Tippett Studio

Last updated
Tippett Studio
Founder Phil Tippett
Jules Roman
Headquarters
Services Visual effects

Tippett Studio is an American visual effects and computer animation company specializing in computer-generated imagery (CGI) for films and television commercials. The studio has created visual effects and animations on over fifty feature films and commercials, garnering an Academy Award, [1] [2] four Clio Awards and two Emmy Awards. [3] The company currently[ when? ] consists of approximately 150 employees, with offices located in Berkeley, California.

Contents

History

Tippett Studio was founded in 1984 by Phil Tippett and Jules Roman, Phil's wife and the president of the company. [3] The studio began as a stop motion animation company (by means of its particular stop motion animation variant, the so-called go motion animation technique). It also designed and built live action props for films, such as RoboCop , RoboCop 2 , RoboCop 3 , Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Ghost . In 1991, the studio shifted its focus to computer-generated imagery to work on Jurassic Park , (released in 1993, with Industrial Light and Magic) by developing the Digital Input Device (DID). The DID was a new effects technology which placed computer-linked sensors into the moving joints of three-dimensional, articulated character models. This system earned Craig Hayes a Scientific and Technical Achievement Academy Award and the work on Jurassic Park earned the studio an Oscar. Creature animation work for Coneheads (also released in 1993) was the last go motion puppet project done by this company.

The studio also worked on Blockbuster commercials featuring Ray and Carl, a guinea pig and rabbit at a pet store window from 2002 to 2007 during the Super Bowl.

Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film Starship Troopers became at the time Tippett Studio's biggest project, with over 500 effects shots, for which the company received another Academy Award nomination. Phil Tippett co-directed the large-scale battle sequences with Verhoeven. The studio doubled in size to digitally animate and composite hundreds of creature shots for the film.

Early in 2000, the studio re-teamed with Paul Verhoeven on Hollow Man . Craig Hayes co-supervised the creation of the invisible Sebastian whose outline becomes visible in steam, rain, water and even blood. The outstanding visual effects were recognized with another Academy Award nomination.

In March 2024, Tippett Studio was acquired by Indian-based studio PhantomFX. [4]

Motion picture filmography

Awards and nominations

Film

Commercials

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Verhoeven</span> Dutch filmmaker (born 1938)

Paul Verhoeven is a Dutch filmmaker. His films are known for their graphic violence and sexual content, combined with social satire. After receiving attention for the TV series Floris in his native Netherlands, Verhoeven's breakthrough film was the romantic drama Turkish Delight (1973), starring frequent collaborator Rutger Hauer. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and later received the award for Best Dutch Film of the Century at the Netherlands Film Festival. Verhoeven later directed successful Dutch films including the period drama Keetje Tippel (1975), the war film Soldier of Orange (1977), the teen drama Spetters (1980) and the psychological thriller The Fourth Man (1983).

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began production on the original Star Wars, now the fourth episode of the Skywalker Saga.

<i>Starship Troopers</i> (film) 1997 film by Paul Verhoeven

Starship Troopers is a 1997 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Edward Neumeier, based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein. Set in the 23rd century, the story follows teenager Johnny Rico and his friends serving in the military of the United Citizen Federation, an Earth world government engaged in interstellar war with an alien species of Arachnids. The film stars Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Patrick Muldoon, and Michael Ironside.

Go motion is a variation of stop motion animation which incorporates motion blur into each frame involving motion. It was co-developed by Industrial Light & Magic and Phil Tippett. Stop motion animation can create a distinctive and disorienting staccato effect because the animated object is perfectly sharp in every frame, since each frame is shot with the object perfectly still. Real moving objects in similar scenes have motion blur because they move while the camera's shutter is open. Filmmakers use a variety of techniques to simulate motion blur, such as moving the model slightly during the exposure of each film frame, or placing a glass plate smeared with petroleum jelly in front of the camera lens to blur the moving areas.

<i>Hollow Man</i> 2000 film by Paul Verhoeven

Hollow Man is a 2000 American science fiction thriller film directed by Paul Verhoeven, written by Andrew W. Marlowe, and starring Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Joey Slotnick, Mary Randle, and William Devane. The film is about Sebastian Caine, a scientist who volunteers to be the first human test subject for a serum that renders the user invisible. When his fellow scientists are unable to restore him back to normal, he becomes increasingly unstable and eventually goes on a killing spree. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 2001, losing to Gladiator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dennis Muren</span> Visual effects pioneer

Dennis Muren, A.S.C is an American film visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked on the films of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron, among others, and has won nine Oscars in total: eight for Best Visual Effects and a Technical Achievement Academy Award. The Visual Effects Society has called him "a perpetual student, teacher, innovator, and mentor."

Robin R. Bottin is an American special make-up effects creator. Known for his collaborations with directors John Carpenter, Paul Verhoeven and David Fincher, Bottin worked with Carpenter on both The Fog and The Thing, with Verhoeven on RoboCop, Total Recall and Basic Instinct, and with Fincher on Se7en and Fight Club. His many other film credits include The Howling, Legend, Innerspace and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phil Tippett</span> American film director

Phil Tippett is an American film director and visual effects supervisor and producer, who specializes in creature design, stop-motion and computerized character animation. Over his career, he has assisted ILM and DreamWorks, and in 1984 formed his own company, Tippett Studio.

