Jon Pertwee and vacuum tubes

Yes, it's Jon Pertwee who "starred as the Third Doctor in the science-fiction series Doctor Who from 1970 to 1974".

Thomas G. Smith...creative cinematographer

Western Illinois University...

Smith was born in nearby Canton and spent his youth there and in other places, including Europe, California and Chicago. His father was an engineer who designed farm machinery. Smith studied broadcasting and film at Northwestern University and then was a Fulbright scholar at the Institute for Higher Studies in Film, associated with the University of Paris.

After serving in the Air Force, Smith worked for Encyclopedia Britannica's educational film division, located in Wilmette (IL), where he produced more than 60 fact-based movies including "The Midwest—Heartland of the Nation" (1967) and "Venereal Disease: The Hidden Epidemic" (1973). His 1977 film "The Solar System," which took viewers on a trip through space, became widely known and admired. He also created films for PBS and other agencies.

In 1979, he started working with renowned director George Lucas, managing his visual effects operation, "Industrial Light and Magic," for six years. During that time, while working with Lucas, Steven Spielberg and others, Smith oversaw the special effects for such immensely popular and critically acclaimed films as "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), "E.T." (1982) and "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi" (1983).

Smith's book, "Industrial Light and Magic: The Art of Special Effects" (1986), is a classic in the field. It went through a dozen printings, selling 100,000 copies, and helped to give him an international reputation. The original manuscript for that work and other materials are part of the Leslie F. Malpass Library's Thomas G. Smith Collection, which reflects the filmmaker's achievement.

In 1986, Smith also produced the visual effects for a high-budget, Disney theme-park 3D production, "Captain EO," starring singer Michael Jackson, which opened at Disney venues in California, Florida, France and Japan. It is still showing as a theme park attraction after 26 years.

Partly as a result of that acclaimed production, Smith was invited to join Walt Disney Studios as a feature film producer. His "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" (1989) for Disney won a BAFTA (British Academy Award) for outstanding special effects. While associated with Disney Studios, he also created other theme park attractions, including "MuppetVision 3-D," with Muppets creator Jim Henson, who died in 1990.

After leaving Disney in 1995 to produce a science fiction film, "The Arrival" (1996), Smith also worked on children's films like "Muppets from Space" (1999) and "Jack and the Beanstalk" (2001). The latter production was filmed in England.

A history buff, Smith also produced the battle scenes and other special effects for a noted Civil War film, "Gods and Generals" (2003), for which he was both the second unit director and the visual effects producer. In that same period he wrote an historical novel, "Massacre at Baxter Springs" (2004), which was based on an infamous episode of that war.

One of his most noted academic films reflects his background in Western Illinois. "Spoon River Anthology: Heartland Poetry for a New Age" (2008) features voice-over readings by actor Gene Barry and an interview with poet Edgar Lee Masters' son, Hilary.

Now concerned with the history of the film industry, Smith wrote the introduction to the new Oxford University Press book about educational movies, "Learning with the Lights Off" (2012), and he is currently writing a series of film history articles for "Insider" magazine.

Chess

1965

 

 

The Solar system

 

1977

 

 

Other films at the Internet Archive .

Industrial Light and Magic: The Art of Special Effects

by

Thomas G. Smith

ISBN-10: 0345322630
ISBN-13: 978-0345322630

 

Learning with the Lights Off: Educational Film in the United States

by

Devin and Marsha Orgeron

ISBN-10: 0195383834
ISBN-13: 978-0195383836

"The Atom: A Closer Look"

This film is nearly 30 years old and as many others represents an old method of reaching the public [especially school age children] regarding atomic energy. The Disney touch is obvious...have to capture children's interest somehow. [I am not certain why this film is prefaced with the KCPL (Kansas City Power and Light Company) data other than that they may have been a corporate underwriter in the production of the film or involved in local distribution.]

"The Atom: A Closer Look"

"A is for Atom"

Just six years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki we had begun the "atomic age" here represented by A Is for Atom in animated format and complete with sophomoric atomic physics. Have to start somewhere I guess. This 1953 film is a John Sutherland Productions film and sponsored by the General Electric Company. It is till enjoyable even if just for the cell blandishments.

A Is for Atom

John Sutherland worked with Walt Disney on several Disney productions including Sleeping Beauty and opened John Sutherland Productions in 1944.

Tom Oreb's creation for Destination Moon [1956] at John Sutherland Productions

Here are an assortment of films by John Sutherland Productions

Industrial Light and Magic...Thomas Smith

Pretty much dinosaurs of the past are the well-crafted [mostly] educational films distributed usually through the Encyclopedia Britannica Films and the product of independent producers and well-established companies like the Bell System, Centron Productions, Coronet Films, and the Handy [Jam] Organization. For the student they provided an interlude to a boring teacher's daily lecture and emulation of the school audio-visual geek. Actually, these old items are highly prized now and the focus of preservation providing a bundle of nostalgia and insight into social phenomena. The following sample is called "Solar System" by Thomas Smith [Star Wars fame] which "...is his academic film masterwork, which took over a year to create, over 13 weeks to film, and utilized "traveling mattes," with as many as five separate films running in the background, showcasing wonderful models and graphics."

Thomas Smith said...

"I made that film in 1976 with Richard Basehart as narrator and a classical music score recorded in the Soviet Union... this was the film that turned my career toward visual effects. We shot it in a large rented space in the back of a West Los Angeles dress factory. We hung large black curtains to keep out light out from the factory but we could still hear the sewing machine whirring away behind the curtain. They were making bathrobes at the time, out of fluffy material. It took months of preparation before we could shoot our first frame of film. We laid down a forty foot stretch of track of parallel plumbing ipes and put down a camera support whose movements were on a geared guide so every increment of movement could be controlled with the turn of a wheel. Nearly all of the shots involved a moving camera. It was like animation with three dimensional model planets instead of cell images. We found the best material for the planets was hard wood. So we hired a Hollywood cabinet shop to make nine spheres for us, about 18 inches in diameter. These were sanded and painted to match images in astronomy books and observatory photos. Shooting one frame at a time meant we never got more than a few seconds of film shot in a day. One long shot involved the camera moving in on Mars. The first long day's work was ruined. As the camera came in on the red planet, a large piece of fuzz came into frame, sitting on the planet. It had drifted down on the sphere from the dress factory."

"Solar System"
1977

Older films on many subjects may be seen at the Prelinger Archives via the Internet Archive.

Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 60,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. In 2002, the film collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Prelinger Archives remains in existence, holding approximately 4,000 titles on videotape and a smaller collection of film materials acquired subsequent to the Library of Congress transaction. Its goal remains to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven't been collected elsewhere. Included are films produced by and for many hundreds of important US corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions. Getty Images represents the collection for stock footage sale, and almost 2,000 key titles are available here. As a whole, the collection currently contains over 10% of the total production of ephemeral films between 1927 and 1987, and it may be the most complete and varied collection in existence of films from these poorly preserved genres.

Prelinger Archives


Furthermore, here is cool animated geometric film by Philip Stapp entitled "Symmetry" made in 1966.

"...Philip Stapp was one of the greatest animators working in the 1950-1975 era, using stylized, often pointillist abstract imagery, in a floating world sometimes surrealist, at other times reminiscent of Japanese "ukiyo-e" illustration. His spectacular 'Symmetry' is his greatest film, a fantasy of dancing images breaking apart, spinning, and converging."

"Symmetry"
1966