Ep 148 | Jim Davidson — Model Maker on Terminator 2 & Batman Returns

In this episode, I chat with model maker Jim Davidson about his journey from a dinosaur-obsessed kid in the 1970s to working on some of the most memorable practical effects sequences in modern cinema. Jim talks about discovering the work of Ray Harryhausen, and how seeing Star Wars at the age of 12 made him realise that visual effects could be a real career.

We get into how a chance meeting with future Oscar-winning art director Robert Stromberg led to his first break in the industry, and how that snowballed into working with the Skotak brothers on major productions. Jim shares detailed insights into the making of the nuclear nightmare sequence in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, including how the miniature buildings were constructed, destroyed, and reset using a combination of breakaway materials, air cannons and practical ingenuity.

We also talk about his work on Batman Returns, the realities of working in small, tight-knit effects crews, and the creative problem-solving that defined that era of filmmaking. A big part of the conversation focuses on the industry shift following Jurassic Park, when CGI began to replace large-scale practical effects. Jim reflects on witnessing that transition first-hand, and why he chose not to move into digital work.

There’s also discussion of his later work, including returning to stop motion for Creepshow, bringing things full circle back to the techniques that first inspired him. It’s a fascinating look at a very specific window in film history, from someone who was right in the middle of it. Topics Covered

• Growing up in the 1970s and early creative influences
• Discovering Ray Harryhausen and stop motion
• The impact of Star Wars on a generation
• Breaking into the film industry through Robert Stromberg
• Early work and first film projects
• Working with the Skotak brothers
• Practical effects techniques on Terminator 2
• Building and destroying miniature cities
• In-camera effects vs optical compositing
• Working on Batman Returns miniatures
• Life on practical effects crews in the 80s and 90s
• The rise of CGI after Jurassic Park
• Transition from analog to digital workflows
• Matte painting: traditional vs Photoshop
• Returning to stop motion on Creepshow
• Reflections on a career in practical effects

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Weird Being Way Media.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Hello and welcome to the Film Youmentaries podcast. This is
Jamie Benning, your host. I'm going to cut to the
chase here. I'm a bit jet lagged, just got back
from a job in Las Vegas. Not as glamorous as
it sounds. Vegas isn't great, honestly, so in this episode,
I'm chatting with model maker Jim Davidson, whose career spans
some of the most iconic practical effects work in the

(01:05):
late twentieth century, from Terminator to and Batman Returns through
to Titanic and beyond. Jim was right there in the
thick of it, working with the Scotach Brothers during what
was arguably the peak and the turning point of large
scale miniature effects. We get into his early fascination with dinosaurs,
discovering the work of Ray Harry Housen, and that moment

(01:25):
of seeing Star Wars when he was twelve years old
that made him realize that maybe this could actually be
a career for him. From there, it's a brilliant story
of chance, meetings, graft and as usual, being exactly in
the right place at the right time. We also talk
about the nuts and bolts of the work, including the
unforgettable nuclear Nightmare sequence in terminated too. How those miniatures

(01:47):
were built, destroyed, and reset, and when it was like
working in a small, tight knit crew where everybody knew
their role. And then there's the shift, the arrival of
CGI and what felt like watching the industry change almost
overnight after Park and Jim's very personal decision not to
follow that path. It's a really honest, thoughtful conversation about
craft timing and what it means to have lived through

(02:09):
that golden era of practical effects. If you enjoy what
I do here as usual, I want to support it.
You can head over to patreon dot com forward slash
Jamie Benning. I'm still aiming for two hundred patrons this year,
so if you fancy chipping in, that would be hugely appreciated.
So here's my interview with Jim Davidson and I'll be
back at the end for a bit more jabbering on. So, Jim,

(02:46):
what was your childhood like? Did you find yourself kind
of building models as a kid and were you practically minded?
Did your parents have that kind of mindset as well?

Speaker 3 (02:56):
No, my parents didn't, but I grew up I was
a TV kid. I grew up throughout the nineteen seventies,
born in sixty five, but my childhood and was throughout
the seventies and yeah, growing up with TV at that
time period. And my first love as a kid was dinosaurs.

(03:20):
Of course when I was like, you know, four years
but by the time I was three, I was into dinosaurs.
And then as a kid growing up on TV, anything
anything that had any dinosaurs in it related to it,
I was I'd be glued to the set and then
that evolved.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I wonder what it is, sorry to interrupt that, just no,
it is about dinosaurs, because is it something to do
with kind of beginning to understand scale? I wonder because
you know, Phil Tip it was into that was his
first love. One of my first things dinosaurs.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
It's like dinosaurs are the are the introduction of the
concept of of of monsters. I think. I think it's
a kid's first actual like like what a monster would
when you hear the term monster, and you know, because
the growing up on the Monster movies too as a kid,
that didn't come until you know, later on, but you know,

(04:21):
it was all about the science. I don't know if
dinosaurs were on an upswing in the seventies or but
I just remember there was so much of it on TV,
you know, the movie of you know, the fifties, sixties
and and that were all the fantasy films relating to
dinosaurs and stuff. And it was just that type of

(04:43):
thing that I gravitated towards as a kid, which was
my first like real fascination. Uh. And then the and
then the you know, in bookstores. I always I grew
up on books, and just seeing dinosaur books as a
kid just fascinated me. The dinosaur just looking at them,
the way they looked. They just looked alien, you know,

(05:05):
they just looked like these are huge monsters, but they
were actually here. And that was the fascination as a
little kid. And then that of course evolved into the
other interests that followed with that type of fascination of
creatures and monsters and fantasy, and you know, because they
seemed like such fantasy, you know, and fantasy. I was

(05:27):
drawn the fantasy always.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, did you ever have like model kids then when
you were a kid, were you the stuff?

Speaker 3 (05:37):
And the For me in my childhood, it was Monogram
and Ravel were the two big Oh and of course
the Aurora, my first Model Kids were the Aurora dinosaur
kids go figure. They came out nearly seventies. They were
the square box once, not the long box Auroras. But

(05:59):
oh yeah, model kids were uh one of the first
avenues ventured down that. You know, how can I get
involved in dinosaurs or you know that kind of thing?
So yeah, oh yeah, it evolved to model kits and
discovering model building and the love of that. And as
a child, it was I was always into making stuff,

(06:23):
and I was very uh uh always into art. I
was always into drawing. I was That was the first
thing I ever got into, you know, creatively, was drawing
as a kid, drawing out of my you know, drawing
dinosaurs and then drawing out of comic books and that
kind of stuff, and you know, just but that's how

(06:44):
that's how the my creative process started, was withdrawing.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, so how do we leap from a kid who
likes to draw and build dinosaur models to ending up
in the movie industry?

Speaker 3 (06:57):
Oh? Man, that's a there's a lot that happened there.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, did you understand that there was such a thing
as a job of working in the industry? Like, when
did that happen for you? Was that teenagers.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Now, the my obsession with special effects, just the art
of special effects for whether it be TV or movies,
just cinematic visual effects. That fascination started with of course

(07:29):
Ray Harryhausen for me, Yeah, and it was his stop
motion that I was That was the obsession that that's
what ignited, you know, my love from that point on.
My love of visual effects just began there. And and

(07:52):
so the Harry Housen discovery after finding out the first
thing I ever saw was one million years BC. That
I is where I fell in love with visual effects.
When I saw raised dinosaur stuff, that just it just
it literally became an obsession with me. I had to
find out how that was done, and I wanted to

(08:15):
do that. I wanted to learn to do that. To me,
that was the coolest thing I had ever seen in
my life, you know, up to that point of being
you know, like eight years old. And of course, in
finding out who this guy was through you know, searching
in books and magazines at the time, I found out
his name. All right, so there's one guy that does
this stuff. And then at that age I was thinking,

(08:40):
is this something that anyone can get into? Is this
could this be like an actual job for you know,
for someone, or is this just a guy that you
know was in the studio working and just yeah, we
need this magic to happen. Did anybody in here know
how to do that kind of stuff? And one guy
in the back, oh, yeah, okay, you're hired. You know,

