American Cinematographer - February 2008 - (Page 59) bumpers; there, he worked alongside giants such as Con Pederson and Dave Stewart. Abel’s agency clients always wanted something new, so experimentation was encouraged. Edlund built his own animation setup, “Camera 2,” with machinist Dick Alexander. “Then, with Richard Taylor, I developed a novel concept for animated graphics that Abel loved — he dubbed it ‘candy-apple neon.’ He flew off to New York and sold the concept for the 7-Up bubbles commercials based on my first wedges. “We had a lot of really jazzy ideas,” continues Edlund. “We used stepping motors and crude, punchtape motion control; we used video feedback of the butterfly girl flying through on wires, shot with dozens of passes and with lots of colors changing and pulsating. There was way too much happening in the shots to take in in one viewing, and the agency ate that idea up. It was the ultimate eye candy of the mid-’70s.” Soon, the competition started copying Abel’s graphics, and Edlund, tired of shooting animation in dark rooms, rebuilt a high-speed camera and talked Abel into branching out. They created another eradefining spot: the Clairol ad where a gorgeous model suggestively swirls her hair through the frame in ultraslow motion. Their technique with shooting motion-control moves was getting better, and that brought other filmmakers into Edlund’s life who would forever change it. “That’s how I met John Dykstra [ASC], who one day got a call from [producer] Gary Kurtz about a movie called The Star Wars. They were looking for someone to do miniature effects because there was no infrastructure for that work anymore; the studios had closed their visual-effects departments in the late ’50s.” Dykstra became the point man for filmmaker George Lucas and was entrusted with setting up a Left: At work on Raiders of the Lost Ark, Edlund talks over a shot with director Steven Spielberg (center) and producer George Lucas. Below: Raiders star Harrison Ford playfully tests his whip on Edlund between takes. visual-effects facility to tackle the complex shots Star Wars demanded (AC July ’77). One of Dykstra’s first hires was Edlund, whose knowledge of bluescreen photography, gearhead approach to mechanical problems and drive to push the limits of technology were key to achieving what Lucas had in mind. Edlund immediately looked up a number of visual-effects masters, including ASC members Farciot Edouart, Hans Koenenkamp, Winton Hoch and Linwood Dunn, and sought their advice. “I wanted to talk to them so I wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel,” says Edlund. “Star Wars was going to require the resurrection of the sleeping giant of visual effects.” This was in 1975, when hardware and photochemistry were the name of the effects game, and Edlund brainstormed Rube Goldbergesque devices that could deliver the shots Lucas wanted. “I designed all the equipment on an Ace 4-by-5-inch drawing pad, using my finger to draw straight lines, then gave them to Don Trumbull, who’d show up two weeks later with the equipment,” recalls Edlund. “I brought in David Grafton to design a special lens for the element printer, and worked with Dykstra and Al Miller on figuring out how to ratio the electronics. We were building the whole facility from scratch.” That took nearly a year. “Nine months after we got our go-ahead, Jim Nelson, the production manager and associate producer, got on the American Cinematographer 59
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.