Like most young children of course, at the age of 4, he stole his father's 8mm movie camera and filmed top secret surveillance footage of...
the gardner!!!
>>actual shot from that footage>
The evidence became quite clear to his father, upon developing the small sprocketed role of film, that the little tot had a remarkable knack for cinematography, (and that he needed a good whoopin!)
Years passed, Jon's derriere healed, and he's here in this Q & A to tell us howhe got started doing special effects.
Jon, many artists are not as forthcoming as you with their beginning experiences and examples of their early work, why?
Maybe because many artists have seen special effects as sort of a secret art, as if they were just born doing great work... and while for a lucky few this may be the case, for most of us it takes years of hard work and practice like any other highly developed skill. Over the years I have been very grateful to the people who have shared their little "golden nuggets" and given me "keys" to advance to another level. I think this kind of mentality is fading though. There are great artists all over who are now willing to give away their "secrets" to help anyone who wants to learn - Alex Lindsay, of www.dvgarage.com is a great example, kind of an organizer and crusader for FX enthusiasts everywhere. I very much agree with that kind of attitude, the greatest advances can be made by "opening up the source code" so-to-speak.
And to take that one step further, I think it's important for people just starting out to see the beginning works of people who are now doing this for a living so that they can get a more realistic perspective, if this is what they really love to do and want to do. Or maybe it's the "image" thing... Not wanting anyone to see anything you've done short of perfection... but that's not reality... I can understand it... I don't think most writers would publish their first drafts either... but I know a lot of writers who would get great inspiration from being able to see these raw drafts.. But to me it's not about ME looking perfect... to me it's all about INSPIRING people!
OK, let's start from the beginning... what was your first inspiration to begin doing special effects and how old were you?
Very young! The gardner story was real [laughs]. Well, like many special effects artists I was heavily influenced by all of the Ray Harryhausen films and then Star Wars... I sometimes think everyone who is into special effects did some sort of Star Wars thing at the beginning... it was just such an influential fx movie because they were really breaking totally new ground with many of the film's effects.
Did you do one of those light sabre effects too?
[Laughs] Yep, sure did! But in those days we didn't have any computers so we did the light sabres by scratching right into the film using a needle, a makeshift lightbox and a magnifying glass [laughs again], man, talk about getting a stiff neck doing roto work... and we were using 8mm film too!
Do you have any of those clips we could see?
Sure. Here's the one I did when I was a kid with some friends as actors... I show this in our seminars sometimes because as bad as it is [cringes] it really hits home some of the concepts of rotoscoping work which many people find hard to fully understand.
Wow! That film is tiny! How long did it take you to do that?
>>>>actual clip of film - actual size too>>>>
[Laughs] A few solid nights I think... my friends thought I was crazy sitting at the kitchen counter night after night scratching away with this needle on this long strip of film running all over the floor.When you love doing something though, the time just flies by... it's still that way for me.
Jon, every FX artist has his favorite type of work to do, what's yours?
I've always loved to do BIG effects... not necessarily obvious FX, but BIG... big epic type digital matte paintings, big multi-layered >>>
Is that why you always do a section on audio fx in your seminars?
Probably. To me, the audio is inseparable from the visual. Try watching T2 with the sound off... it's still good, but not the same. I believe the "unseen" aspects of FX are as, if not sometimes more, important than what is seen. It's got to be just a part of good moviemaking & storytelling... you can't lose sight of that.
What pitfalls can you warn our readers of in doing FX work?
I'd have to say the mistakes I see most often are mostly due to lack of planning. Planning, planning, planning. The more efficiently you plan, the better the product. You can avoid most of the pitfalls and even create new options that didn't exist with good planning.
You are very enthusiatic when you do your seminars about how much is really possible using very common tools now and I know that you have a secret project you've been hard at work on up your sleeve. What do you see in the future of Special Effects production and can you tell us about your project and how it fits in?
I see individuals, who until now haven't been able to tell their story, learning how to use all of this fantastic new technology to produce movies that will be indistinguishable from big studios productions. There are already many individuals and groups out there working towards empowering the average person to create really amazing stuff. When I was in San Francisco attending Alex Lindsay's (www.dvgarage.com) Guerilla FX event, I met Dave Macomber (www.crewoftwo.com) who, with his partner Mark Thomas did the short Duality. That is a great example. Their work looked WAY of the the ballbark for what most people would consider a small project - just fantastic. I think we're going to see a lot more extremely talented individuals coming out of the woodwork and producing more and more amazing movies. As for my project... No. [laughs] You'll have to wait like everyone else.