(09:03):
I didn't know how that went. You know, how did
they find this guy? Where did this guy come from?
How do you learn to do something like this has
come out of nowhere and create magic like this that inspired,
you know, a kid like me, And I knew there
were others kids because all my other friends, my childhood
friend would see these movies and they were enamored by it,
but not to the level that I was. So that

(09:27):
became an obsession just in learning about visual effects at
that point. But at no point did it ever seemed
like a viable job or an industry until I turned
twelve years old and I saw Star Wars for the
first time. And you know, seeing Star Wars when it

(09:53):
opened as a twelve year old, that was Ray Harryhausen's
star you know, King Kong was Ray Harryhouse and Star Wars,
So I understood how that how seeing something like that
could impress you. You know, I'm digressing on that, but

(10:14):
sometimes I'll ramble on. You can cut this part out,
Oh good, good, but but stay back on track. Yeah,
kind of.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Like being a twelve year old, because that film kind
of dropped out of you know.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
I that's something that that I wish I could convey
to someone that will never experience that. You know, I'll
never I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the and
the you know, packed theater and hearing the entire audience

(10:56):
simultaneously respond verbally and throughout the whole movie and cheering
at appropriate times, booing the I mean it was like
you were watching it was like a vaudeville theater, you know,
seeing a live performance and you're booing and hissing and
cheering out loud. You know that you just don't get

(11:19):
that anymore in theaters. And it was just, Yeah, it
was a magical experience see in that movie, in that
kind of you know, public uh arena that just you
just can't Yeah. I wish I could.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
I wish the ball it up and sell it.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
I wish they I wish they'd real I heard that
they're gonna might be re releasing Get in theaters for
its anniversary next year. I heard that, and boy if
they do, and I hope it's the original you know,
seventy seven release and not the not the.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
I believe it is is.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, well that's.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Believe is because that's what we're celebrating, right, fifty years
of that original film. And wo what I'd love to see.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
A year you know, like the year that changed the world.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, I mean, and it's about so many going.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Oh, I'm just gonna say, think about this half of
my the first half of my childhood there Star Wars
didn't exist. So can you imagine childhood not know before
any knowledge of anything Star Wars?

Speaker 2 (12:28):
No, Yeah, but then I was I was born in
I was born in seventy six gyms, So Star Wars
has been there all my conscious life, you know.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
I had the That's what I mean, Yeah, time before.
It's that. That's why seeing that movie. People see it
today and they think, well, god, it's it's yeah, it's
a rough looking film in spots, you know, it's it's
not like a cinematic great achievement, you know, like I
mean revolutionary for the visual effects, of course, but I

(12:59):
mean just the story. It was just you know Flash
Gordon in Wild West, in Space, you know, Rescue the Princess,
Damsel in Distress, you know, Say Young the Young Adventure.
You know, it's its age old story. It was nothing
new story wise. What made that film so, what made
that film so revolutionary at the time was the aesthetic

(13:20):
quality was unlike anything ever seen before it and visually
in a movie. And that included the art direction, It
included the costumes, you know, the whole aesthetic look of
the entire film. The fact that the fact that everything
was dirty and greasy and oily and dark and like

(13:43):
it wasn't gleamy, shiny, reflective, No, it was the opposite.
And it was just something so unique. It was just
so unique beyond anything that looking looking aesthetically and that's
what made it so That's what made it so popular
and what made it so I'm breaking in my opinion,
was the ass of visual not the story.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, and those designs are so iconic, aren't they. Like
I can imagine you as a twelve year old coming
back and you can immediately have a go at drawing
the characters and the spaceships.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
Oh oh yeah, Well again, it was all about the
look of everything. The look of the spaceships. Oh my god,
there were so many different kinds of kinds of just
these overwhelmingly detailed, amazingly realistic looking spaceships that you know,
just yeah, it was. And the way that they flew it,
it was. It was the way that you got to

(14:38):
see these ships fly for the first time. It wasn't
just you know, gliding across on a you know, on
a wire.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
And yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
Or or or just having the camera push on a
dolly against the model back and forth, like they didn't
Star Trek. Star Trek had motion control, but it was
manual motion control. It was again I pushed dolly or
or they had they had crank that they even rotated
the big Enterprise on a little a guy was down

(15:08):
there on a little crank crank in it during some
of the shots with it turning, you know, and so yeah,
the effects in Star Wars just made it not only
what the movie became and what the whole thing became.
But at the same time, when I left the theater
for the first time, walking out to the parking lot

(15:28):
back with my mom, I'll never forget that moment because
I said, I told her, said, Mom, all that stuff
you saw in that movie all the spaceships and the
aliens and all the you know, the amazing world. Everything
you saw in that movie. That's what I want to do.
I want to do that with my life. And she

(15:49):
was like, oh, that's a nice little thing to think.
That's good, you know, good, Yeah, that's good, and she
supported me from that point on, but she never really
took it seriously early on. Of course, twelve year old kid,
you know, it's like a twelve year old kids, you know,
watching his first pro baseball game of going, yeah, I'm
going to I want to be a pro athlete. You know,
I grew up okay.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, but nobody knew that there was a career possibility
there at that time. Really, I mean exactly those early
I lemmas. But for the next generation that were your
imagination is sparked now. I mean, what a perfect age
to see that movie and and all that stuff to come.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
I was just going to say, at that point was
when because I saw the popularity of what it all
did and what was happening, and that was when I realized, Okay,
this is a viable industry now. And I knew at
the age of twelve that okay, this is this is
going to spread and it's going to get big, and

(16:47):
it's going to create an industry. And I was like, yeah,
it's given enough time. And and that's when I just
started following movies at that point. You know, it's all
of the same kind of genre films. And then of
course what followed every film after that, there was like
every year there was these modernized effects laden films that

(17:08):
were always trying to you know, you know, keep up
with the Star Wars, keep up with ILM. And then
ILM just exploded after you know, it left for Empire
and in the late seventies, and when that all happened,
that was when I realized, Okay, I might be able

(17:29):
to actually think about doing this for a career. And
ever since that, that was how I looked at life,
you know, getting just getting through high school. I just
I couldn't wait for school to and I just I
was like God, and it was killing me as you know,
seeing Star Wars as a twelve year old, and then

(17:50):
all these other great effects films that came followed, bang
bang bang after the other. You know, you had Battlestar
Galactic on TV, then you had Star Trek, and then
you had aliens at all. It was just affects, Blockbuster,
Blade Runner, blah blah blah blah. On down the line,
Empire strikes back, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger.
And I was not out of high school yet, and

(18:12):
I'm like, God, that's killing me. I'm like, I wanted
to be up there. I wanted to you know, I
wanted to be up there now, you know. Oh, I
just couldn't wait for high school to end. It couldn't
end soon enough.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
So and did you go to film school after that?

Speaker 3 (18:27):
No? I At that time I thought that the only
you know, I was following my you know, my parents'
outlook on life at that point, and it was, well,
you got to have a college degree to do anything,
you know, to make anything of yourself, you know, you
got to have a college degree. M And I was

(18:50):
like and I you know, I was like yeah, but
but and I was always like but, you know, and
it's like, well, I wasn't ready to head up you know,
after high school right away, you know, at that point,
so I thought, okay, I'll I'll go into college, uh,
you know, and try to get my AA degree. And

(19:10):
then from there I was, oh, maybe I could, you know,
transfer to a film school, and that was the general
plan at that time. And I was just thinking, it's
taking it's going to take forever. It's taken to take
away too long. So anyway, I went in eighty four,
I went to nineteen eighty four, I went to UH

(19:31):
the local college here and UH in the next town over.
And the name of the local college is Palamar College
Community College, just a you know, and back then it
was it was it's just a tiny little nuts in school,
great great school. Though they had a great I'm not
dissing the school, but it was. Yeah, it was just

(19:53):
a tiny, no name school, community college. But when I
went there, that's where I met at my inn to
the industry, right. It was through a guy that I
was one of the first classes I took. I was
taking a full load, but I also put in, ah

(20:15):
just I was taking a sculpture one oh one class,
just to like be able to do some art at school.
So I took a sculpture the sculpture class, uh. And
first day walking to the class and I met this
guy named Robert Stromberg. And I don't know if you've

(20:38):
heard of him, but he's now an Oscar winning art director. Yeah,
known for Avatar and all that. And so he was
in my class that day and he had and he
was talking to this other kid at the time before
the class started, and he had he had brought some
photos and pictures of some like paintings that he was doing.

