Episode 015 February 2015
Cinefex Associate Editor Joe Fordham joins us to discuss the making of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, we try to figure out how E.T.’s innards worked, and discuss Spielberg’s unproduced Night Skies.
About The Optical
Host Mark Boszko takes you on a journey back through the annals of Cinefex magazine, talking about the movies and topics they covered 30+ years ago. We talk to people involved in the films, people who make movies, and people who love movies, and have a fun time doing it.
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Revisiting:
Cinefex 11
Special thanks to Cinefex for access to these out-of-print back issues.
Even though these are out of print, you can now download and read along with Issue 11 — and every other back issue of Cinefex — in the Cinefex iPad App. Download the free iPad app now!
Special Guest:
Joe Fordham
- Associate Editor, Cinefex
- Flash Films
- Planet of the Apes: The Evolution of the Legend, written with Jeff Bond, covering the history of the entire film franchise
Follow Along
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Show Notes
Research Materials
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
- Cinefex number 11
- Revisiting Cinefex (11): ET and Robert Swarthe by Graham Edwards
- E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial from Concept to Classic
More Bits
- Joe Fordham's first articles for Cinefex in issue 77, “T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous — The Five-Terabyte Solution” and “Babe: Pig in the City — Mean Streets”
- THX Theatre Alignment Program - Recommended Guidelines for Presentation Quality and Theatre Performance for Indoor Theatres
- The Lucasfilm paychecks used to have an image of Yoda on them (at least circa 1999, when I got mine).
- Carlo Rambaldi, designer of E.T. and his internal mechanisms
- Jurassic Park’s T-Rex Eye with operating iris.
- Allen Daviau, cinematographer
- Introduction to the Dolly Zoom (on Filmmaker IQ), from Vertigo in 1958, through movies like Jaws, Goodfellas, and E.T.
- We talked about building up the layers of the melting head for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) in The Optical, Episode 006
- In-depth documentation about how Subsurface scattering works in Pixar's RenderMan
- Nigel Booth, makeup artist
- Religious Symbolism in E.T.
- We talked about the translucent alien egg in The Optical, Episode 001
- Carole Ann Ford, actress in The Day of the the Triffids (1962)
- The War of the Worlds (1953)
- Howard and Theodore Lydecker, miniature effects experts
- Lawrence Butler, special effects artist and developer of the "blue-screen traveling matte process" for The Thief of Bagdad in 1940
- Bill Abbott, special effects artist
- Douglas Trumbull
- Greg Jein
- ILM had great equipment names, like Dykstraflex, Automatte, and Fitzmatic. See also the MatteSCAN that Disney produced for effects work on The Black Hole (1979). Harrison Ellenshaw talks about it a bit in this interview.
- Craig Barron and Mike MacKenzie talking about the VistaCruiser, Part 1 and Part 2
- We talked about Go-motion and Dragonslayer (1981) in The Optical, Episode 007
- E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet
- Spielberg’s unproduced Night Skies
- Rick Baker released photos of the aliens that he created for Night Skies on Twitter
- Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
- Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter, on which Night Skies was based, and perhaps also Critters (1986)
- Heartlight, by Neil Diamond
- E.T.'s Home is Found: Trove of Atari Games Unearthed at Landfill from NPR
Musical Guest:
Digital Droo
As Ever
- The Optical Aperture Logo by Mike Gower
- The Optical Theme Music by Digital Droo
