Document details

How Special Film Effects Brought Elliot to Life on Screen
Scott Henderson

The whole bag of cinemagic tricks-including blue screen, sodium light, miniatures and triple-head optical printing-was called upon to give screen credibility to this very special dragon In "PETE'S DRAGON", Eustace Lycett, head of the special film effects department at Walt Disney Productions, faced a formidable challenge - bringing Elliot, a somewhat unusual dragon, to life. Lycett, a 40-year veteran at the Disney Studio, played a crucial role in the birth of Elliot, the animated star of the $10 million feature film. Lycett's job was to help make the now you see him - now you don't - dragon spring to life in the film's live-action sequences. "Special effects is the discipline called upon when the writers' imaginations demand 'impractical' or 'impossible' feats," Lycett explains. Sometimes the necessary miracles are performed mechanically. Lycett believes that mechanical special effects supervisor Danny Lee produced some outstanding results for the new film. Some of Lee's trickery is described in the accompanying interview with Frank Phillips, ASC. Lycett performed the special effects feats that could best be achieved optically. For "PETE'S DRAGON", his wizardry included blue screen and sodium light process photography, a miniature sea storm sequence and a great deal of compositing using two three-head optical printers. […]

Location

Primary location: The Internet Archive

Source

Title
Source type Magazine
Volume 58.10
Published
Language en
Document type Feature
Media type text
Page count 2
Pages pp. 1036-1037

Metadata

Id 3145
Availability Free
Inserted 2017-03-24