(21:02):
He was one to work on his sculpture stuff, but
he brought some paintings that he wanted to show the
tea shirt and so he shows me. I walked over
and we introduced each other. He should what'd you bring
and shows me his artwork and I was like, Wow,
this guy's got some great painting, doing some wild stuff.
And then that's when he told me, yeah, I want
to get into matt painting. I want to be a
mad artist. And I immediately knew what that was and

(21:25):
I was like, are you kidding me? And he goes, yeah,
you know what that is, and I go yeah, the
special effects with the painting on glass, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And right there we clicked. And he had also had
some photos with him that he brought from where his
dad had taken him to Ilm on a visit. And

(21:45):
this was during Dragon Slayer, huh, and the stuff and
Robert had brought some photos, some polaroids of him holding
the Chris Whales Vermouth thrashs puppet, Wow the hand puppet,
and other photos of the setups and stuff. And he

(22:06):
got to visit there because of his dad. Robert Stromberg's
dad was William Stromberg, who is known for writing and
directing the Crater Lake Monster movie from nineteen seventy seven,

(22:27):
which was the first gig, the professional gig that Phil
tipp had ever got to work on. Or no, I'm sorry,
he had done some work for Bill on that, but
Bill Stromberg is the guy that gave Phil Tippett his
start on a little personal project when Phil was in

(22:47):
high school. So Phil had an end with Bill Stromberg.
So that's their connection through how Robert got to go
to ILM and then I just happened to meet him
in this art class by chance, pure insane chance, and
we immediately became friends. And about a year later Rob

(23:11):
went up to start working on he was helping out.
He started, he started the bottom level and he and
his dad got him in with a guy named Tony
Dublin and David Stipes, and one of Rob's first jobs
was working on that TV show V The Final Battle, Yeah,

(23:36):
the second part of the V series. So anyway, Rob
went up ahead of me and I stayed back. I
went to one more year of college and then I
was working a job and carlsbad doing I was a
fabricutter and I was like, I was twenty two at
this time. And Robert called me up one day and said, hey, man,

(24:03):
I just got hired on to beat this little budget
filmmaker's art director and had all the effects for him,
and he goes, do you want in?

Speaker 2 (24:17):
I was like, you thought about it for two seconds.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
I was like, I've been waiting for this my whole life.
And so that day I quit my job that I
had and went up to LA the next day and
met Rob at the studio and started working on this
project that the very first gig I ever worked on
was this film called Empire of the Dark and it

(24:41):
was made by this guy named Steve Barquette, and it
was his the last film he ever made, and he
was only known for making two films. And the first
film that this guy made, Steve Barquette, back in the
early eighties was with the working with Jim Danforth and

(25:06):
Robert Dennis Cotack doing all the effects for him. So
this guy Steve Barquette gave with his first film, he
gave the scow Tack brothers their start in the industry.
That's where they got started from. And then his next
film is the film that gave me and Robert Stromberg

(25:30):
our first career you know thing in the industry. And
then and I mentioned the other film first with the
Scotax because then because of that Steve Barquette, nothing film,
that's what would have That's what later led on to

(25:52):
me getting hired on with the SCO Tax for the
first time. On Terminator two.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
It's crazy, you can drol this kind of spied the diagram.
You're sort of linking up with the.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Individuals exactly what it is. That's exactly what it was.
It was. It was it was like the most serendipitous
kind of snowballing that just yeah, yeah, it's like is
there you know, is there something guiding this? You know,
it's it was just too yeah. For me, it was

(26:23):
really like I can't believe where I'm at right now.
That was like half the first half of my career
was just like I can't believe I'm here, I can't
believe I'm doing this. I can't. I mean, yeah, I
mean through the Strombergs, knowing them one of my first
gigs following that Barquette film that led to work getting

(26:47):
to work with Jim Danforth mm and working with a legend,
you know. To me, he was a legend like Ray Harryhausen.
He was like the American well no, Harry houses is American,
but he was like the modern day Harry Housen that
was still doing it, you know. Yeah. Yeah, and to
any degree I mean, not that he ever got raised popularity,

(27:09):
but I mean his work to me is just amongst
the best ever created. I mean, as far as the
notion that guy's work is just he was like an
effects savant, you know, he was just he could do
it all. He could draw a paint, skulp, do all
of it and animate and he was a mad artist

(27:32):
and he excelled at it all. You know. That's ah,
it was just and getting to work with a guy
like that early on in my career. I mean, it
was one of those I can't believe him here, you know.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Going back to Terminator too, people always think of that film,
they think of the CGI of course, you know, Steve
Williams worked on and all the guys that ILM worked on.
But yeah, there's a lot of miniature work in that
film as well.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Well.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
There's all this sort of key, a key scene that
you worked on, I think, which was the the kind
of nuclear blast scene.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Right right, the nuclear nightmare.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yeah, the nuclear Nightmare. Yeah, that's such a haunting scene.
Like for years, that kind of was emblazoned in my brain,
you know, And because there was that possibility in the nineties,
I was still at high school until what ninety three,
there was the like the Iraq War going on. My
physics teacher was talking about nuclear annihilation and yeah, and

(28:27):
when that film came out, that really sort of had
a big impact. That scene in particular has always been
very kind of haunting. Taught me through some of the
sort of aspects of that scene, like what scale were
you working at, and what kind of materials were you
building stuff out of? And what was the brief from
Jim at the start.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
It's funny because Jim Cameron never came by to see
any of our stuff. He never really, he never once visited.
Bob Scotach would always have to take you know, daily
stuff to show them and then they would have you know,
their meetings and then Jim would convey to Bob any

(29:06):
changes and stuff. So that's how that worked between Bob
and Jim throughout. It's funny because at that time i
l M was was pushing the digital boundaries. They were progressing,
you know, they were just that was just the preliminary
stuff leading up to Jurassic Park. What followed after that digitally,

(29:31):
So yeah, Cameron was really focused on that digital stuff
working right and you know, being able to get the
proper look that he wanted, you know, as realistic as possible.
So Cameron was really focused on that, on the ILM stuff,
and which was the main reason why Jim hired the

(29:51):
SKO Tex to handle the miniature stuff because of them start,
because the SCO tax gave Jim Cameron his start at
the Old Corner Studios as a model maker and effects guy,
and then that's how Jim started out and got his
foot in the door. But through Jim and Bob and

(30:15):
Dennis working together for so long for a few years
in the beginning, that's how Jim knew that, you know,
the guys that could pull this off that I don't
have to you know, I don't have to you know,
be there too much to guide them in what I want.

(30:36):
That was the reason Jim hired Bob and Denny to
do this stuff, because he wanted the stuff done simply
as possible, you know, and he knew that the Sco
text that's how they work, you know, the Scow texts
are all about simplicity. And the reason for that is

(30:57):
because the majority of our stuff is done in camera. Yeah,
and at that time, in the early nineties, well even
throughout the eighties, I think in camera effects were not
as we're not widely used everything. Most things were shot
as elements and then combined later in control. So there

(31:21):
weren't a lot of companies that at this time that
in the early nineties that even did a lot of
in camera effects. There were a couple, but they like dabbled,
they would do both. And Bob and Dennil were always about, well,
we're always going to try to get it in camera first,

(31:44):
you know, if we can, if we can do it
in camera anyway possible, that's how that's how we want
to do it. And then if anything has to be
added in later, you know, then we'll worry about that later.
But that was not the normal approach. It was always
whatever is going to be the most trolled way to
do it right off the bat. So Cameron, you know,
didn't have to come to us because he knew Bob

(32:06):
and Denny. Whatever they were going to come up with,
it was more than likely going to work if because
Bob would Bob would want to pick specific things that
he would want to do, and talking when they first
got together about the project, you know, Bob specific specifically,
it was like, I want to do the nuclear stuff.
That was the thing that that Jim even left to Bob.

