Hey folks, Harry here... Next Friday, Phil Tippett is flying out to Austin to hang out in the Basement, show us some more secrets of MAD GOD - and to chat about his career and the world of film that we both love. Of course that'll be for a future episode or two of the show, but first I wanted to get you folks on AICN abreast and filled in on this... MAD GOD thing.
Now - if you're a film geek, you know the name of Phil Tippett, his filmography begins with the awe & wonder of the CRATER LAKE MONSTER, then STAR WARS (before they had secondary titles), EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, DRAGONSLAYER, ROBOCOP 1-3, STARSHIP TROOPERS and so much more. As a child of STARLOG & CINEFANTASTIQUE & CINEFEX - Phil was the man that took the wonderful world of Ray Harryhausen's DYNAMATION and continued to evolve it.
Now, Tippett Studios does some of the absolute best character and creature animation in the digital world. His time on JURASSIC PARK gave him a great head start in embracing what CG could do, it's what the Studios & most directors want - but Phil has decided to dust off an old project that he started working on decades ago. It's a short film called MAD GOD - and frankly there's nobody in the world that can pitch it as well as Tippett and their magicians. This will be Tippett style stop-motion... or perhaps even some Go-Motion... and some Puppet stuff... and real blood... and models... and every old school trick that Phil spent a lifetime pioneering and pushing to its ultimate levels.
In addition - he's having his CG folks learn these tricks - pretty much doing exactly what Douglas Trumbull recommended to Visual FX artists on my show recently. That folks in CG need to get their hands dirty on models and the tactile arts. Me - I couldn't be more excited.
To me, the various techniques of filmmaking are not disposible... they're all useful and special in their own manner. That Tippett is using this project to teach not just his own artists, but other local filmmakers that want to take part in MAD GOD. Well... that's just too fucking awesome, right?
