Phil Tippett Case Study Outline

I. Introduction

• A. Thesis: Phil Tippett can be seen as an innovator in Visual Effects, taking the steps from Stopmotion Animation to Computer-generated imagery.
• B. Sub Thesis: Many of his works on creature design and character animation stand as landmark points within the film industry.

II. Body

A. Background Information

• 1. Inspiration, education
• The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
• University of California, Irvine
• 2. Career in VFX
• ILM: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
• Dragonslayer
• Return of the Jedi
• 3. Stopmotion
• Design, models, animation
• “Go-Motion” Technique

B. From Stopmotion to CGI and early Tippett Studio

• 1. Leaving ILM
• Garage Studio = Tippett Studio
• Prehistoric Beast, 10 min. experimental = first emmy
• 2. Expanding with Jon Davison
• Robocop: ED-209 robot
• Howard the Duck: Dark Overlord creatures
• 3. Stopmotion to CGI
• Steven Spielberg and Jurassic Park for Go-Motion then CG
• Supervising animation @ ILM and Tippett Studio: realistic digital dinosaurs, which could breathe, flex twitch and react. Oscar

C. Expansion of Studio and CGI facility

• 1. Starship Troopers, expanding studio, process
• 2. Films
• Digital doubles/worlds
• Hellboy
• Blade 2
• Hollow Man
• Starship Troopers 2
• The Matrix Revolutions
• Creatures/Animals
• The Spiderwick Chronicles
• Enchanted
• The Golden Compass
• Charlotte’s Web
• FX Animation/Robots
• The Stepford Wives
• Robocop 1 & 2
• Commercials
  
• 3. Phil Tippett’s “Priorities in Work”
• Craft and Skill, not tools or technology

III. Conclusion

I. Introduction and Body

• A. Thesis: Phil Tippett can be seen as an innovator in Visual Effects, taking the steps from Stopmotion Animation to Computer-generated imagery.
• B. Sub Thesis: Many of his works on creature design and character animation stand as landmark points within the film industry.

II. Body:
A. Background Information

1. The Beginning:

Phil Tippett was born in Berkeley California in 1951. At the young age of seven, Tippett was first influenced and inspired by Ray Harryhausen’s The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Tippett realized from then on what he wanted to do, and soon completed his Bachelor’s degree in Art at the University of California, Irvine. He then began his first job at Cascade Pictures in LA, in the animation studio.


2. Career in VFX:
Tippett soon found himself at the ILM animation department with Jon Berg in 1978, working on Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Tippett used stop motion and worked on the Imperial Walkers and the Tauntaun.




In 1981, Tippett helped developed the stop motion technique “Go-Motion” for Dragonslayer. Go-Motion is the attempt to create motion blur for frames of stop motion animation. In the animations, the frames would have a very “sharp” feel to them because the subjects are still in each shot. In order to solve this problem, certain ways to create motion blur to help make the animations believable and lifelike, involved Vaseline to blur the lens or bumping the puppet, or shaking the table to create a blur as the image was being taken. The Vaseline technique was used in Star Wars: A New Hope for Luke Skywalker’s speeder as well as the endoskeleton in The Terminatior.



Dragonslayer then got him an Academy Award nomination for the insanely realistic dragon animation. Then in 1983, Tippett lead Lucasfilm’s creature shop for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and won his first Oscar in 1984.