(32:27):
It's like, what shots do you are you interested in
doing when they first started playing with the film, you know,
and yeah, Bob immediately was like, we want to do
this and so uh so, Yeah, the way that the
SCO tax worked was just as basic, keep keep everything

(32:48):
as basic as possible and simple as possible, uh and
which hugely led to as cheaply as possible. We never
had the we never had the big budgets that I
l M got, not even close. And even the guys
sometimes be like, I can't believe we're doing it this way.

(33:09):
You know, there's gotta be a similar way. But because
uh just some of the some of the things that
that we would come up with. It would just be
really crazy stuff sometimes that you wouldn't think you'd have
to think, you know. Necessity becoming Mother of invention was
like and was like the that was every shot we

(33:29):
did was like, Okay, how are you gonna, how are
we gonna? How are we gonna do this? How are
you gonna? And you know, and then Bob would always
have certain notions like I was thinking something like this,
and he'd draws something out a piece of paper while
he's explaining it to us, and then all right, yeah,
we'd sit there and think about it. All right, well
this isn't gonna work, really, we can't. That's gonna be

(33:52):
too well, maybe we could change it. And then so
we would take his first notions and then run with it,
and Bob would let us just run with it, and
then we would always come back with, well, we could
do it if we can weld these cages together and
have it hinged, because it's got to be reset. And

(34:14):
if we if we have it with cages that can
collapse and we have a collapsible front and we just
talk it out and then I'll go all right, go
for it. And then we would start and there were
things that would get started and then we would find
out part way in, oh, this isn't gonna work. We
got to rethink this. And that happened on T two

(34:37):
when they were first talking about doing the the the
building collapses from from the shockwave in the close ups
and stuff showing the buildings actually go actually get you know,
blown away and caved in. At first. Joviscosel was hired
on to handle all the pyro bits for that, including blast,

(35:02):
blast cannons and stuff, but Joe wanted to shoot. Originally
the setups the miniature buildings all in a row and
everything the way that they were set up to camera,
Joe wanted to set them up vertically and shot vertically

(35:23):
using real fire and blast cannons shooting up or was
it shooting down? It was one of the two. No,
it was shooting up because the flames had to travel,
so he wanted to fire. He wanted these fireballs to
travel up and look like they're going sideways. And that's
how they were starting to build the miniatures in the

(35:45):
set at first, and they got like the scale little
bits up, the framework up, and they were trying to
figure out, you know, camera positions and stuff. And that's
when I think Bob and Jim had a conversation and
Bob had figured out that this this isn't this wasn't

(36:06):
gonna work because there is no fire ball, you know,
there is no fire flames coming and and he just
thought that logistically there were a lot of logistic reasons
why at that time it wasn't gonna I don't think
we were going to have the control that we needed,

(36:27):
uh and it was going to be a lot more
difficult to reset each time working vertically. Uh So the
idea was scrapped and Joe was replaced with another Pyro guy,
but not for Pyro, just for uh the electronic timing

(36:51):
trigger device is used and uh so that like all
the air canons we use, would go off at once,
and you know, right because we ditched the fire and
the vertical bit because Bob wanted to have more control,
so we went horizontal. We shot at everything you know,
set up on tabletops or these raised platforms, and we

(37:18):
just decided to go with air cannons and uh geled
lighting and uh just having the debris and the shock
and just the the just the shock wave effect take
it out because Bob, Bob, there was research in how
atomic you know, what happens during the blast? What happens

(37:42):
you know, is there flames that come out or anything
like that. And so after all the research that Bob
had done, that's when it was that's when Jovi Scoltz's
idea was nixed. But what's you know, here's what's kind
of a funny part about that is that whole idea

(38:04):
for shooting the miniature with the fire vertically. Joe later
used that very set up for his Oscar winning work
in Independence Day. He got to use he got to
use that gag later in Independence Day. And that's how
they shot all of that stuff with the fire going
through the streets and blowing the cars out and all that. Yeah, right,

(38:27):
that's how they shot that with the with the next
idea that it was, it was started with T two
and then now we're not going to do it that way,
but then it wound up working on You know.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
That's nice that you can save an idea for later. Right.
I'm always kind of amazed that, you know, you would
build these miniatures, and in this case in T too,
you built this kind of minute the city. There's cause
there's the playground, the mushroom cloud, the mushroom cloud, the
mushroom cloud.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
That a second. That was a big articulated model, right,
and yeah, that's all that was.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
But I'm always amazing that you build this stuff and
then you've you've you're shooting at probably high speed, right
like with the blast. Yeah, there's seconds, there's a second
or two where all of your work is kind of obliterated.
But that's what it's built for, all of it, I mean.
But then you don't see the results of that until
a day or days later, right, So you have to

(39:25):
trust in the process.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
We all have. We all have a little screening. We'll
sit down screening. Yeah there, and we there'd be so
there would be such oh you think we got it,
you think we got it. I hope we got it.
And of course, you know, we gotta do it again.
And we'd watch it over and over again, and we'd study,

(39:47):
you know, we go a frame by frame and we
would study on movie olas. We would just study and
see what gag, what worked, and what didn't, and then
we would you know, make our alterations then give another go.
But oh yeah, we never got anything on the first.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Day, no way, So what were those buildings built out
of and the like they I mean, it has the
sort of effect of kind of tissue paper, you know,
being kind of torn apart by that last way. But
what was the materials that were being in the.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Building facing the actual surfaces of the buildings. Those were
just cast big cast sheets of the you know whatever
that whatever the texture was on the building, the window
texture or whatever, that was just one big solid cast
out of a mixture that we came up with through

(40:44):
trial and error and trying different things. And it was
it was a mixture. It was a breakaway type plaster
because it had to have a thickness to it. It
had to be relatively it had to have at least
like a good inch thickness for it to look you know,
because it couldn't be like paper thin, because that wouldn't
look real when it broke apart. So it had to

(41:05):
have thickness like real concrete wood. And so we had
to come up with this breakaway plaster solution that was
like part plaster of Paris and uh. The vermiculite mixed
in vermiculite was a was like an artificial soil mix

(41:29):
thing that you would add to soil but it was
kind of a crumbly substance, and then we would in it.
We would put in like bits of cork in there
to like shredd it up cork and stuff, stuff that
would be really lightweight and brittle, but would adhere to
the plaster and it would have enough structure that we
could handle it and get it up against the building

(41:51):
and fasten against the building, and we just tied we
just like tied it to the We would tie we
would drill holes into where the wire frame and where
the steel cage framing was behind it, and we just
tied it off with wire and then and then the
services were painted and everything. But also to help make

(42:11):
those things break as well, we found out we couldn't
just rely on the air cannons. So our effects guy, Joel,
one of our great effects riggers, Joel Steiner, he came up.
He came up with a wire pulley system yank gag

(42:32):
where we'd have all these wires connected at certain points
behind the fronts of the building leading back behind and
they were all on cables and they would all come
down to i think two different groups of sand bags
that were counterweights, and and so there was like a
all this like there'd be like a dozen at least

(42:55):
a dozen or fifteen different wires coming back, and then
they would go through with pulleys and they would filter
down to like less wires to where there was just
like a couple of bat a couple of cables with
weighted with sandbags that would get triggered. They had they
were hooked up to electronic triggers along with all of

