Craig Barron

Craig Barron
Born	April 6, 1961 Berkeley, California, US
Occupation	Visual effects supervisor
Years active	1979 – present
Website
Matte World Digital

Craig Barron (born April 6, 1961)^[1] is an American visual-effects supervisor who specializes in seamless matte painting effects. He is also a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and film historian. Barron is a member of the Academy Board of Governors, representing the visual effects branch.^[2]

Biography

Craig Barron has worked on notable VFX shots in feature films, including the secret government warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark,^[3] the Gotham City skyline of Batman Returns, the approach to Dracula's castle in Bram Stoker's Dracula, the 1970s-era Las Vegas strip in Casino, the Carpathia rescue ship at the end of Titanic, and 1970s-era San Francisco in Zodiac. In 2009, Barron won Academy and BAFTA Awards for achievement in visual effects for his work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.^[4][5]

Early career

Barron was born in Berkeley, California in 1961. He started working at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) at age 18, then the youngest person at ILM, to work on the matte-effects photography for George Lucas' Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.^[6] At ILM Barron would continue to composite matte-painting scenes on such landmark productions as Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. From 1984 to 1988 he was supervisor of photography at ILM’s matte department.^[7]

Matte World Digital

In 1988, Barron co-founded Matte World with matte painter Michael Pangrazio^[8] and executive producer Krystyna Demkowicz. The company provided realistic matte-painting effects to clients in the entertainment industry. Barron renamed the company Matte World Digital in 1992 to reflect the new technological tools available to matte painters. MWD created digital-matte environments for feature films, television, electronic games, and IMAX large-format productions.

Matte World Digital served the visions of such filmmakers as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, and David Fincher. In 1990, Barron and members of the MWD crew won an Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects for the HBO production By Dawn’s Early Light.^[9] Its feature-film work ranged from the traditional painted-on-glass matte work of Batman Returns,^[10] to the digital effects of Hugo, Captain America: The First Avenger, Zodiac, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which won the Academy Award for achievement in visual effects in 2009.

In 2012, MWD closed after 24 years of service.^[11] The last shots worked on at MWD were for Martin Scorsese's Hugo.

Independent film work

Barron independently directed the science-fiction short, The Utilizer and a companion "making of" documentary, both of which were broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel in 1996. The Utilizer won a number of film-festival awards, including best special effects at the Chicago International Film Festival.^[12]

Barron is a founding member of the Visual Effects Society (VES), formed in 1997 to represent VFX producers in film, television and video games. In 2013, he received the VES Founders Award, and will serve on the 2014/15 VES Board.^[13]

Authorship

Early in his career at ILM, Barron's interest in traditional matte-painting techniques led him to interview retired matte painters and technicians, who revealed the secrets of their visual-effects shots in classic films for the first time. Barron's interviews focused on the art and craft of this until-then hidden technology in such classic films as Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, and The Wizard of Oz.^[14] His oral history of movie-making, combined with a growing collection of VFX film clips, movie stills, and behind-the-scenes photographs, led Barron to co-write with Mark Cotta Vaz the first comprehensive film history book of matte painting, The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Painting, published by Chronicle Books in 2002. Christopher Benfey's review in the New York Times called the book eye-opening, saying it "increases our wonder at this heretofore 'invisible art.'"^[15]

Lectures and presentations

Barron is an ongoing lecturer for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Theater Programs. Since 2006, he has presented public screenings, often partnering with sound designer Ben Burtt, demonstrating the art of matte painting and VFX techniques of classic films such as Modern Times, The Rains Came, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and Gunga Din.^{[16][17][18][19]}

In the 2010 Academy screening of "Me Tarzan, You Technology," Barron demonstrated how the MGM visual effects crews of the 1930s Tarzan films used rear-projection and matte paintings to create what film critic Leonard Maltin describes as a vivid atmosphere with majestic settings.^[20][21]

Barron and Burtt teamed up again in 2011 to demonstrate the groundbreaking visual effects and sound design for Forbidden Planet, the classic 1956 science-fiction film. For this Academy screening, "Mysteries of the Krell," presented in Los Angeles, Barron and Burtt rediscovered and presented rare miniatures, production designs, props and analog source tapes from the electronic soundtrack of the film. The screening was in conjunction with an Academy gallery show featuring artifacts from the movie, including the original Robby the Robot prop.^[22]

