Phil Tippett is a Californian stop-motion animator and creature designer. He is most notable for his work on the Star Wars movies, where he fabricated and animated various creatures and vehicles including the four-legged AT-AT walkers during the opening battle scene of "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back".
He is credited as being the founder of the "Go Motion" technique of stop motion animation, which differs from standard stop-mo as the animator does not move the character, then take a picture, the animator uses rods and wires to move the character and capture the frame as the subject is moving. This creates a unique motion blur effect, that gives an incredibly smooth movement. This was a particularly successful endevour in the 1981 movie "Dragonslayer", which I feel stars the most exceptionally well animated dragon ever commited to celluloid. So well animated infact, that Tippett was nominated for an Academy Award that same year.
An interesting point to note about Phil Tippett, is that he was in-line to be the lead animator on Jurassic Park, before Steven Spielberg opted for CGI creatures instead of Go Motion puppets.
In recent years Tippett has worked on hugely popular films such as Starship Troopers and The Spiderwick Chronicles as a Creature Designer.
He is credited as being the founder of the "Go Motion" technique of stop motion animation, which differs from standard stop-mo as the animator does not move the character, then take a picture, the animator uses rods and wires to move the character and capture the frame as the subject is moving. This creates a unique motion blur effect, that gives an incredibly smooth movement. This was a particularly successful endevour in the 1981 movie "Dragonslayer", which I feel stars the most exceptionally well animated dragon ever commited to celluloid. So well animated infact, that Tippett was nominated for an Academy Award that same year.
An interesting point to note about Phil Tippett, is that he was in-line to be the lead animator on Jurassic Park, before Steven Spielberg opted for CGI creatures instead of Go Motion puppets.
In recent years Tippett has worked on hugely popular films such as Starship Troopers and The Spiderwick Chronicles as a Creature Designer.
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