(43:16):
the the blast cannons, the air cannons that were lying
in front. So all this stuff was had to happen
the split second and just that setup when if you
ever see pictures of it there there are a couple
of pictures of that setup with all the cables too,
showing the air cannons and the cables behind. It was

(43:37):
crazy and just getting that timing right. Man, it was
amazing to see that thing go. But it was just yeah,
in a split second, everything would be perfect, lined up
beautiful again, and then in a split second, man, you
blink and it was just it was like vaporized. Everything

(43:57):
was gone, and you just be like, oh man, that's
what you'd really hope you got it because then you
think about resetting and that took boy, that took some
time resetting, we were able to get it down pretty quick.
You know, we got it. We got it down to
like where we could have it fully reset in one day, yeah,

(44:19):
the next shooting day. But of course by that point,
I think we only had two more takes to do it.
But then we got it. But uh, but yeah, we'd
really worked on our we were always trying to get
faster at resetting and then go ahead.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
I was just gonna say, And in the film itself,
it's it's you know, it occupies a matter of seconds
in the film, like do you remember when you first
saw it so got into the film.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
The entire sequence is just yeah, it's it's uh because
there's you know, there's the freeway shot where the freeway overpassed,
all the cars get blown off, there's the uh yeah,
there's those buildings to get vaporized. Then there's that shot
of the city park with the trees or it's just
it's just a street with some trees and a stop

(45:07):
sign that all get blown over.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
And and I think that was it just for the nuclear blast,
and then the the the big aerial view of the
shock wave as it spread over the distant view of
the city and it spreads and consumes it.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
That was a one of a kind shot that had
never been tried before because that utilized very early. Uh uh,
that that one shot utilized a little bit of cig
added into it, I really And but that was just
various layers of painted like there was a photo set

(45:49):
up done with with photos of the city mixed with painting,
and then there was a layer of it all destroyed,
of a full painting of the whole city destroyed, and
it was done in layers. And then but there's a
brief moment where you see some of the skeleton bits
of the buildings fall in the background just a little bit,

(46:12):
and that was just vector graphic animation that was put
in very briefly. So that was a real complex shot
that mixed miniatures and matte paintings and CG all in
one just for that one you know shot, because then
there's a foreground model of a house on a hill

(46:33):
that gets blown out at the very end. And so yeah,
we were doing really innovative stuff that hadn't been done before,
you know, incorporating even some incorporating digital stuff back then
on something like that was was new, I mean completely

(46:56):
new for us too. I mean, that was like wow
when we saw the finish saying, because the digital stub
was done somewhere else later, and so when we saw
when we saw the finished stuff on the you know,
we're just like wow. Even we were like wow, hey,
we didn't do that. What's what those little spits fault?
You know? So yeah, I mean, and then you know,

(47:16):
we also shot uh the liquid when he's in puddles,
the T one thousand and he melted, the melt down,
We did the We did the the puddles of him
coming together on the floor. Yeah. Yeah, that was just
shooting real, real mercury on the concrete floor of our

(47:37):
studio and we were blowing it around with air nozzles
on the floor. And that's all that this division Yeah yeah, yep,
because it had to match. I forget the reason why
it was. Why that was shot on this division. The
uh that the shot I was talking about before with

(47:57):
the with the nuclear blast, you know, wiping out the sea,
that araoral view that was shot on this Division two.
All all the stuff for that mm hmmm, oh.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
I guess if they were comping some bits in they
wanted to sort of maintain their generational quality of it. Yeah,
but that's interesting you say that going into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(48:53):
it's interesting you say about how you know that early
use of vector graphics was in there because over the
years that that became more and more common, didn't it
for cg augmentation of miniatures to happen? Did any of that?
Did any of that happen on you worked on Batman Returns?
Didn't you?

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Did any of it happen on that? But it was
digital creeping in on that because that.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
Was not with you, not with you we did because
for Batman Returns, Uh, we did all of the miniature
vehicle stuff. Okay, we did the Bat missile change oh stuff,
and we did the bat ski boat stuff, and we

(49:37):
did the the entire opening credits sequence, uh was a
miniature with with the floating through the sewer. Every single
one of those shots was our miniature stuff, every single one, uh,
up until from the time he enters into from the
time uh Paul Rubens and uh the penguin's parents toss

(50:03):
him over the bridge, from the time the bassinet goes
underneath that bridge and the credits begin, all of its
miniature until it comes out and those two big Emperor
penguins come in at the very you know, directed by
Tim Burton.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
All this Sudden a short movie really that you made that.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Yeah, I mean that was I mean we because that
all that stuff had to be shot in basically we
had to use we used that same tunnel. We had
one big main tunnel which was used for mainly for
the Batskibo corkscrew shot and all that, but we had

(50:44):
to use that tunnel for and we branched off of
that and in a maze of tunnels coming off of
it to get all that opening credit stuff shot. But yeah,
all of it's shot in the same tunnel set all
that stuff and trying to find different angles and you know,

(51:06):
views that so it's not so it doesn't look like
the same tunnel every time. So that was challenging. But yeah,
that was.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Did timber and never get involved with that. I know
you said Jim Cameron didn't come down to see the tea,
but did Tim.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
No, Tim Burton never came. We'd always have to go
to him and show everything. But it was just easier
for him, you know.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, just just thinking that they're both directors that kind
of understand a lot of the elements of filmmaking, James Cameron,
I wonder whenever.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to I'm You've brought up
a good thing. Point I've never even thought of. Is
I'm trying now to think of any gig where the
director did show up for any reason mhm, and I
can only think of two hmm and nowhere like Cameron

(52:04):
or Burton, you know, I mean these you know, lesser directors. Yeah. No,
it's like I think one reason for that is because
when the score Tax had the reputation at that point,
you know, ever since you know, Aliens when they won

(52:25):
their first Oscar, ever since Aliens, filmmakers knew that the
SCO Tax. You know, if you're going to hire them
to do your stuff, you don't have to hover over them.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yeah, you can.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Just let you just because they they the SCO Tax
get involved with stuff that they're into, you know, so
they know that they're getting passionate affects people and they
so Yeah, it was like one of the things where
they just they never came by, They left us alone,

(53:03):
and we would just bring it. We'd show them what
we'd do as we were doing it, and they would
you know, critique it and go Oh if you could
change that and that, and that'd be it, you know.
So yeah, yeah, that that that rarely happened ever having
a director come.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Was there a film that you worked on where you
really had like if you think back now, you really
think you had the best time working on it, whether
it was the people or the film subject itself. Was
there one that really stands out to you?

Speaker 3 (53:34):
You'd have to you'd have to ask me the opposite.
You'd have to ask me which gigs were not fun?
And I can't even think of one.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Really, Yeah, because you know, you worked on some big
demanding movies here, like you know, I look down the
list again, it's like Titanic.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Yeah, that was it. Yeah. I was fortunate I got
to get and I was at the right time with
the Go Tax too, because this was when they were
doing the biggest stuff, was right after Alien and then
the Abyss, and I just missed the Abyss. But yeah,
I got to work with those guys from T two
from nineteen, started with them in nineteen ninety and worked

(54:17):
with them all the way up into the two thousands.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
Yeah, and so I've done so many gigs with them.
It's like, yeah, there's I can't even think of one
that was there. They're all it's like it's like I'm
amongst my family again. With each gig, it was like
a family reunion kind of a thing.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Yeah, yeah, nice and yeah and god, we.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
Would just have so much fun on the set because
we were well one thing about the working with the
Scow Tax and just working in visual effects back then
in general, working on a practical analogs a not a
lot of people. The crews were not big, you know.