<i>Starship Troopers 3: Marauder</i> 2008 film by Edward Neumeier

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder is a 2008 American science fiction film written and directed by Edward Neumeier and starring Casper Van Dien, who returned as Johnny Rico from the original film, along with Jolene Blalock and Boris Kodjoe. It is a sequel to Starship Troopers (1997) and Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004) and the third installment of the Starship Troopers film series. The film was released directly to video in the U.S. on August 5, 2008. It received generally negative reviews.

Jim Rygiel is an American visual effects supervisor. He has worked on major feature films since 1984, including The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and Godzilla. He currently works at FuseFX visual effects studio.

<i>Dinosaur!</i> (1985 film) American TV series or program

Dinosaur! is a 1985 American television documentary film about dinosaurs. It was first broadcast in the United States on November 5, 1985, on CBS. Directed by Robert Guenette and written by Steven Paul Mark, Dinosaur! was hosted by the American actor Christopher Reeve, who some years before had played the leading role of Superman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Craig Barron</span> American visual effects artist (born 1961)

Craig Barron is an American visual effects artist and creative director at Magnopus, a media company that produces visual development and virtual production services for motion pictures, television, museums and multimedia platforms.

Gregory S. Butler is an Academy Award-winning American visual effects supervisor. He graduated from Suffield High School in 1989 and afterwards entered Hampshire College. Despite his initial plans to study history, a work-study job with the audiovisual equipment in the library made him interested in film production. Butler graduated in 1993 with a major in film, television and theater design. Afterwards he moved to California to work for Industrial Light and Magic for 9 months, where after intern work he managed to become an assistant in the effects department, starting with assistant credits in The Mask and Forrest Gump. Following a job at Rocket Science Games until the company's bankruptcy in 1996, Butler went to Tippett Studio and did effects work in Starship Troopers and My Favorite Martian, rising up to a technical director job, and Cinesite for Practical Magic. While reluctant at the requirement of moving to New Zealand, Butler was convinced by his writer-actor brother to jump at the opportunity of working for Weta Digital in The Lord of the Rings. Among his achievements was working on the creation of Gollum. for which he was awarded a Visual Effects Society Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Rosenbaum</span> American film visual effects supervisor

Stephen Rosenbaum is an American visual effects artist and supervisor, and has worked on numerous movie, tv and music productions, including six that have won Academy Awards. He has been nominated three times for an Academy Award and two times for a BAFTA Award. He has won both awards twice for his contributions on Forrest Gump and Avatar, and has played artist and supervisor roles on such pioneering films as Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Abyss, X2: X-Men United, Death Becomes Her, Contact and The Perfect Storm.

James Straus is a special effects artist who was nominated at the 69th Academy Awards for the film Dragonheart in the category of Best Visual Effects. His nomination was shared with Scott Squires, Phil Tippett and Kit West.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rob Coleman</span> Canadian animation director

Rob Coleman is a Canadian animation director; he is currently the creative director at Industrial Light & Magic's Sydney branch. Previously, he was the Head of Animation at the award-winning Australian visual effects and animation studio, Animal Logic from 2012-2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Bruno (special effects)</span> American director and visual effects artist

John Bruno is an American visual effects artist and filmmaker known for his prolific collaborations with director James Cameron on films like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, Titanic, Avatar, and The Abyss, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

Scott E. Anderson, is an American special effects artist best known for Babe, for which he won an Academy Award.

Craig Hayes is a visual effects artist. He was nominated at the 73rd Academy Awards for his work on the film Hollow Man. He shared his nomination with Scott E. Anderson, Stan Parks and Scott Stokdyk.

The special effects of the 1997 American military science fiction action film Starship Troopers were initially developed by visual-effects company Tippett Studio and Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI). However, the scale of the project and management issues at SPI led to many of the required effects being delegated to several other companies, including Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Boss Film Studios, Visual Concepts Engineering (VCE), Amalgamated Dynamics, and Mass. Illusion. Of the film's $100-$110 million budget, about half was afforded to the film's 500 special effects shots.

References

  1. "Visual Effects Society Unveils Award Winners, Hall of Fame Inductees". The Hollywood Reporter. 15 August 2018. Retrieved 2019-06-14.
  2. Keslassy, Elsa (2018-08-31). "Le Pacte Boards 'Phil Tippett, Mad Dreams and Monsters' Documentary (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 2019-06-14.
  3. 1 2 "Phil Tippett: Following his Imagination to the Stars and Beyond". VFX Voice Magazine. 2018-12-13. Retrieved 2019-06-14.
  4. "India's PhantomFX To Acquire Oscar Winner Phil Tippett's VFX Company Tippett Studio". Deadline. 12 March 2024. Retrieved 17 April 2024.
  5. The Force Awakens - Tippett Studio Holochess Stop-Motion Reel