A few weeks ago I was flattered to find that a blog post of mine about computer-generated imagery had elicited a comment from Scott Squires, a longtime visual effects supervisor whose credits include Willow, The Mask, and Starship Troopers. Squires politely took me to task for suggesting that the failure of so many recent Hollywood productions can be blamed on overabundant computer graphics. “Why people continue to blame CG as the reason for poor films . . . is beyond me,” he wrote. The look of a movie, he added, “comes down to the director[s] and how they choose to use the tools. [Directors] constantly zooming in every shot would be no different. You wouldn’t blame the lens for the problem.” I appreciated Squires for sharing his expert opinion, and after checking out his blog I got in touch with him in hopes that he’d have more to say. We ended up speaking for an hour on a range of topics related to special effects: the merits of analogue versus digital imagery, the relationship between effects artists and other members of a film production team, and Squires’s own storied career.
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