(55:07):
The biggest crew we ever had on any given skow
Tech gig, the biggest cruise we ever had was for
Hard Rain, the movie Hardly Ring. The crews never got
more than you know, a dozen people. And some of

(55:28):
these films, some of these gigs lasted a good year,
you know. And so we were working six days, and
we were working six day weeks on shooting, schedule, model building.
The first half of production was five days a week,
but six for some of us. And then but when

(55:48):
shooting started it was always that was six day weeks
and no less than twelve hour days. And you're with
these people for you know, months, and like half for
a year, two a year. Yeah, you see the and
we just you know, my best friends to this day

(56:10):
are those people. You know, my longest dearest friends are
all these people that I worked with in the past. Yeah,
I can't think of a single like, which was the
best one. What was the most fun? There isn't It
was just it was just being there. It was just God,
it was just so much fun. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
I bet there were some projects that kind of surprised
you though in a way because you can see there's
those sort of kind of blockbuster movies. But then didn't
you work on rooms?

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Yes, I but that was not for the Skoll Tax.
That was Now there's a there's one period of my
career where I moonlighted moonlit. But I think, yeah, there
was a period and it started in nineteen ninety when
I started with the Scotack in between gigs with them

(57:06):
through my friendship with Rob Stromberg from before Robert Stromberg
had by the time I started with the Sco Tax,
Rob had gotten his big career gig moment, becoming the
chief matt artist at Illusion Arts in Van Nights, the

(57:26):
matte painting company that start that was started by Albert
Whitlock and Bill Taylor and Sid Dutton, so he got
established there like I got established at with the scowtax
kind of thing. So in between scow Tag gigs, Illusion
Arts was always working. They had they never stopped. They
were like there was always they had multiple projects going

(57:49):
because they were they weren't film television shows, commercials. They
would get they would get shows that they would have
to do paintings for us, you know, multiple episodes for
a particular So they were always busy. And so in
between my Skowtach gigs, Rob would always there would always
be some foreground model or foreground miniature where we need

(58:10):
to be down on something over there. So I would
go and moonlight over there after hours. I never even
got paid, you know, I would go after hours and
hang out with with Robert because Robert practically lived there
at the time. He was always painting and working on
stuff all the time, because we were both we were
both young and and just this was at the moment

(58:32):
of our careers where it was just all about reveling
and where we were and just making the most of it.
You know, we were God, we were just living the dream.
You know. I'll never forget what it was like walking
into Illusion Arts. It was like I had the keys
of the Kingdom. I could walk in whenever I wanted
and and and that was thanks to Bill Taylor, who's

(58:58):
now no longer with us. And Bill Taylor was just
such not only one of the great legends of the industry,
but he was one of the sweetest guys I ever
met in my life. And you know, he saw the
passion in us, so he was like, yeah, you guys
can hang out here and work here and do your
stuff here, you know, And we did, and I worked.

(59:21):
I'd be there all night long and just working on
you know, some little foreground miniature for like the Four Rooms,
some kind of hot ball movie that they got, or
or working on a Star Trek Next Jen episode or something,
you know, or a Deep Space nine episode I got
to I got to work on the pilot episode of

(59:45):
Voyager Startrek Voyager, doing some really cool minor stuff. So
you know, I was always like, there was never like
days off for me. I was like, even when I
had time off, I was on something else, and I
was always just pursuing it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
And ye know, your hobby is your work, is your passion.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it was my life. It was
it was Yeah, it was like a way of life
and but yeah, illusion Arts became another really great period
of my career. Not as long as the SKO tax,
but for a few years a man. You know, it's

(01:00:30):
just I got to meet Albert Whitlock, you know. Oh well,
I mean yeah, you know that was me. Oh my god, wow, Yeah,
I mean yeah, it was. It was just such magical times.
Magical times.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Yeah. I wonder light as well. Did you have a
sense that your job was being replaced by c G I,
I mean Titanic, you know, I think of this, yeah, ship.
I mean, I'm sure there were models as well that
were built by yourselves and your colleagues, but you know
that transition had begun to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Then.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Did you feel like you were you were going to
be out of work any point?

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
Uh, when Jurassic Park came out, Yeah, that was when
we all looked at each other and was like, okay, yeah,
our times are times limited, and we all knew it.
We all knew it, and it was just at that point,
by the mid nineties, it was it was it was

(01:01:38):
a collective feeling of you know, how long can It
was just down to how how much longer we could
stretch it. Yeah, because it happened when when when it happened,
When when the studios did that big switch over. It
happened fast, it happened, I mean within ten years, within

(01:02:03):
within ten within a full decade. Yeah, what we did
was right far in view between at that point.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
It feels to me like that it sort of led
from you doing creatures and things like that to doing
more miniature work with vehicles maybe or with with actual
buildings and stuff, rather than you know, actually working with like.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Now, the type of work the tip you mean, like yeah,
like the type of effects and stuff didn't really change.
It just got less, right, okay, And and well the
biggest change was when you knew it was Yeah, it's
definitely we only got this most time left is when
the projects from the mid nineties, the projects, the budgets

(01:02:54):
and the type of gigs, they were no longer blockbuster,
you know what I mean, mhm, the blockbuster the block
you know. We went from T two to Batman Returns
to you know, which led to uh Hard Rain, which
was a big film at the time, the video back

(01:03:14):
that it was a huge film, and then Titanic at
that time too, that followed immediately, So it was these
big blockbuster and then after Titanic by yeah, by ninety seven,
that was the end. But that's when the gigs got.
The budgets got less and the gigs got less, the

(01:03:36):
smaller studio gigs type. You know, we started doing more.
You know, we uh after Titanic we got we got
gigs like my favorite Martian, that Disney gig that like
no one even like remembers.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Yeah are yeah, I yeah, I mean I vaguely remember it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Tremi's Fool was later on, wasn't it. But it was
like you're saying, sort of yeah, diminishing retens.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
We were getting threes and four, you know that kind
of movie. Yeah, but again Tremor's Four was. God, that
was a fun That was a fun gig man because
it was all puppet you know, it went back to
the puppets we did. All the graboids were puppets. No
cg because the guy that was directing it was the

(01:04:30):
guy that wrote the first one. Yes, what was his name?

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Underwood?

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Run Underwood, thank you, Ron Underwood. Yes, yeah, he wanted it.
That's why he got the scow text. But that's how
we got the gig. It was because I wanted to
be I wanted to have the feel and look at
the first movie. So it was all we got to
go back to miniatures then. But I'll tell you one
interesting thing about when the digital thing, when that realization hit.

(01:05:03):
It was in the mid nineties, of course, you know,
ninety four and ninety five after Jurassic Park, and in
ninety what was it, ninety five ninety six when Illusion Arts.
I was at Illusion Arts when that transition happened for them,

(01:05:24):
where they rent from strictly traditional hand paintings, hand hand
painted artwork, to digital paintings and doing them on computer.
And I was there in the very beginning, when I
was there when they brought the computer, the brand new
computers in for the first time and were setting them up,

(01:05:47):
and when in Rob's corner where he painted, and the
upstairs he had a desk and an easel where he
worked and had all those paintings and everything and all
the paints, and he had cupboards over there. He had
a whole side of the upstairs to himself like a loft.
And they had sun that they had sun roofs or

(01:06:12):
skylights that would allow natural sunlight in upstairs. And then
of course they had to get rid of those because
the computers came in. So but anyway, when the transition
happened and the computers came in, and of course all
digital Matt painting was in the very beginning was photoshop.
It's all. That's all they used. And I'll never forget

(01:06:35):
sitting there with rob late nights, sitting there watching him
learn photoshop on the computer, and we'd hang out together
and have the music blasting and drinking beer or whatever,
and he'd be sitting there learning photoshop, and I'd be
sitting there right with him, just thinking, oh, man, this sucks.
That I was verbal about a lot, but I was

(01:06:58):
just like yeah, and and and soon after this, both
Robert and Sid Dunton came came to me and approached
me and asked me if I wanted to They said,
if you want to join us and learn photoshop and
learn how to do this, welcome aboard. Well we'll train you,

(01:07:22):
because every mad artist in there had to retrain, they
had to learn photoshop. And like, you want to learn,
you want to join m HM. And I was given
right there. I was given the opportunity right there to
have steady work, ah, you know, then be on the

(01:07:44):
very beginning cusp of this industry, this new industry. I
got it right there there. It was you want it,
you want to join it, be part of it. And
right then and there, I respect very respectfully and very
politely explained why I didn't want it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
What was your reasoning?

