SCOTT FARRAR

Visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic. Academy Award for Cocoon. Other credits include Star Trek 11/III/VI, Back to the Future II/III, Backdraft, Alive, Wolf, Congo, Casper, Daylight, Men in Black, Deep Impact and The Mummy.
I was thrilled when I saw The Empire Strikes Back- especially the sequence where all the ships are rounding up the walkers. It was a kind of aerial ballet, which to me, at the time, seemed startlingly good. I had actually just missed the opportunity to work on Empire. I got a job at Universal Hartland to work on Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica -and one week later, ILM called, but it was too late. Then when I saw the movie, I remember thinking: “Doggone it! That is great work!” 1 was completely inspired. The combination of aerial movement and the interaction with things on the ground, the stopmotion aspect of the walkers with the camera moving around them – I’d never seen anything like it Design-wise, motion-wise and execution-wise, this sequence was really ambitious.
From my own work, a personal best would be the plane crash sequence in Alive. We spent a lot of time puzzling over that, cut by cut; and by the time we were done with it I thought it was a really tight, well-conceived sequence. Every single cut worked. Of course, I give a lot of credit to Frank Marshall, the director, and Michael Kahn, who was the editor. It’s always satisfying when our work fits in so well amongst the live-action.