Old Photos In The Attic: Pinewood Studios / Image Animation (1997-2005)
More scans from the big shoebox of photos I found in the attic. These are from my time working for Bob Keen’s Image Animation company at Pinewood Studios in the late ‘90s / early 2000s. If you were a British horror fan in the 1980s, Bob and Image were the bee’s knees because of their effects work on the HELLRAISER films, so it was a definite "pinch me" moment to find myself working there. I got my start by sending in photos of my student work (by post - this was 1996, so pre-Internet for most people); a few weeks later I got a phone call out of nowhere asking if I was interested in a runner position on EVENT HORIZON. Yes, I was interested.
Everyone’s so accustomed to casually snapping high-quality photos with their phones these days that it's easy to forget how *difficult* it was to take a photograph a quarter of a century ago. You had to be actively carrying a camera, that camera had to have film in it, there had to be enough light to get a good exposure, you had to drop off and collect your photos from the developers, you then had to scan them in if you wanted to share them online, etc, etc. So you end up with the silly situation where a Saturday afternoon trip to the zoo with my kids in the 2010s is better documented than a month-long art project in the 1990s. In fairness, that *was* a wild trip to the zoo.
A work-in-progress alien sculpt I did for the deservedly forgotten Leslie Nielsen comedy, 2001: A SPACE TRAVESTY (2000). Subtlety and restraint were *not* a concern on this project :D
The final costumed monstrosity. Years later, I was passing London's Planet Hollywood and this damn thing was in the window. I'm sure PH's patrons go to see iconic props from iconic films, so I'm not sure what went wrong here
EVENT HORIZON (1997): Remnants of a full-sized brittle wax figure, for a scene where a frozen corpse falls & shatters. Dave Bonneywell masterminded this effect, I was just on hand to slather wax & grab anything that threatened to topple over
The Shattering Man effect as seen in the film. Just prior to this shot: six of us up a scaffold holding this fragile wax figure out by our very fingertips and hoping they’re going to roll camera really, *really* soon
The Image workshop crew, Pinewood Studios, 1999: Simon Donaldson, Dave Bonneywell, hobbit-haired me, Craig Narramore, Pete Hawkins, Rich St.Clair, Dave Mundin, Keith Wilson, Martha Fein, Rob Mayor
Marker-pen production sketches I did to illustrate the script for a children's fantasy film that Bob was trying to get off the ground. That was the fun thing about working at Image, Bob would throw these random creative tasks into your lap every day
Same story
Some traditional-media creature designs I drew for who-knows-what unrealised project
As above. This was back when the entire industry was very enamoured with the pencil-and-eraser concept art Crash McCreery was doing for Stan Winston Studio :D
A comedy alien I sculpted for 2001: A SPACE TRAVESTY (2000).
Random 2001: AST alien designs
Sculpting a pterodactyl embryo for a 1998 film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD, directed by Bob. He looks so happy, which is completely unintentional!
Here's a relic from a bygone age - a TV listings magazine! I sculpted the silver helmeted Ice Warrior on the left. This "Gladiators on ice" game show went out during ITV's Saturday teatime slot until they realised no-one really liked it :D
A friendly snowman character I sculpted for a Norwegian children's TV series in the vein of Teletubbies. I sculpted her pal too, but I can't find the photo for the life of me
An animatronic mascot I sculpted & cast out for Cadbury World theme park. The eyes moved around via internal magnets or somesuch. The finished thing had a monocle too, the icing on the cake for any character design I'm sure you'll agree
Martin Astles and I act the goat in front of masks being prepped for some Jonathan Ross thing. I had nothing to do with these, I was just in the same room at the time. But I'll step in and pull faces next to monsters any time you like.
Egyptian headdresses I made for a Perrier advert directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. After 15 years of working with pristine CG surfaces, these look very shonky and home-arts-&-crafts. Invent a time machine & I'll go back and fix them!
We built an anatomically-correct cow for ISOLATION (2005), & this photo opportunity presented itself. I suppose you'll have to take my word for it that that *is* me. By the way, the cow looks like a giant soft toy 'cos it's not been painted yet
The ISOLATION creature workshop, on location in Dublin in January. The crew on this were lovely, but the shoot was the coldest, wettest experience of my life, and definitely gave me an extra nudge to seek out the dry, warm offices of games development
Fake child heads for LAZARUS CHILD (2004). I sculpted these from photos, due to an unusable lifecast (left). Normally I'd prefer to take the time to do something, well, better than this, but these only existed to be whacked by a speeding car, so OK
The Image workshop display area. I made none of this, it's just presented as a fun reminder of the days when film creatures were rubber puppets & costumes, rather than CG. Note HELLRAISER's Pinhead & puzzle box on the left
Image front & back. I remember spending hours jetwashing maggots off rubber EVENT HORIZON corpses, ‘cos we used sugar solution for the fake blood that had flies swarming to it. Weirdly fun memories, just for the “well, this is unique" factor
Some nice time-capsule photos of late '90s Pinewood. As the name suggests, the football-pitch-sized “007” Bond stage has hosted countless action-adventure spectaculars over the years - they were constantly setting fire to it or blasting holes in the roof
Pinewood Studios, 1997. It's notable in hindsight how easy-going the security was - if you were driving you'd be stopped at a barrier, but on foot you could breeze straight through this gate, and I did so every day. More innocent times.