DGA Monthly

A U G U S T 2 0 2 4 I 2 7 Richard Donner on making a man fly in Superman: "I said, 'Now I got to prove a man can fly,' which became a selling line for the movie. There were seven units shooting at the same time when I was making the movie, and one of the units was a fly unit. It took us a year before we got our first shot that really convinced me a man could fly. It was a great challenge. Pre-digital, pre-computer really. The only thing that we had that was used was a machine called an Oxberry. It was an optical printer which enabled you to go back and forth on the negative and you could do dissolves. But we turned that device into, I guess, a really kind of an innovation like the beginning of a computer. The people that worked it made it talk. Yeah, it was a great challenge." The DGA's Visual History Program is an endeavor designed to explore the art and craft of the Director and the Director's team via peer-to-peer interviews with other Directors, Assistant Directors, Unit Production Managers, Associate Directors and Stage Managers. Created in 2000 by the Special Projects Committee and consisting of more than 230 videotaped interviews, the Visual History Program serves as an invaluable teaching source for those curious about the craft, a preservation of the professional wisdom of DGA members, and a unique repository for Guild history. The interviews, which last between three and eight hours, emphasize reflective and collegial discussions about all aspects of the creative process in film, television and other media. Visual History interviews are accessible to all Guild members as well as to the general public on the DGA website. The Visual History database is fully searchable by topic, and each interview is indexed, allowing for quick retrieval of segments pertaining to specific interests and topics, either within a particular interview or across the entire collection. Lee Shallat Chemel on working with digital effects in their earliest days: "I did the first digital character in a TV show way back. A pilot about a digital sheep who does commercials and Mary Wickes was in it. We had a guy in a motion capture suit — and this is way back in 1990 or 1989, way before the digital explosion. It was a wonderful experiment. But my favorite line was Mary Wickes turning to the sheep. They said, 'Well he, you know, he's not getting a lot of work, and he had give up his apartment' — the sheep had to give up his apartment — 'so Mary, you're gonna have to take him in for a while.' And she's like in her 70's now. She looks down at him and she goes, 'I'm not cooking for a cartoon.' And that just tickled me to death." Featured here are a few excerpts dealing with Special Effects. Perspectives on working with Special Effects from the Visual History Program Archives View more excerpts and interviews in the Visual History Collection via the link on the homepage of www.dga.org. Bill Duke on combining minimal effects with strategic shots for economic storytelling: "We couldn't afford to burn a barn down in Deacons of Defense. We had a great DP, Ron Stannent, who gave the effect. As the son goes into the barn with a torch, they are going to burn it down. We couldn't afford it. Ron took lights with smoke and made a fire effect in the barn. Torch with an insert of hay... Cut back with smoke and fire effect... Cut to the people who see it... In post, we put in fire and flames in the barn. It looks like it is really burning. They saved money, the effect works. You get the point without burning it down." Irvin Kershner on creating the character Yoda for The Empire Strikes Back: "We wanted a Jedi Knight who was very old and powerful. At first we thought nine feet tall with a white beard. Didn't work, didn't work. So we didn't quite know what the hell this Yoda would look like. Finally Stuart Freeborn, the chief makeup person, said, 'Can I try to make it?' In a couple of weeks, he comes back and he had a thing, like a sculpture. And we're standing there... 'Show me.' And I'm really apprehensive. And here is a head and he says, 'Look.' I'm looking at it and I'm looking at him. It was a self-portrait, with different skin. I didn't realize it at the time, I thought he wasn't aware of it. He was aware of it. He had used himself and me as the basis of building that head. How I figured in it I don't know. I don't have green skin, I don't have scales. I'm bald, that's about all. Anyway, it was him." Arthur Hiller on creating the train crash at the end of Silver Streak: "We thought about miniatures and rear screen and front screen, and nothing seemed to work. We were about two weeks from shooting it, and my Production Designer, Alfred Sweeney, said, 'Let's do it full-size.' And I laughed. And he said, 'I'm serious.' We took an airplane hangar in Burbank and built a train, three sides of an engine, put it on a truck bed. I suggested that we put up a wall with a mirror that would be half the set. It worked wonders. It looked so real. About a year later The Fugitive came out with a wonderful train sequence right at the beginning, but all done in a special effects house. Boom, boom, you know. We didn't have that to work with."

• Cover