Derek Meddings

Derek Meddings
Born	15 January 1931(1931-01-15)
Died	10 September 1995(1995-09-10) (aged 64)
Nationality	British
Occupation	Special effects expert

Derek Meddings (15 January 1931 – 10 September 1995) was a British television and cinema special effects expert, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" television puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s James Bond films and the Superman film series.

Biography

Early years

Both Meddings' parents had worked in the British film industry: his father as a carpenter at Denham Studios and his mother as producer Alex Korda's secretary and as Merle Oberon's stand-in.^[1] Meddings went to art school and, in the late 1940s, also found work at Denham Studios, lettering credit titles.^[1] It was there he met special effects man Les Bowie working on a commercial, and joined his matte painting department.^[1]

During the 1950s, Meddings' work with Bowie included the creation of Transylvanian landscapes for Hammer Films^[1] and a "string and cardboard" invention that proved useful when Meddings was hired for Gerry Anderson's earliest television puppet shows.^[1]

Gerry Anderson years

Meddings' first work with Anderson was as the uncredited art assistant on Anderson's first puppet series, Torchy the Battery Boy, produced in 1957. In 1960, he painted cut-out backgrounds of ranch houses and picket fences for Four Feather Falls.^[1] He was credited with the special effects in Anderson's 1960 and 1962 series Supercar and Fireball XL5, being elevated to special effects director on 1963's Stingray for which he and Reg Hill designed the main models.^[1] He became special effects supervisor on 1964's Thunderbirds, where he was responsible for the design of the Thunderbirds craft. He was visual effects supervisor for all the Anderson puppet series of the late 1960s (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90, The Secret Service) and also on Anderson's first live-action series UFO. He performed the same role on Anderson's three feature films of the period, Thunderbirds Are Go (1966), Thunderbird 6 (produced in 1967, released in 1968) and the live action Doppelgänger (US title "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun", 1969). During his time working on these series, he and his team developed a number of innovations in the filming of miniature models and landscapes which have become standard in the industry.

James Bond years

In the 1970s he developed his career by working on the special effects for the James Bond movies. He first impressed producer Cubby Broccoli with some miniature effects he created for Live and Let Die in 1973.^[1] Once Broccoli realised the economic advantages of building detailed models instead of expensive full-size constructions, Meddings was encouraged to come up with ideas on the next Bond, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)^[1]. After this, he was contacted by Pink Floyd and Derek handled all the pyrotechnics on the Pink Floyd shows in 1975.

In 1975, he created cost-effective model monsters which could be photographed in the same frame as the actors^[1] in the prehistoric adventure The Land That Time Forgot.

He returned to the James Bond films in 1977 with The Spy Who Loved Me. Among other tasks, he spent four months on location in the Bahamas, where he supervised the construction of a 'miniature' supertanker over 60 ft long and three 'miniature' nuclear submarines for exterior sequences filmed on the real ocean in shark-infested waters.^[1] He also designed and built the Lotus Esprit car which converted into a submersible, cleverly intercutting full-size body shells with one-quarter scale miniatures.^[1]

On Superman, his work included building a 60 ft (18 m) miniature of the Golden Gate Bridge to be destroyed in an earthquake with a miniature school bus and several automobiles colliding as Superman (suspended on wires) flew down to the rescue.^[1] He also built and photographed the Krypton miniatures, as well as a large-scale model of the Hoover dam. Owing to the film's schedule overruns and Medding's own commitments to the James Bond series, he was unable to complete the Hoover 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.

For Moonraker, Meddings would create and photograph miniatures of Drax's space shuttles, space station and the final space battle. Owing to the film's tight schedule, Meddings was unable to use optical compositing (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 an Academy Award for Visual Effects.

He set up his own visual effects company, The Magic Camera Company, based at Lee International Studios in Shepperton,^[1] while for The Never Ending Story II (1990), he set up an outfit in Germany.

Meddings believed he was asked to supervise the effects on Batman (1989) because director Tim Burton was a fan of his work on Thunderbirds.^[1]

At the time of his death from cancer, he was engaged in post-production on the latest James Bond picture, GoldenEye, on which his sons Mark and Elliott also worked.^[1] GoldenEye was dedicated "To the memory of Derek Meddings".

He appeared once as an actor, playing the role of Dr. Stinson in Spies Like Us in 1985.

Awards

• For his work on Superman, in 1979 Derek Meddings was awarded a shared Special Achievement Award for special effects by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and shared the Michael Balcon Award of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).

• He was also nominated for the 1980 Oscar (Best effects, visual effects) for his work on Moonraker, for the 1990 BAFTA Film Award for best special effects for Batman, and posthumously for the 1996 BAFTA Film Award for best achievement in special effects for GoldenEye.

Filmography

Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) Thunderbird 6 (1968) Doppelganger (aka Journey to the Far Side of the Sun; 1968) Zero Population Growth (1972) Fear Is the Key (1972) Live and Let Die (1973) The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) The Land That Time Forgot (1975) Shout at the Devil (1976) Aces High (1976) The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Superman: The Movie (1978) Moonraker (1979) Superman II (1980) For Your Eyes Only' (1981)

Krull (1983) Banzai (1983) Superman III (1983) Supergirl (1984) Spies Like Us (1985) Santa Claus - The Movie (1985) Mio min Mio (1987) High Spirits (1988) Apprentice to Murder (1988) Batman (1989) The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter (1991) Hudson Hawk (1991) Cape Fear (1991) The Neverending Story III (1994) GoldenEye (1995)

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p} Obituary, Derek Meddings: Independent, 14th September 1995

External links

• Derek Meddings at the Internet Movie Database

Persondata
Name	Meddings, Derek
Alternative names
Short description	special effects designer
Date of birth	15 January 1931
Place of birth
Date of death	10 September 1995
Place of death