Cinefex Weekly Update | Issue 30

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Book Review by Jody Duncan

Those who attended this year's Comic-Con in San Diego had the opportunity to purchase advance copies of AVP: The Creature Effects of ADI, a new book by Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated co-founders Tom Woodruff, Jr. and Alec Gillis, prominent practitioners of the creature effects craft for 20-plus years. The book illustrates, in 600 beautifully reproduced photographs, the creation of the creature effects in Alien Vs. Predator.

"Alec and I had talked about doing a book for years," said Woodruff. "So much of creature effects work is misunderstood or overlooked; and, for the most part, most people don't see that aspect of making movies. There have been a lot of behind-the-scenes books on movies we've worked on -- but, usually, we are relegated to a single chapter. Because Alien Vs. Predator had such a huge dose of our creature effects in it, we felt it was a great opportunity to do a book that was totally devoted to the work that came out of our shop."

Envisioning the book as a high-end photo album of the AVP project, Gillis and Woodruff also considered it an opportunity to recognize the many artists and technicians who had contributed so much to ADI's projects -- while receiving relatively little credit. "We wanted to celebrate not only the work, but the people who do the work," Gillis said, "the people who don't get the kind of recognition they deserve. So, we decided to include about 30 artist profiles in the book. We hoped future generations of creature makers might find inspiration in those profiles, because they reveal the many different backgrounds of the people in this field."

The book project started with a meeting between Gillis and Woodruff and executives at Twentieth Century Fox -- the studio behind AVP -- in which the pair pitched their ideas for the book and a publisher. "We were very big fans of Scott Robertson at Design Studio Press," said Gillis. "Scott has done various design and art books. Guys like Carlos Huantes and Steve Berg have had their work published in his books. Scott went into Fox and showed them his previous publications and the kind of high-quality books he does, and they immediately said, 'This is our guy.'"

When Woodruff and Gillis returned home from Prague, where AVP was filmed, in the middle of March of this year, they had approximately eight weeks in which to write and lay out the book. "At that point," recalled Woodruff, "the only thing we'd done -- because it was the only thing we could do ahead of time -- was have our graphic artist and book designer, Chris Ayres, start going through the 1200 images we had. We had to hit the ground running to get the book turned around by May, so that it would be out when the film opened in August."

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In eight chapters and 128 pages, the book chronicles the progress of the AVP assignment, from design to build to final on-the-set performance. In addition to the artist bios, the text is made up of Gillis' and Woodruff's first-person observations. "There are Tom's thoughts on what it is like to be the most experienced suit performer in the industry today," said Gillis. "He doesn't call himself that, of course -- but he is. Our goal was to make the book very personal, to infuse it with our humor and our thoughts on the subject. Rather than get super-technical and make it a point-by-point description of how everything was built, we aimed to make it a fun read for the market that will see this movie -- which is probably people between 15 and 25 years old. Hopefully, the general effects fan will appreciate it, as well."

Structured chronologically, the book starts with a history of the Alien creature effects, and how ADI came to be associated with the franchise, then continues on to design, sculpture, lab work, mechanical work, finishing, and a chapter on shooting on the set in Prague. One of the chapters is titled 'Effects Philosophy,' which details the approach Woodruff, Gillis, AVP visual effects supervisor John Bruno and director Paul W.S. Anderson took to the film's creature effects. "This chapter also gets into the corporatization of effects in general," said Gillis, "and how that is producing a sameness of quality. Before, you had brilliant, individual visionaries like Dick Smith or Ray Harryhausen doing effects. Now, you have corporations. There are very talented people within those corporations, but it is still a factory approach -- and there is a price to pay for that."

Citing beginner's luck, Woodruff and Gillis did not experience many of the trials that can accompany the writing of a movie companion book. "Fox was amazingly quick in turning around approvals for the shots we wanted to run in the book," said Woodruff. "They were positive and enthusiastic about the book every step of the way, and we had their full support and help."

Gillis has another book coming out from Design Studio Press, titled Worlds, which was actually in the works a long time prior to AVP: The Creature Effects of ADI. "I've been working on this book for seven years," Gillis said. "It is a science fiction publication, a National Geographic-style exploration of life-supporting planets, but with a human story running through it. It is almost like a documentary film concerning a space explorer -- but in book form."

AVP: The Creature Effects of ADI will be in book stores the first week in August, and can be ordered at the publisher's web site, www.designstudiopress.com. Worlds will be available, as well, in the Fall.

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Compiled by Joe Fordham

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