I'll get back and we'll have a good old chin wag about such things.
I'll wait for you then. By the way, the "lame website" was a joke, obviously (a rather lame one, too... but my John Cleese persona isn't always available when needed). On FX... I'm a bit of a Brian Johnson fan. Those Eagles still haunt my dreams, man!
George there was a film around, possibly 1968, a fairly tame affair, but had a really freaky ending. A statue of some kind of bird (this is spurred on by you mentioning an eagle) situated at the top of a creepy castle tower took to life and flew after the leading lady of the show at the end of the film. Absoultely the scariest bird scene I've ever witnessed. I think it was filmed in B&W.
Any ideas on the name of that film?
I'm not aware of the work of Brian, care to elaborate?
Brian Johnson was the FX expert on "Space 1999" and other Gerry Anderson shows, namely the fabulous "T-Birds", hence my reference to those icons of spacefare, the Eagles (the spaceships, not the birds!). About the movie you mentioned, I smell a challenge there! I'm going to put my lazy memory-chip to work and get back to you once I remember something (remember I'm old, so bare with me if you will!). Might take ages, though...
Huntsman was it not the NIMBLE advert at that time,there was a scary bird in that i seem to recall"she flies like a bird in the sky....."
George, it was a melodrama, one of them films that just ambles along for no apparent reason. That's why the inanimate bird is so shocking at the end. It could be called 'The Raven' as I heard this mentioned on tele a few months ago and thought, 'aahh, I wonder if that was the name of that spook-zone film'. I don't think it is a Hammerite film, with definitely no sign of Peter's Cushion or a horse-drawn carriage near a wooded area.
And Rocket, I am far too young to remember any buzzard flying around on a bread advert. My history lessons did not chart pre-WWII advertising. The first TV ad. I can recall involved several chimpanzees re-enacting a scene from a Jimmy Bond movie ... 'You Only Live Like A Monkey Once' or something.
The Raven IS a Hammery flick, based on a Dark Lord of The Poe story. About Brian, did it rang a bell on your PC (or Mac) of a brain?
Cheers HUNTSY..change to BROOKE BOND...BROOKE BOND P.G. TIPS....... :) WW3 TR...you cheeky monkey!
The name didn't ring any cross-platform bells but the body of work is commendable. I was never a great fan of anything 'Thunderbirds' related as I found certain scenes depcting London in the 60's totally bizarre. Like most shows of that period they forget to put people in the shots? ... I don't think I've ever been in the smoke and not had at least 5.2 million frustrated General Zod's to plough through en route to 'Cats' in the western end of town.
Puppets are a bit filthy sometimes, and their crafts equally as sour. I prefer monsters, the human-to-monster scene is always a true pleasure. Watching as the human lashes out 'somewhere near' the duelling critter makes me laugh out loud. Obviously, having a non-human look at a human is the best, with the eye looking about 200 miles in the opposite direction to where the director intended. Marvellous stuff.
Worse still, is the dreadful 'Terrahawks' ... dear me what a mess of a show. Dog dirt personified.
I don't think 'The Raven' is the film I have seen if it is Hammer based. I will initiate my own search and report back ... it could have been called, 'Tanks'.
I'm no fan of "Supermarionation" either, but the hardware still looks great. T-Bird 5 is a classy ship! Brian Johnson worked on "Alien" too, ya know? Don't know if the guy's still alive though. One of my other heroes is Doug Trumbull. His work on 2001 is still the best EVER (and no sillicon graphics available on those days, mister!). But you beeing a monster guy... must be a Godzilla, i mean Gozzira, fan, right? Well, must go now. I'll see you next monday!
i think he must be on a SECRET lunchbreak with HANK and PATRICK.Hello is there anyone out there me old comrades!
... Bet you thought HUNTSMAN had returned?
ROCKET MICK
Originally posted by Rocket Mick i think he must be on a SECRET lunchbreak with HANK and PATRICK.Hello is there anyone out there me old comrades!
Oh yes I did, Rocky!
I'm here, actually, been a busy week.
I enjoyed your reference to 'Supermarionation' George, I had to think about it for a while then it suddenly dawned on me that this was the nickname for the style of puppet mastery ... I think wooden string pull would've been more accurate.
Still can't recall the name of that film, I'll have to resort to ploughing through one of them movie tombs which charts all the films ever made since 1532 (apparently a knights of the round table epic shot with no sound and mono colour).
Welcome back Hunts! For a moment I thought I lost you to some pterodachtylus... Guess what, I found something about Brian Johnson on a very interesting site called www.space1999.org. By the way, "supermarionation" is actually called "wooden acting", ahahahahahahah!
I'll check that site out when I get chance.
2001 I think was an excellent movie, the latter scenes quite disturbing. I'd like to say I understood it. Ultimately the monolith (I think) was a representation of god or something ultimate that controls everything (like the manufacturers of pringles). Never been beaten though, the spaceman who grows old (and young) and appears at different parts of the room and then sees himself older in the mirror etc. - but I guess that was when films had invention, unlike the modern day effort (Pearl Harbour and Godzilla to name but two, the latter being possily the worst film ever made).
Speaking of monster flicks, can 'Godzilla Vs. the Smog Monster' ever be bettered? ... I doubt it. When Godzilla holds the smog monsters legs, twirls him 'round, then lets him go into a block of flats is outstanding. Also, the noises are something special. The fact that each monster looked about 1 inch tall and the cars weren't entirely to size were just brilliant. The Japanese bullet train is always a good train to prize off the rails!
Happy days.
