Content area
Full Text
It's hard to find a fighter pilot willing to put his aircraft into a flat spin, and the U.S. Navy is resistant to the idea of blowing a multi-million dollar aircraft apart for the sake of a movie shot. That's why the ultra-realistic aerial drama, Top Gun, was augmented with startling scenes of jet planes exploding and crashing which were filmed with scale models. Like the actual aerial photography which is featured throughout, these visual effects scenes convey an impression of stark reality.
The British director of features and television specials, Tony Scott, realized that a single "phony" effect shot would invalidate all the good scenes that were being made with the help of the Navy. He sketched out his ideas and sent them to the company which had done the sort of work he needed: USFX, of San Francisco, a subsidiary of Colossal Pictures. He had seen their work in the most realistic of space dramas, The Right Stuff.
Gary Gutierrez, creative director at USFX, and a fine storyboard artist in his own right, was fascinated. "In this case, Tony Scott, who has an art background, sent me little thumbnail sketches of what he wanted. Storyboards are a good way to communicate with everybody and get down your ideas. Tony is visually articulate, he knows what he wants, and he's a perfectionist. His being able to draw made it easy for us to communicate. We'd take his sketches and put them right into our own boards." It made for a good relationship, and the results are stunning.
Gutierrez has that rare combination of artistic and technical aptitudes that go into the makeup of the better visual effects experts. He was born in Atlanta, March 23, 1947, the son of a career Air Force man and a nurse. He studied art at the University of Nevada and the San Francisco Art Institute, in the meantime learning the fundamentals of filmmaking through self study. With a Bolex 16 mm (purchased on time payments) he made a documentary about a San Francisco street preacher, Brother Jim, and changed his major to film. Through the honors system he was awarded an apprenticeship with Korty Film, where he remained for five years as an animator and cowriter for...