Craig Barron

Craig Barron is an American Academy-Award winning visual-effects supervisor who specializes in seamless matte painting effects. He is also a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and film historian who is co-founder and head of the visual effects company, Matte World Digital. Barron is a member of the Academy Board of Governors, representing the visual effects branch.^[1]

Biography

Barron has worked on many notable shots in feature films, including the secret government warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark;^[2] the Gotham City skyline of Batman Returns; the approach to Dracula's castle in Bram Stoker's Dracula;^[3] the 1970s-era Las Vegas strip in Casino;^[4] the Carpathia rescue ship at the end of Titanic;^[5] and 1970s-era San Francisco in Zodiac.^[6] In 2009 Barron won Academy and BAFTA Awards for achievement in visual effects for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.^[7][8]

Early career

Barron was born in Berkeley, California in 1961. He started working at Industrial Light & Magic 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.^[9] At ILM Barron would continue to photographically 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.^[10]

Barron’s mentors include matte-painting masters and visual-effects artists, Peter Ellenshaw and Albert Whitlock. His career has been shaped by many of the past masters he has met, and he gained particular inspiration from the late Linwood G. Dunn, the opticals genius behind such classics as King Kong and Citizen Kane. Dunn once told him there were two kinds of visual effects shots: obvious fantasy, and realism that doesn’t draw attention to itself. Dunn believed that realistic effects, which have to blend perfectly, are the greatest challenge and ironically, that work is often unsung, because it should be invisible to the audience.

Matte World Digital

In 1988, Barron co-founded Matte World with matte painter Michael Pangrazio^[11] and executive producer Krystyna Demkowicz. The company formed to provide realistic matte-painting effects to clients throughout the entertainment industry. Barron re-named the company Matte World Digital in 1992 to reflect the new technological tools available to matte painters. MWD creates digital-matte environments for feature films, television, electronic games, and IMAX large-format productions.

MWD was the first in the industry to apply radiosity rendering to film in Martin Scorsese’s Casino.^[12] Barron's visual-effects 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.^[13] Significantly, radiosity rendering provided a true simulation of bounce-light in a computer-generated environment.^[14] Barron's cinematographic work would be honored in 2002 when he was named associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers.

MWD has received awards and nominations for excellence from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and BAFTA, and in 1990 won an Emmy for Outstanding Visual Effects for the HBO production By Dawn’s Early Light.^[15] The company has served the visions of such filmmakers as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, and David Fincher. Its feature film work ranges from Academy Award-nominated effects for Batman Returns,^[16] to recent productions, Zodiac, The Golden Compass, Oscar-winning The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (achievement in visual effects), Terminator Salvation, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Independent work and authorship

After leaving ILM, Barron 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.^[17] In 1997, Barron became a founding member of the Visual Effects Society.

Earlier in his career, Barron had conducted interviews with traditional matte painters and matte-painting technicians, many who revealed the secrets of their techniques for the first time. This oral history of movie-making along with an extensive collection of visual-effects film clips, movie stills and behind-the-scenes photographs, led to the first and only comprehensive book about the history of matte painting, The Invisible Art: The Legends of Movie Matte Painting, co-written with Mark Cotta Vaz and published by Chronicle Books in 2002.

Barron is an ongoing lecturer for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Science and Technology Council and Samuel Goldwyn Theater Programs. Since 2006, he has presented lectures covering the art of matte painting and the visual effects techniques of classic films such as Modern Times, The Rains Came, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and Gunga Din.^{[18][19][20][21]}

In 2008, Barron celebrated the twentieth anniversary of Matte World Digital and a personal milestone of having worked on one hundred films. His current projects include an IMAX production about the origin of the universe, developed with theoretical physicist Stephen W. Hawking.^[22] Barron lives in Marin County, California.

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.

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.
• 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 081184515X
• SIGGRAPH 1998 - Matte Painting in the Digital Age | Speech from the "Invisible Effects" series | Craig Barron | 1998

Selected filmography

• 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: 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