‘Empire Strikes Back’ at 40: How the iconic Slave 1 matte painting was done
Harrison Ellenshaw breaks down the planning, painting and compositing of the classic shot.
‘RoboCop 2’: The crazy story of how Cain got his CG puppeteered head
When real-time digital puppeteering and stop-motion combined.
‘Splosions! and ‘The X-Files Movie’
How that miniature Fed building was built...and destroyed.
The oral history of the Dinosaur Input Device
Key contributors to 'Jurassic Park's' Dinosaur Input Device share their memories of working on the landmark film.
The way the opening tauntaun shot was done in ‘Empire Strikes Back’ still makes me flip
Phil Tippett explains how Dennis Muren and ILM made it happen...just.
Morphing through the ages in ‘Mission to Mars’
Looking back at ILM's evolution sequence for the film.
Particles, ILM and ‘The Hunt For Red October’
A deep, er, dive on the early ILM particle system tool, psys.
Whatever happened to the practical creatures from ‘Pitch Black’?
Well, those animatronic bioraptors lasted almost exactly 20 years.
Looking back at ‘Sonic’ director Jeff Fowler’s Oscar-nominated ‘Gopher Broke’
The animated short was made at Blur Studio in 2004 - and it's crazy fun.
A trip (back) to ‘The Beach’
The VFX of that steamy plankton-fuelled love scene, two decades on.
Sheena Duggal on ‘Contact’s’ memorable mirror moment
The VFX supe is being recognized at the upcoming VES Awards.
That time a CG elephant crushed a car
...and audiences went wild.
What it took to make ‘Stuart Little’s’ fur, 20 years ago
A short history of mouse fur at Sony Pictures Imageworks.
How this stylized hand-drawn-esque CG animated short was made…in 1992
All about PDI and Eric Darnell’s ‘Gas Planet’.
The stop-motion effects of ‘The Rocketeer’
'The Rocketeer' has a ton of incredible old-school VFX.
Talking animal VFX: the pioneering films you might not know about
Before you see 'Lady and the Tramp', re-visit these landmark speaking animal effects.
Some of your favorite CG ‘Toy Story’ characters actually began as clay sculpts
Inside the old-school modeling process with Pixar's Bill Reeves.
‘Stargate’ stories
Jeffrey A. Okun reflects on the somewhat tumultuous VFX history of the classic sci-fi film.
The tech of ‘Terminator 2’ – an oral history
Everything from Make Sticky to Body Sock and painting a grid onto Robert Patrick.
You might be surprised how Thing was made for ‘The Addams Family’
'Casting' a hand was a tricky job.
The secrets behind the life (and death) of Titanic’s propeller guy
VFX crew from ‘Titanic’ reflect on the saddest character of them all.
40 years of ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’
The film is back in cinemas for a super-short time.
‘Computer pajamas’: the history of ILM’s IMocap
How Davy Jones launched ILM's on-set performance capture system.
Remembering this killer ILM shot from ‘Deep Impact’
Chris Horvath revisits some early ILM CG fluid sims.
Re-visiting Waldo
Henson and PDI’s motion captured CG character.
That time James Cameron gave ILM a day to come up with a test for ‘The Abyss’
What should a CG water tentacle should look like, anyway?
A fine line between grotesque and hilarious: making ‘The Mask’s’ landmark nightclub transformations
The film’s director and key ILM crew share their stories on ‘The Mask’s’ 25th anniversary.
Get my new book in PRINT or on KINDLE.
Issue #66: The visual effects of Avengers: Endgame.
Latest limited edition t-shirt: Pseudopod.
