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Steven “Spaz” Williams
He’s a big personality with an even bigger resume. Along the way he changed filmmaking forever. You may never have heard of Steven Williams, but almost all of today’s most successful, profitable movies can be traced back to his work at Industrial Light and Magic in the 1980’s and 90’s.
Born in Canada, Williams joined The Alias Research project after graduating college. Alias was a pioneer software developer in computer generated graphics animation. Williams rose to become a company representative, this led to him being hired by George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic, one of the world’s leading special-effects companies.
Williams initially worked as an assistant on James Cameron’s “The Abyss”, in which he assisted in animating the film’s ”liquid” aliens. From there he received the assignment of the “liquid-metal” T-1000 character from Cameron’s “Terminator 2”.
Now it is 1993 and Steven Spielberg is developing his new dinosaur film, Jurassic Park. Special effects have all been designed in the grand tradition of the great dinosaur films of the past by puppeteer master Phil Tippet. Gigantic foam T-Rex’s had been constructed. Steven William’s team is on backup, there mainly to remove wiring and other tricks of the trade from otherwise usable shots.
The film’s producers notice an animation playing on William’s computer. It is a full shot of a T-Rex running sequence that Williams made in his free time. Such a shot had never been possible before. A screening of the animation is held for Spielberg, George Lucas, and the Studio Heads. It’s said that George Lucas cried. When it was over Spielberg simply said, “This is how movies are going to be made from now on”. He was right.
Steven Williams usurped much of Phil Tippet’s job as effects supervisor. He would go on to work on films like “The Mask” and “Jumanji”, but today he prefers mainly direct commercials. More than any single contribution, Williams overall careeer ushered in the era of the computer generated character. Film makers now had extremely powerful tools to allow their imaginations to truly soar.
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The Digital Art of Andy Thomas
Andy Thomas
3D Animator Andy Thomas has been building his body of work over twenty years. His installations are vast, made up of entire rooms in some cases. His installations grew with his confidence. Smaill screen displays gave way to gargantuan animations projected on the walls and the ceiling and floor, to shift and realign as the audience stands witness in the thick of it.
Thomas’s subject matter concerns the natural biology of the world, and how technology effects and disrupts the innate systems of life. His images are amorphous, flow surrealistically and change suddenly, suggesting a collision between organic and technological systems.
In Thomas’s work, the systems of nature visually overtake the order and sterility of the technical systems, resulting in forms of a kind of organic technology.
Thomas has begun incorporating sound into his work, in one instance melding a shifting light collage with sound recordings of the radio activity of the planet Jupiter.
In addition to traditional exhibitions, Thomas tours to raise awareness of environmental issues around the world, such as the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
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Welcome to the blog of Jesse Quaintance.
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Jesse Quaintance 