When Jurassic Park was released in 1993, it began the slow decline of practical effects as the go-to source for special effects in films. In the years preceding Jurassic Park, several films — most notably The Last Starfighter, The Abyss, and Terminator 2 — had broken barriers in regards to computer generated imagery (CGI), but Jurassic Park was the first film where authentic looking creatures were created with a computer.
According to writer Tom Shone in his book, Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer, after Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and special effects supervisor Phil Tippett saw test footage of the CGI tyrannosaurus rex created by Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic, Lucas cried and Tippett told Spielberg, “I think I’m extinct.”
Practical effects — physical visual effects, such as miniatures, puppetry or make-up — have been a part of filmmaking essentially since the creation of cinema, but the release of Star Wars in 1977 ushered in a golden age of practical effects. Special effects legends like Stan Winston, Rob Bottin, and Rick Baker spent the 1980’s and 90’s creating iconic creatures for some of the greatest sci-fi, fantasy, and horror films from both decades.
Last week, Baker told radio station KPCC that he would be retiring from movie-making after more than 40 years in the business. Baker got his break in 1973 while working on The Exorcist with another effects legend, Dick Smith. During the rest of the decade, Baker worked on schlocky B-movie fare like It’s Alive, Track of the Moon Beast, and Squirm, but he also created the effects for — and played the title character — in the 1976 remake of King Kong, and did some work on Star Wars.
A few years later, he broke into the mainstream with his first of seven Academy Awards for his groundbreaking effects on John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London in 1981, which led to him creating the “werecat” and zombies for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. During the 1980’s, Baker created Harry from Harry and the Hendersons, Beast from the television show Beauty and the Beast, and worked on Coming to America in 1988, which would lead to a long collaboration with Eddie Murphy on the Nutty Professor films, The Haunted Mansion, Life, and Norbit.
The 1990’s saw Baker move away from hairy creatures a bit with his effects showing up in Batman Forever, The Frighteners, and Wild, Wild West. He won another Academy Award for helping to transform Martin Landau into Bela Lugosi for Tim Burton’s Ed Wood, and as the decade ended, he created creatures for Men in Black, a job he would return to for both sequels. Over the past 15 years, Baker has worked on Hellboy, The Ring, Tropic Thunder, and earned his most recent Academy Award for The Wolfman in 2010.
While the work didn’t exactly dry up for Baker after Jurassic Park, it was becoming more difficult for Baker to do the work he wanted to with each film. In an interview last week with Tested, Baker said that with the amount of people that now have “voices” when it comes to decision making on films, it “sucks your heart out of it.” With An American Werewolf in London, Landis essentially gave Baker creative control over the look of the werewolf, but with more recent work Baker and his team at Cinovation were required to submit hundreds of designs for characters.
CGI gives visual effects teams the flexibility to create and re-design these characters during or after the film has been shot, all from the friendly confines of a desk. There’s no need to bring actors, directors, and the crew back to a set to re-shoot scenes, or to spend endless hours applying make-up or sewing hair into a gorilla suit. It’s something that makes it hard for a physical make-up guy like Baker to compete in today’s Hollywood.
Also making it difficult is how cheaply and quickly CGI can be created to make sure you see your favorite superheroes kicking butt on screen every summer. Of course, cheap doesn’t necessarily mean good, or having happy employees. Over 400 visual effects artists protested the 2013 Academy Awards over overtime, health benefits, and literally not being paid for their work. Unfortunately, cheap does mean that someone like Baker gets left behind when studios are budgeting their next box office blockbuster or bomb.
With the emergence of CGI taking jobs away, one would think that Baker would be opposed to CGI, but he’s more anti-bad director than anti-CGI. In December 2013, Baker told Tested:
“CGI is an amazing tool, and it’s only as good as the artist behind it. I think if you have a very talented director and give him good tools to use, he’ll make a good movie. If you have a crappy director, and give him good tools, he’ll still make a crappy movie.”
Baker’s retirement doesn’t mean the end of practical effects in Hollywood. The critically acclaimed and box office hit Mad Max: Fury Road relied heavily on stunt work and real car crashes instead of CGI, and the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens is going to blend CGI and practical effects after the prequels were bashed for their heavy use of digital effects.
Practical effect studios still exist, like Legacy Effects — founded by former project supervisors of Stan Winston’s after his death in 2008 — which has created practical effects for the Marvel movies and several commercials, including the KIA hamsters. Weta Workshop gained attention for its effects on the television series Hercules and Xena before working with Peter Jackson on the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit franchises.
Even Baker himself has not left out the possibility of consulting or working on future projects, and on Friday he tweeted:
I want you all to know that I will continue creating for as long as I am able to. I am excited for this new chapter of my life.
— Rick Baker (@TheRickBaker) May 29, 2015
So while the “monster maker” may be shutting down Cinovation, and has auctioned off items from his vast warehouse, practical effects are still alive and well in Hollywood. CGI allows us to see anything we want on the big screen, but not always with the heart and soul that practical effects with the help of an good actor can create.
