The AnimWatch Blog

After I spent all my allowance on model kits to bash, Plaster of Paris to make landscapes, and countless bottles of modelling glue and paint, and then filled cannisters of 8mm film on my little special effects and stop-motion animated shenanigans, I found myself out of money. This is when I discovered, as many art departments before me, that pen-and-paper is much cheaper than Building Stuff Willy Nilly. (Side note: if your last name is NILLY and you are looking for names for your soon-to-arrive son, think twice about William.)This is when the other book found its way into my hands: The Star Wars Sketchbook, featuring the pre-production drawings of Joe Johnston. The designs this guy came up with set the look and feel for pretty much every sci-fi production for the next 20 or so years. But his line quality is to die for! It is at the same time precise and effortless.I love the attention to detail. All those Greebles on the ships, senseless visual noise, while at the same time suggesting utility and scale. The main thing that impressed me is that Johnston’s designs actually look like things humans would build. They’re not all round and smooth and shiny and bright. They look like artifacts from a used, lived-in universe, which is what George Lucas wanted.

It is safe to say that Joe Johnston taught me how to draw vehicles. I began by tracing the drawings in that book, and then I graduated to copying them by eye. Finally, I let go of that comfortable artistic embrace and wobbled out into the deep water on my own, but I don’t think I ever truly let go. Johnston’s influence shows in my work today, although I never did truly get his line work down. Here are some examples of his fine, fine work.

Joe’s gone on to become a director, where he’s achieved notable success with films such as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Jumanji, October Sky, and Hidalgo. But it’s fun to think that his drawings as a lowly designer on a small film in the mid-seventies inspired me way back when.

But he also taught me a bit about managing production. More on that tomorrow…

Well, it’s almost been 30 years since the original Star Wars came out. I suppose the readers of this BLOG can be effectively broken into three camps:Some, like my former Art Director, will only shrug, and perhaps yawn. No Star Wars fan, he. Some, who were not born when the movie came out, will perhaps wonder if I am speaking of one of the Prequels released this century. (I am not). The rest of you, who were old enough to remember when the movie came out, will think, “Dear God. Can it already have been 30 years?”

Yup, you old fart. It’s been 30 years.

So much of what made me want to draw, made me want to make movies, made me want to write, was in that original movie. No matter how schlocky and melodramatic the film may seem to you now, it was magical. Sure I was only 11 when I first saw it, but it really hooked me, as it did an entire generation.

And where I was concerned, the film actually had a lot to overcome. First, I didn’t like sci fi as a kid. Found it dreadfully boring. Second, it had the word WAR in it, and I didn’t want to see a bunch of soldiers running around shooting at each other. (I also found war movies boring.)

But mostly, even as an 11 year old, I had a cynical voice in the back of my mind asking whether Star Wars was just a piece of government sponsored propoganda designed to show young kids that War was Cool. (Yes, I was a strange little kid, but remember that the Vietnam War had just ended poorly, a conflict my older brother and his friends narrowly escaped. It was a scary time and I had no desire to be a soldier.)

But the colors, the effects, the spaceships, the music, and the characters all added up to something special that I don’t think has been duplicated. Like I said, it was magical, and by the time the smoke of the first battle had cleared, I didn’t care about whether it was sci-fi or not, about whether it was war or not. My jaw was on the floor and I wanted to know what happened next.

There was a book that came out not long after Star Wars became a phenomenon. I saw it on the bus on the way to school when I was 12. That’s the cover in the header of this article, and of course it uses the art from the Hildebrandt brothers’ great Star Wars movie poster. Believe me, for years, everything I drew looked like that poster. (A shame the title blocks out all but “BRANDT” from their name…)

Anyway, the kid next to me on the bus let me look through it on the way to school, and I saw something that would wind up having a huge impact on me, perhaps even leading to my current career.

More on that tomorrow.