You lost me there Hunts. On "Godzilla" I mean. Quite frankly, I never understood how could someone enjoy a flick about a man in a suit trashing out a cardboard city: remember, I'm a spaceship fan! Anyway, when I asked you that particular question I was refering to The Original Version, of course (hence the "Gozirra" thing). I agree with you on that one: the Hollywood Gawdzilla was a turkey! On 2001... man, it's my favorite movie EVER! And I don't pretend to understand it, honestly, I'm not that smart. I have my own interpretation of it, shurely. More on that later!
Bring it on George, the film is in my top 10, near the front alongside 'Saving Private Brian' and some others I'm unable to recall right now.
Let us here your theories on 2001, I put the 'what is the monolith' question to Patty some time ago and he acknowledged (possibly with a little reservation) that indeed the monolith was representative of (and I quote) some kind of 'deity' figure. Thing is, why and for what purpose did it decide to interact with the mission? and the main astronaught?
2010, a much underrated film, was also an excellent movie full of shocks and surprises and equally as confusing dialogue and metaphors and cheese and pickles and many biscuits and fruit and banana sandwiches.
Answer me this George, are
'All our World's One'?
Originally posted by JORGE TEIXEIRA You lost me there Hunts. On "Godzilla" I mean. Quite frankly, I never understood how could someone enjoy a flick about a man in a suit trashing out a cardboard city:
I think you've answered your own question there George. The worse the suit the better the film.
Behind every man alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth.
Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man and woman who has ever lived, in this universe there shines a star.
But every one of those stars is a sun, often far more brilliant and glorious than the small, nearby star we call the Sun. And many-perhaps most-of those alien suns have planets circling them. So almost certainly there is enough land in the sky to give every member of the human species, back to the first apeman, his own private world-sized heaven-or hell.
How many of those potential heavens and hells are inhabited, and by what manner of creatures, we have no way of guessing; the very nearest of them is a million times further away than Mars or Venus, those still remote goals of the next generation. But the barriers of distance are crumbling - one day we shall meet our equals, or our masters, among the stars.
Men have been slow to face this prospect. Increasing numbers, however, are asking: "Why have such meetings not occurred already, since we ourselves are about to venture into space?" why not indeed?
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY offers one possible answer to this very reasonable question. But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. the truth, as always, will be far stranger.
You've taken that from the intro to the "2001" novel, mate! You can't fool me! I could go on and on about this but I'm a bit tied up right now. I'll try and get back to you sometime today. I love 2010 too. Too bad it had to live up to its ancestor's reputation... See you soon!
Yes George, I certainly didn't write it myself!
I actually took it from a website which tells the 2001 story ...
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/2001/
Originally posted by Rocket Mick canu post the rest of the BOOK now HUNTSMAN ?..it sounds GOOD.
Never.
Well, on "2001", then... As a kid growing in the 70's, I couldn't really escape from Kubrick's masterpiece. Remember the TV ads featuring the now famous theme? Hell, down here in Portugal (wich, by the way, is not exactly your average "sci-fi nuts" country...) we had "2001" coffee-shops, "2001" pubs, even a "2001" hairdresser (This is ABSOLUTELY true, man!). It was a cultural icon, and I, being a devoted fan of all things Sci-fi, just coulnd't help being obssesed by it... even if I had yet to actually see the damn thing! That came to be in 1981, when I was a mere 14 year old boy. I had the chance to see it in a 70 mm print, in a re-run that seemed to come right out of the blue (talk about your cosmic forces influencing one's life...). I came out of that cinema (wich doesn't exist anymore, by the way. Nowadays there seems to be only Multiplexes and shit like that, with screens the size of a post stamp) completely awestruck, with my eyes gazing. The fact that I didn't understood nothing about the "plot" didn't mattered, of course. I had just seen the work of a cinematic genious and that was all that mattered. I was already familiar with Sir Arthur C. Clarke's work so I didn't rest until I got my hands on the "2001" novel. When I got it, I read it in just one night (remember, I was only 14, no girls then!). Now, some people think that the novel does no justice to the movie, others seem to think the other way round. I apreciate both, knowing now that they're the work of a two person team. In those days, the novel was quite handy for me because only after reading it I understood the film's "message". So, Hunts, all this to say that I don't think the "Monolith" was a manifestation (some say "avatar") of God or whatever. For once, neither Clarke nor Kubrick believe in God, as they're both atheists. It's just a "tool", albeit a mighty impressive one. Who made it and for what purposes? Now then, you don't want me to lay it all at once for you, do you, Hunts?
Its interesting to read that in Portugal in the early eighties cinema attendees were subjected to screens no larger than a postage stamp! ... does this mean the average eye diameter is in excess of 15 metres to accomodate the tiny viewing area? ... or possibly that a third eye is common above the bridge of the nose in most Portugese film lovers?
Q The Winged Serpeant - I always wanted to see this film but somehow missed the opportunity by selecting other rentals.
Your views on 2001 are intriguing George, elaborate on the exact nature and purpose of the monolith, if it isn't god, then what is it? ... please, spell it out for all to witness.
On "post stamps"... I was actually refering to modern day Multiplexes, at least that's how they look like to me (I wear glasses, so maybe it's my fault!). Back to 2001: The monolith and it's avatars are tools (someone said that they're the cosmic equivalent of the swiss army knife!) working for and on behalf of a higher alien intelligence. Who are they? Well does it matter? I know for a fact that Kubrick and Clarke toyed with the idea of presenting an alien race on "2001" and had even costumes designed and made. Kubrick shelved the idea when he saw the rushes and found the actors in them looked "silly". Of course, Spielberg was still a high school nerd on 1968 and "Close Encounters of the third kind" was a distant 10 years away in the future!