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
Because there was I was watching Robert and the other
mad artist was named Fumi. Oh I forget his last
name Japanese.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
Uh Fumi. I said the tip of my mess my
thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
Yes, okay, he was he was upstairs too, learning at
the same time. Yeah, and I just told him, Yeah,
I just can't. I can't this. There's nothing appealing about it.
It's there's I can't. I couldn't do this all day long.
I could not sit on my ass in front of

(01:08:52):
a computer screen all day doing what the way we
did it before was fun. Yeah, and that's gone. That fun,
that physical fun, creative fun, is now not there for
me anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
Yeah, and I just couldn't. I wanted no part of
it because he I ultimately knew where it was going.
Yeah and yeah, I just didn't want a part of it.
And I never embraced it. I I you know, I
to this day, I'm an analog guy, you know, doing

(01:09:32):
this right here, this uh this zoom meeting thing we're
doing right now, audio recording. This is all like I
have a hard time setting this stuff up, you know this, Yeah, yeah,
it's just and I just I just long for the
times when you could walk into a place, I mean

(01:09:53):
just walking into an effect stage. I'll never forget the
first time I ever walked into an effect stage. I
first started that first day at Dave Stit's when working
on that Steve Barquette piece of garbage. Oh it's not
a piece of garbage. It's a fun It's one of
those movies. It's so it's so bad, it's good. It's
one of those but anyway, Oh sure, but yeah, I'll

(01:10:17):
never forget walked the first time walking onto an actual
effects set. Mm hm. And I walked in the walked
in front door on Van Owen Street and it was
just an industrial looking building right behind Burbank Airport, right
out of the railroad tracks railroad tracks. Went behind the

(01:10:39):
building and walked in the front building, or walked in
the office, the main office part, and then walked through
the second door which led out into the big open
this big open, huge, huge stage, big high ceiling, huge
stage and I walked out and all the lights were
out except for these studio lights that were pointing at

(01:11:00):
this in the corner of the stage. They had this
the entire miniature setup of all those uh. It was
from that V show, the V The Final Battle, And
it was that shot of all the alien mother ships
tucked behind the moon, hiding on the dark side of

(01:11:23):
the Moon, and the Earth is in the distance, and
it was like a it was like a pullback shot,
pull them back from the Moon and then revealing all
these saucers behind it. And it was all an in
camera element shot shotting shotting. Its black. But there was
all there was there was that setup with all these
alien mothership models. There was like one the one big one,

(01:11:45):
and then a couple of smaller ones in the off
the side, and the and the whole moon was a model.
The whole Moon was just a half dome model of
the Moon, and then the Earth was a smaller model
of the Earth behind it, and it was all just
simply lit, brightly lit, but it was all against black.
And I walked in and that was the first thing

(01:12:07):
I ever saw of any kind of like a real
actual movie set thing being shot. Yeah, and it was
that thing right there, and it was just and I
was like, oh my god, look at this. This is amazing,
this is amazing. Look at it. I can't believe it. Yeah,
that sitting behind a computer, I don't get any of that.

(01:12:31):
You don't get any of that feet there's there's I
don't know, there's just no magic there. Yeah for me,
you know, for me, Yeah, I'm old, old fashioned.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
You know, that's fine. I mean I always think though
that that that generation, I mean, you were kind of
the of the the peak and the decline of large
scale physical miniatures. Yeah, we were in short work. Yeah,
and I always think that before. Yeah, And I think

(01:13:03):
those affects you. They're often sort of they're more felt
by the audience than just seen, you know. And I
think you guys are really sort of individually credited for
the work you've done, you know, some of these iconic shots.
So it's always such a treat to talk to people
like you who had that experience and went through that experience.

(01:13:25):
Because now so much of our lives are dominated by computers.
You know, I can't do bad on my computer, you know,
and it drives me nuts. So you know, I think,
you know, to be in such a sweet spot of
the industry. It must be pretty cool when you when
you look back at what you achieved over those years.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
I every day, man, every single day, I just feel
so fortunate. And whenever I see a movie that I've
worked on that comes up on streeting or whatever, you know,
all the memory come back, you know, all those all
just it's that and that's and that's the magic of it,

(01:14:06):
you know, that's that's that's what made the that's what
made the work so special. And yeah, it's a shame
that that that's not embraced in the industry anymore. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
There is a little sprinkling of that though, isn't there.
There is a little kind of hearkening back to those times,
I know, light in some of the more recent I'm hoping.

Speaker 3 (01:14:29):
So I haven't seen myself, but boy, I god, you hope. So.
I mean, I mean I've seen like it's I get
a kick out of seeing the stuff. They're still doing it.
Tip it's from time to time, yeah, because I have
I have a couple of friends through Facebook. I have

(01:14:51):
a couple of animator friends. Uh, young younger guys doing
stop motion still professionally. And uh, you know, when I
see their stuff that they're doing a tip, it's still
like that thing that they did for the Mandalorian with
the the that big giant crab creature that they did
stop motion. You know, I look at that and I go, oh, okay, right, yeah,

(01:15:14):
all right, yeah great, And wasn't it fun to do?
Wasn't it fun? And all? Yeah, they're just talking about
how fun it was and and to do it and
and and even when people see that, it's still trying
to be used or utilized, and you know it. I
find it interesting how whenever like a practical effect is

(01:15:35):
done now that that can be like pointed at anyway
in any shape or form, and it's like it's kind
of a big deal. Like they kind of advertise like ooh,
this one's got stop motion. At it actual stop motion,
and they show how cool it looks. You know, well,
look at this, we're using an old technique. Still I
just find that kind of humorous. Now it's kind of like,

(01:15:57):
you know, but god, it's still cool to still see it.
And I mean I got to I got pulled after
I had been out of the industry for years and years,
I did get pulled back in one last time, and
it was in twenty nineteen, and it was through a
very unlikely source, and it was through Greg NIKATARO.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
I know Greg, Yeah, okay, Creepshow, right, yeah, can be
the end.

Speaker 3 (01:16:28):
And Greg and I had we had never worked together,
but through a couple of gigs. Our two companies worked
on the same gig together doing different things. So we
had to correlate a couple of times, and we had
to get a couple of we had to get a
couple of castings of puppets and stuff from them to

(01:16:51):
utilize with what we were doing kind of thing. And
so I knew I knew Greg from that from years ago.
But in twenty nine when he started up his Creep
Show series, the TV series that he brought back for
the first see the whole first season gimmick thing was

(01:17:13):
we're all going to use practical effects. We're not going
to use any CG. It's all going to be about
practical and recapturing that early eighties feel and look of
everything is. So he approached me because for the second
episode of the of the first season, he the he
had there was a creature in it and he wanted

(01:17:33):
it stop motion, and so he came to me and
asked if I wanted to do it, and I was like, Hell,
were you kidding me? Yeah? So I got I got
to come back and do all the stop motion shots
that are in that episode for him, and I did
like like nine shots and did a lot of stuff

(01:17:54):
for it, and it was that was one of that again.
It was like all the magic came back from the industry.
But the only difference was is I was working completely
alone in my garage, so which I had never gotten
to do before. And that was really cool getting to
do something completely you know. I My only critique the

(01:18:17):
whole time was Greg what you would just tell me
how he wanted him to move a certain way or
looking on Oh, okay, I can do that. So that
was all the direction I got. But I got to
work completely alone and uh and working in the digital
realm doing stop motion, which was weird shooting it traditionally,

(01:18:39):
but then taking the footage from the being you know,
just kept on the computer and then sending that file
of my stop motion shots through the ether to the
post production facility was in Georgia and so, which is
where they were filming and doing everything where they were

(01:19:01):
headquartered during Walking Dead.

