Derek Meddings | |
|---|---|
 Meddings in 1966 | |
| Born | (1931-01-15)15 January 1931 |
| Died | 10 September 1995(1995-09-10) (aged 64) Buckinghamshire, England, UK |
| Occupations | Special effects designer and technician |
| Years active | 1950s–1995 |
| Employer | AP Films (1957–1970) |
| Organization | The Magic Camera Company |
| Known for | James Bond films Superman films Thunderbirds |
| Television | Supermarionation productions |
| Spouses |
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| Children | 6 |
| Awards |
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Derek Meddings (15 January 1931 – 10 September 1995) was a British film and televisionspecial effects designer. He was initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" TV puppet series produced byGerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s and 1980sJames Bond andSuperman film series.
Derek Meddings was born 15 January 1931[3] in St Pancras, London, England. Both Meddings' parents had worked in the Britishfilm industry: his father as acarpenter atDenham Studios and his mother as producerAlex Korda's secretary and actressMerle Oberon's stand-in.[4] Meddings went toart school and, in the late 1940s, also found work at Denham Studios, lettering credit titles.[4] It was there that he met effects designerLes Bowie and joined hismatte painting department.[4]
During the 1950s, Meddings' work with Bowie included the creation ofTransylvanian landscapes forHammer Films[4] and a "string and cardboard" invention that proved useful when Meddings was hired forGerry Anderson's earliest TV puppet series.[4]
In 1953, he married Anne S. Dodge (born 1935). In 1972, Meddings married Alexe Anne Inglis (born 18 May 1954).[1][2]
Meddings' first work with Anderson was as an uncredited art assistant on Anderson's second puppet series,Torchy the Battery Boy, produced in 1957. In 1960, he painted cut-out backgrounds of ranch houses and picket fences forFour Feather Falls.[4] He was credited with thespecial effects in Anderson's 1960 and 1962 seriesSupercar andFireball XL5, being elevated to special effects director forStingray (1964) for which he andReg Hill designed the main models.[4] Meddings became special effects supervisor forThunderbirds (1965–66), during which time he was responsible for the design of theThunderbird machines themselves. He was visual effects supervisor for all the Anderson puppet series of the late 1960s (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons,Joe 90 andThe Secret Service) and also Anderson's firstlive-action series,UFO, at the start of the 1970s. He performed the same role on Anderson's three 1960s feature films,Thunderbirds Are Go (1966),Thunderbird 6 (1968) and the live-actionDoppelgänger (1969; also known asJourney to the Far Side of the Sun). During his time working on these series, Meddings and his team developed a number of innovations in the filming ofminiature models and landscapes which have since become standard in the industry.
In the 1970s, Meddings furthered his career by working on thespecial effects for theJames Bond films. He first impressed producerCubby Broccoli with some miniature effects that he had created forLive and Let Die (1973).[4] Once Broccoli realised the economic advantages of building detailed models instead of expensive full-sized constructions, Meddings was encouraged to come up with design concepts for the next film in the series,The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).[4] After this, he was contacted byPink Floyd, and Meddings handled all the pyrotechnics on the Pink Floyd shows in 1975.
He returned to the James Bond films in 1977 withThe Spy Who Loved Me. Among other tasks, Meddings spent four months on location in theBahamas, where he supervised the construction of a "miniature"supertanker more than 60 ft (18 m) long and three "miniature"nuclear submarines for exterior sequences filmed at sea.[4] He also designed and built theLotus Esprit car which converted into asubmersible, cleverly intercutting full-sized body shells with one-quarter-scale miniatures.[4]
ForMoonraker (1979), Meddings created and photographed miniatures of Drax'sspace shuttles and space station and also realised the final space battle. Due to the film's tight schedule, Meddings was unable to use opticalcompositing (which is a lengthy process due to the extensive film processing involved) to combine the different elements for the space sequences. Instead, they were combined in-camera using multiple passes of the same piece of film. Film would sometimes be exposed as many as 90 times to capture the dozens of separately photographed elements. The film was nominated for theAcademy Award for Visual Effects.
Meddings was Visual Effects Supervisor onFor Your Eyes Only (1981). The ship's explosion was done with a miniature atPinewood Studios in the tank on the007 Stage.[5]
ForGoldenEye (1995), Meddings again created miniatures.[6] This includes a train crash and a jet fighter crash. The climatic destruction of a gigantic satellite dish used a model built by Meddings' team, intercut with scenes shot with stuntmen in Britain.[7]
In 1975, Meddings created cost-effective model monsters which could be photographed in the same frame as the actors[4] in the prehistoric adventure filmThe Land That Time Forgot.
OnSuperman (1978), his work included building a 60 ft (18 m) miniature of theGolden Gate Bridge to be destroyed in an earthquake, complete with a colliding scale school bus and cars, while Superman (suspended on wires) flew in to the rescue.[4] He also built and photographed theKrypton miniatures in addition to a large-scale model of theHoover Dam. Due to the film's schedule overruns and Meddings' own commitments to theJames Bond series, he was unable to complete the dam flooding sequence and the production hired a California-based company to complete the sequence – resulting in some visibly inferior miniature work in the latter part of the film.
Meddings believed that he was asked to supervise the effects forBatman (1989) because directorTim Burton was a fan of his work onThunderbirds.[4]
Meddings set up his own visual effects company, The Magic Camera Company, based at Lee International Studios inShepperton.[4] ForThe NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990), he established another company in Germany. He appeared once as an actor, in the role of Dr Stinson inSpies Like Us (1985).
At the time of his death fromcolorectal cancer in 1995, Meddings was engaged in post-production on the latestJames Bond film,GoldenEye, on which his sons Mark and Elliott[4] James (born May 1973)[8] also worked.[4] A dedication in the credits of the completed film reads "To the memory of Derek Meddings".
Meddings is known to have had two other sons: Nicholas Alexander (born July 1980)[9] and Noah Luscombe (born August 1978).[10] He also had at least one daughter: Chloe Loveday (born 1982).[1]
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