Documentaries

Barron provides interviews and 3D effects demonstrations in a number of Criterion's Blu-ray documentary supplements for classic silent comedies. In A Bucket of Water and a Glass Matte, on the 2010 release of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, he and Ben Burtt demonstrate Chaplin's use of miniatures and sound effects in the film's factory and roller-skating scenes. The 2013 release of Chaplin's City Lights features an interview with Barron, who talks about Chaplin's studio and the large sets he created to give the illusion of outdoor locations. In Locations and Effects on the 2013 release of Harold Lloyd's Safety Last!, Barron and film writer John Bengtson examine the illusion of height in Lloyd's famous "building climb" scene. They visit the location of the original film-shoot and Barron demonstrates the effect with computer-animation.^[23][24][25]

Current VFX work

In 2013, Barron worked at Tippett Studio, developing digital matte painting environments for film and commercial productions, alongside his former co-worker on earlier Star Wars films, Phil Tippett.^[26] As of 2014, he will partner with Magnopus (a consolidation of "Magnum Opus"--"Great Work" in Latin), a visual research and development company based in downtown Los Angeles..

Innovations

Matte World Digital was the first in the industry to apply radiosity rendering to film in Martin Scorsese’s Casino.^[27] Barron's VFX crew collaborated with software company, LightScape, to simulate the indirect bounce-light effect of millions of neon lights of the 1970s-era Las Vegas strip.^[28] Significantly, radiosity rendering provided a true simulation of bounce-light in a computer-generated environment.^[29]

Barron's cinematographic work was honored in 2002 when he was named associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers.

To recreate 1970s-era San Francisco in David Fincher's Zodiac, MWD shot digital images of existing city-building textures, then added painted period details for establishing shots. One such shot includes the Embarcadero Freeway alongside the Ferry Building and San Francisco Bay. The freeway had been demolished after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake but was digitally "rebuilt" to visually set the time-frame for the film. To show time passing within the era, CG lighting techniques were applied for an animated sequence showing the Transamerica Pyramid being built. The shot was based on research Barron had done using historical photographs and architectural drawings.^[30]

Barron worked with Fincher again, creating several digital matte-painting environments at MWD for the 2008 film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The interior of the film's New Orleans train station would change and deteriorate throughout 29 shots representing different eras. MWD built one 3D station model and aged it using Next Limit's Maxwell rendering software. The software is generally an architectural visualization and product-design tool. The software was revamped by MWD to mimic real-world lighting as seen from multiple angles and light sources.^[31]

Awards and honors

Film and television awards

• Emmy for outstanding visual effects - By Dawn’s Early Light, 1990.
• Nominated for Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and BAFTA Awards for achievement in visual effects - Batman Returns, 1992.
• Gold Plaque for best special effects, Chicago International Film Festival - The Utilizer, 1996.
• Nominated for BAFTA for achievement in special visual effects for The Truman Show, 1999.
• Nominated for VES Award for outstanding visual effects in a special venue project for Greece: Secrets of the Past, 2006.
• Nominated for VES Award for outstanding visual effects in a motion picture for Zodiac, 2007.
• Oscar and BAFTA Awards for achievement in visual effects - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2009.
• Visual Effects Society Founders Award, 2013

Publications

• Outstanding Book on Film award from the Theatre Library Association of New York - The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Painting, co-authored with Mark Cotta Vaz, 2002.
• Golden Pen book award from Theatre Technology - The Invisible Art, 2002.

Honors

• Academy Board of Governors member representing the visual effects branch.^[32]
• Member of the American Society of Cinematographers.
• Founding member of the Visual Effects Society.

Publications

• The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Painting by Craig Barron and Mark Cotta Vaz, Chronicle Books, 2002; ISBN 0-8118-4515-X
• Matte Painting in the Digital Age - transcript from Craig Barron's speech for SIGGRAPH's "Invisible Effects" series, July 23, 1998

Selected filmography

• Hugo, 2011
• Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011
• Alice in Wonderland, 2010
• My Sister's Keeper, 2009
• Terminator Salvation, 2009
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine, 2009
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2008
• The Golden Compass, 2007
• Zodiac, 2007
• The Last Samurai, 2003
• Jurassic Park III, 2001
• X-Men, 2000
• Mission: Impossible II, 2000
• The Green Mile, 1999
• The Truman Show, 1998
• Titanic, 1997
• Star Trek: First Contact, 1996
• Independence Day, 1996
• Casino, 1995
• Clear and Present Danger, 1994
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1992
• Batman Returns, 1992
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991
• Arachnophobia, 1990
• By Dawn's Early Light (television), 1990
• The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988
• Willow, 1988
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 1986
• Labyrinth, 1986
• The Goonies, 1985
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, 1983
• Poltergeist, 1982
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 1982
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982
• Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, 1980

References

External links

• Craig Barron at the Internet Movie Database
• Matte World Digital
• The Utilizer at the Internet Movie Database
• The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Painting | Google Book Search