My last conversation with Brian Johnson, VFX pioneer - 2017.
"Kit Bashing and WiggitsJB, re:
When I was in the Royal Air Force the term Kit Bashing referred to polishing one’s No 1 uniforms [all brass buttons and belts]
When working with Derek on various Anderson puppet series we were using lots of plastic kits and I for one swapped the term Kit as in
uniform for Kit as in plastic model bits. We used to buy kits from a model shop just off the Slough Trading Estate. Incidentally STE was the home to Bowie Films, Caravel Film, Gerry Anderson Productions and Ford GT 40 [Ford Advanced Vehicles] Eric Broadly [Lola Cars] and Winkelmann Racing [Lotus F2 ]
Wiggits came from 2001 and Bowie Films [Lackery, Smeary and Wiggits via George Catlin , Master Chippie
Robert Watts [Production Manager] and I flew to Nuremberg to the Worlds Toy Fair and I bought [using Robert's fluent German]
a vast number of Faller and Vollmer plastic parts. We were given all the parts we needed via specific injection moulded sections without the need for buy kits and only using a fraction of the bits. By the time Space 1999 arrived I had a team of eager Wiggitters and a very young Martin Bower was given industrial strength glues and solvents to help him make his models keep all their ‘Wiggets’ On Alien we had possibly the best UK based Wiggitters and we hadn’t yet done a great deal of casting selected sections so many plastic kits were used but by Aliens moulding required pieces was the norm.
Nurnies [as a term] was not on my radar until I worked at ILM North. a USA original for sure."
I eventually presented him his deserved "patent" for kit-bashing.
#VFXarchaeology
@CultureCrave@Variety We're in the shakedown phase of AI. Like the .com boom, people will use it in EVERYTHING looking for what works. Silicon Valley is a graveyard FULL of .com's no one remembers. The boulder is racing down the hill, we're just waiting to see what pieces are usable after it crashes.
@Danimalish Unless you're watching IMAX in one of the 30 or so theaters worldwide capable of projecting 70mm, 15-perf film horizontally, you're not watching IMAX. Most of the movie-going public never sees a "real" IMAX film presentation. It's just branding for a more premium presentation.💔
@Danimalish Unless you're watching IMAX in one of the 30 or so theaters worldwide capable of projecting 70mm, 15-perf film horizontally, you're not watching IMAX. Most of the movie-going public never sees a "real" IMAX film presentation. It's just branding for a more premium presentation.💔
@michaeljaygates@j_t_starwars Agreed. IMAX has always worked well for those immersive specialty films about space or the ocean, etc. It reminds me of learning about filming for "TV safe" areas in film school. You compromise composition for the sake of the inevitable sale to TV. Art vs Commerce
@j_t_starwars DUNKIRK had different aspect ratios?? I saw it with friends at the Village Theater in Westwood, then again on blu-ray. We never even noticed anything like that.🤔
@agraphafx@BalderdashianLA I guess that's where my confusion came in: I'm from the analog era and an intermediate (like an IP or IN) was always considered more of a "thing" than a "process". 👍
@agraphafx Despite so many prominent filmmakers speaking out about "preserving" film imagery when colorization made it's debut in the 80s, no one seems to be able to resist the impulse to "tinker" with their own film footage when digital tools became widely available. 😉
First trailer for the ‘Big Bang Theory’ spin-off series ‘STUART FAILS TO SAVE THE UNIVERSE’.
The series follows Stuart who must restore reality after he breaks Sheldon & Leonard’s new device and causes a Multiversal Armageddon.
Releasing July 23 on HBO Max.