Cinefex Weekly Update | Issue 21

Artist Mark Raats found inspiration in an unlikely place -- in the faces and hearts of those within the visual effects community.

A native of South Africa, Raats (rhymes with 'dots') was enthralled with Disney animation as a child and spent his high school years drawing and creating crude animations at home. After high school and a mandatory two-year military service, Raats studied fine art in college, doing graphic design work for an advertising agency upon graduation. Subsequent employment in a computer firm introduced him to nascent digital graphics tools -- and a radically new approach to creating animated images. "It was fantastic," Raats said. "I remember doing an image of a diver underwater, swimming next to a marlin. Using digital graphics, I was able to create the backgrounds, the diver, little effects on the water. It was crude by today's standards, but it was very exciting to me at the time. I was really taken with the fact that I had been nowhere near a diver, nowhere near water, and nowhere near a marlin -- and yet I was able to create this image, which looked like it was taken with a camera!"

Raats established his own company in 1986 -- named 'PixStar,' a combination of 'pixel' and his surname, spelled backwards -- which provided 2D and 3D graphics and animation for television and multimedia events. In 2002, Raats closed shop, moved his family to Australia, and joined Rory Toner to form MRT Studios, which provides similar services.

Though his career path had moved him away from feature film animation, Raats maintained a keen interest in the field of film visual effects. "It had always fascinated me," Raats said, "from the time of 2001, and then Star Wars. When I saw those movies, I had an intense desire to learn how they had been achieved; and so I did anything I could to learn about the subject. Later, it was important to keep up with what was going on in visual effects, because the tools were very much the same as those I was using in my industry. What starts in motion pictures eventually trickles down to television and lower echelons of the production chain."

As part of his ongoing education, Raats attended SIGGRAPH as often as possible, where he not only saw the latest technology, but also bumped into prominent visual effects artists such as John Knoll, Phil Tippett, Craig Barron and Dennis Muren. "I'd have five or ten words with them, and they'd answer my questions," Raats recalled. "There was nothing profound about these meetings, but it was great to put a human face to these people who had worked so diligently behind the scenes."

In 2001, Raats began committing those faces to paper -- a gesture of tribute to what he saw as a largely unsung group of filmmaking heroes. "If there is one area of the film industry that the general public doesn't know," Raats commented, "it is the visual effects area. Audiences see the flying spaceship, but they don't know who makes the spaceship fly. They don't know the people behind the machine. I thought it might be fun to draw these people, to make them the stars."

Raats' first project was a poster he titled 'The Force Behind George Lucas,' which featured Lucas in the forefront, surrounded by the creative team that had been instrumental to the Star Wars films. He followed that with renderings of Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Rob Coleman, John Knoll, Rick Baker, Steve Gawley, Jean Bolte, and others. Raats expanded his scope to include people outside the visual effects arena, but still integral to big effects films -- such as composer John Williams, Star Wars renaissance man Ben Burtt and producer Rick McCallum. Raats also rendered more whimsical, cartoon-style depictions of George Lucas as Yoda and Steven Spielberg in Indiana Jones attire and attitude.

Initially, the drawings were purely for Raats' own entertainment. "I didn't think there would be much outside interest in these things," he admitted. "I just loved the people and I loved drawing them. I loved working with pencil and paper and pen, away from the computer, away from all the digital tools. I would sit at my dining room table and draw well into the night." The late-night amusement took on greater significance when the portraits began making their way to the subjects via the Internet, and -- much to Raats' surprise and delight -- they began to respond. "I got an email from Stan Winston's assistant, saying he wanted to speak to me, which was mind-boggling! Why the hell would Stan Winston want to talk to me? Soon after, I was privileged to have a conversation with him on the phone, in which he expressed his appreciation for what I had done. He asked if I could send him a print. I said, 'Oh, no, I'll send you the original.' So I sent him the original and a print; and he signed the print for me and sent it back. That kind of positive feedback was really gratifying."

Raats received similar feedback from other subjects, as well, and these long-distance connections led to his meeting many of them in person during a recent trip to the United States. As he had with Winston, Raats delivered the original drawings to the subjects, some of which now hang on their walls, and kept signed copies for himself.

Through contacts at Industrial Light & Magic and elsewhere, Raats is acquiring hard-to-find reference material that will enable him to draw more visual effects artists, and the collection continues to grow -- for now. "There are a million visual effects artists out there," Raats commented, "and I've drawn 12 so far. Obviously, I can't draw them all; but I'm still enjoying doing these portraits. At this point, it is a hobby. But if this hobby leads to an opportunity to move away from the digital field and back into the traditional art field, I'll take it."