| This article or section is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view. For blatant advertising that would require a fundamental rewrite to become encyclopedic, use {{db-spam}} to mark for speedy deletion. (September 2007) |
Tippett Studio is an Academy Award-winning visual effects company specializing in computer-generated imagery (CGI) for movies and television commercials. Animation pioneer Phil Tippett founded the studio in 1984 as a place where artists and filmmakers could come together to create fantastic images of enormous complexity and beauty while maintaining a non-corporate, hands-on, filmmaker-friendly environment with his partners Jules Roman and Craig Hayes.
Tippett Studio has created visual effects and animations on over 50 feature films and commercials, garnering multiple Academy Awards nominations, and one win for Jurassic Park, four Clio awards for the Carl & Ray Blockbuster commercials, and two Emmy Awards for Dinosaur! and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.
Contents |
Tippett Studio first began as a stop-motion animation company, designing and building live action props for movies like RoboCop, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Ghost and RoboCop 2. In 1991, Tippett Studio embraced the change to computer-generated imagery for Jurassic Park by developing the Digital Input Device (DID). Designed by Craig Hayes, the DID was an important new effects technology which places computer-linked sensors into the moving joints of three dimensional, articulated character models. This innovation earned Craig a Scientific and Technical Achievement Academy Award and the work on Jurassic Park earned the studio an Oscar. Creature animation work for Coneheads was the last stop-motion puppet project done by this company.
1997 saw the release of Starship Troopers, at the time Tippett Studio’s biggest project, with over 500 effects scenes. Phil Tippett co-directed, with Paul Verhoeven, the large-scale battle sequences. The studio doubled in size to digitally animate and composite hundreds of creature shots for the film. The work resulted in another Academy Award nomination.
Early in 2000 the studio re-teamed with Paul Verhoeven on Hollow Man. Craig Hayes co-supervised the creation of the invisible Sebastian whose outline becomes visible in steam, rain, water and even blood. The outstanding visual effects was recognized with another Academy Award nomination.
Today, Tippett Studio is currently in production on multiple commercial projects as well as two feature films – Enchanted for Disney and The Spiderwick Chronicles for Paramount. The studio is made up of 160 employees and located in Berkeley, California.
No comments have been added.