Speaker 2 (01:19:04):
Yeah, right.

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
So the post production company was in Georgia, So I
mean I had to learn. That was a learning experience,
having to translate what I do into the you know,
how's it how? And so that was that was Yeah,
that was a learning experience.

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
Was it easier in the end, like once you got
the hang of it?

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
Yeah, I loved it.

Speaker 4 (01:19:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:28):
It was like being able to do it and then
send it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
In You get immediate feedback, right yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
Oh yeah, they would get back into like the next day.
It was like sending them dailies, you know, same thing,
but didn't have to go to.

Speaker 2 (01:19:41):
The lab, but you could see it before you sent it,
which is different.

Speaker 3 (01:19:44):
Well yeah, I could see, well I was, I could.
That was the great thing about digital stop motion is
now you can record the frames and play them back
at any time, and you couldn't do that back in
the old analog stop motion days. And I got to
do See. I got to experience stop motion both analog
and modern because in the before I got to do

(01:20:07):
a quickie stop motion gig right before Batman Returns. We
had in between T two and Batman Returns, there was
a little gig that I did. It took us like
a month this one month and it was doing effect
shots for an Italian supermarket chain commercial, like a convenience

(01:20:31):
store commercial directed by Woody Allen huh okay random and
and I have the commercial on YouTube. It's a it's
a it's crappy quality. But I never got to see
the fittest product until that. But the job was that

(01:20:52):
was my first ever chance getting to work with Randy
Cook doing traditional stop motion animating a flying saucer all
uh ray Harry House and the way he did it
on an aerial brace in Earth's Flying Saucers, So was
that kind of animated. It was that kind of old

(01:21:12):
school Hary House and animation and getting to do it
with Randy Cook and you know, and another legend to
me at the time. So yeah, yeah, getting to do
both getting to experience traditional stop motion back in the
analog days of the industry and then getting to do
it again all these are years later, and having to
you know, work with all the all the evolutions of everything,

(01:21:35):
and yeah, that was.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
Yeah, so nice to come full circle on that great
great you worked on so many cool movies and involved
in so many cool sequences. I know that you know,
for you, it was your job it was your hobby
as your passion. Did you ever, like, have you come
out of this with any mementos of your time there?
Have you got photographs? Have you've got props of you?

Speaker 3 (01:21:59):
Yeah? Had tons of behind the scenes photos of everything.
I've got them posted on a lot of them, you know,
I posed a long time ago on Facebook and I'm
starting to post some of them on Instagram. But oh yeah,
a bunch of fun. Most of the gigs, I've got
at least a couple, uh some, I've got quite a few,

(01:22:20):
depending depending on the gig. Because like for T two,
there was we weren't allowed to even have cameras on
the set. Yeah, if anybody was. If anybody was, I
mean we had to sign uh waivers and stuff several
of them that if anybody was caught with a camera
on the set, you were terminated immediately, that kind of stuff.

(01:22:42):
But I was able to sneak a couple of polaroids
on set that I used. But I used Denny's polaroid
that he used for reference shooting, reference photos and stuff
of the sets and stuff that we used later on.
So I would take his polaroids sometimes and snap a
couple of can the shots. So I do have a
couple of it. I had to hide them in my

(01:23:04):
toolbox until the kid was over, till the movie came out.
That kind of silly stuff. But oh yeah, I've got
plenty of plenty.

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
Of that physical artifacts though anything from like any models
or I suppose all of that stuff just got trashed, right.

Speaker 3 (01:23:19):
Hang on a second, I don't want that. I think
you get a kick out of this because it is
the only thing that survived. It's I'm kind of close here,
and maybe I could stand if I stand back here,
you can see.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
And you see that kind of it's kind of pixelated.
I can't work out what it is.

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):
It's it's long. It's a palm tree. This is I
have another one. I've got to my best friend, Jim
Toller uh has the other two. These are the only
screen used props that survived the Nuclear Nightmare UH seen

(01:24:16):
from T two. UH. These palm trees were in the
UH in the freeway overpass shot. Yeah, they just suddenly
got all for of them get yanked right over into
center of cameras. So these are like, yeah, these are
very central to this shot. And these are the only
things that survived because they were made. It's just it's rubber.

(01:24:41):
It's just gauze. It's like it's like wrapped in gauze,
and it's just coding latex. The latex is getting a
little cracky. But uh, and then what's inside the core
is just a fishing pole, fiberglass fishing pole. And because
these things had to these things had to get these
things and these are all the were getting blown by

(01:25:01):
the air cannons and yanked by cables too, So these
things took a beating, but they were the only things
that were built to survive for that shot to be
put back up.

Speaker 1 (01:25:12):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:25:14):
And all the cars that we used, uh, they've each
time the cars would have to get put back together
because they get blown to, you know, several pieces. So
that freeway overpass shot was the longest, the longest shot
to reset every time. But yeah, I got that, I
got the trees, and then I've got I've got a

(01:25:37):
penguin casting from the penguins that that were shot that
the Jim toller Uh created that were the only penguins
in the movie that shot actually shot the rockets, and
they shot him at the bat ski boat as it's
as it as it's exiting the it's corks true, and

(01:26:01):
the two penguins fire the rockets at the at it
and those two puppets were built by Jim Toler and
I have one of those castings of one of those penguins.
Very cool and but yeah, because everything else got we
were we were the effects company that things didn't survive

(01:26:22):
are shots mostly because we we we were hired to
destroy things mostly so we didn't get we didn't get
to do these hero shots of space. We didn't get
the fancy spaceship stuff. Yeah. When we were done with
a gig, it was usually down to just picking up pieces.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
Yeah. Yeah, if it was still intact, you hadn't done
your job right.

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):
Oh, it was all about getting home and it was
all getting home at the end of the day. Be exhausted,
but the best kind of time.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
Jim, thanks so much for your time today. We're gonna
have to cool a day there. But I love talking
to you and I loved that we finally got around
to doing this. I know, I look you down a
couple of times there. We finally did it, though, So
I appreciate your time, and you know, I appreciate your
work and what you what you did in your career
because you know, we got to experience it on the
other side.

Speaker 3 (01:27:16):
That's what it's all about, man if I I mean,
whenever I hear of people that you know, just love
what we did and or get it. You know, they
just they get a kick out of it and it
get some happy, make them happy, and get some excited
about it movie or whatever. Then that that's that's everything
to guys like us.

Speaker 2 (01:27:54):
That was my chat there with Jim Davidson. Thank you
Jim for your time. I love having conversations like that
because it really puts me right there in that era.
You can almost feel it and smell it, can't you
walking into those effects stages, everything built by hand, lit
in camera and then gone in a split second, munster
shots done. What really stood out to me was that
turning point in the nineties, you know, when CGI started

(01:28:15):
taking over and suddenly this entire way of working, this
whole craft begins to disappear, almost overnight, and Jim being
right there offered away into the digital side of things
and deciding it just wasn't for him. There's something quite
powerful about that. I mean, I also love that people transitioned.
I think, you know, each to their own It's just
kind of amazing that he was able to continue working

(01:28:36):
for a lot of the time as well. I also
love that sense of community. Talks about these small crews,
long days, working six days a week, and those people
becoming his closest friends. It feels like a very specific
moment in the industry that's I guess hard to replicate
now because the world has changed so much. As always,
if you enjoyed this episode, please do share it around,

(01:28:57):
leave a review, all that good stuff. It really helps
more people find the podcast. And if you'd like to
support what I'm doing here and it is just me,
head over to patreon dot com forward slash Jamie Benning.
I really want to get to two hundred patrons this year.
I'm on about one hundred and twelve at the moment,
so every bit helps to keep these conversations going, and
I really do appreciate any support that you can give.

(01:29:18):
All Right, that's it for me, Thanks for listening, and
I hope you can join me for the next episode
of the Filmiamentaries podcast

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Weirding Way Media