John Dykstra

John Charles Dykstra, A.S.C. (born June 3, 1947 in Long Beach, California, United States) is an Academy Award-winning special effects supervisor and pioneer in the development of the use of computers in filmmaking.

Education and early career

After studying industrial design at California State University, Long Beach (where he was a member of Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity), in 1971 Dykstra landed a job working with Douglas Trumbull on Silent Running filming model effects.

Working with George Lucas

When George Lucas was recruiting people for the special effects work on Star Wars, he approached Trumbull (who was working on Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind), who pointed him towards Dykstra. Dykstra led the development at Industrial Light & Magic of the Dykstraflex motion-controlled camera, which was responsible for many of the film's groundbreaking effects. The system was made possible by the availability of off-the-shelf integrated-circuit RAM at relatively low cost and secondhand VistaVision cameras.

However, there was tension between Dykstra and Lucas, who later complained that too much of the special effects budget was spent on developing the camera systems and that the effects team did not deliver all the shots that he had wanted. These tensions would reportedly culminate with Dykstra's dismissal from ILM following Lucas' return from principal photography in Tunisia. Regardless, following the release of Star Wars, Dykstra secured his status in the industry with Academy Awards for best special effects and special technical achievement, and having completed a number of scenes which appeared in the final edit.

Battlestar Galactica

Dykstra had a Production credit for the television series Battlestar Galactica and contributed to the series' effects but after Star Wars these stock shots were a bit of a disappointment, although still impressive for their time. Universal Studios that produced Battlestar Galactica also had a legal dispute with George Lucas so that when work started on The Empire Strikes Back, Dykstra did not want to come back^{[citation needed]}.

Dykstra himself was also a target of Lucas' legal ire. His fledgling visual effects house, Apogee, Inc., consisted of several ILM employees who did not want to relocate to San Francisco from Van Nuys, and used whatever equipment Lucas had left behind. Lucas attempted to get an injunction against Apogee to prevent the company from using what he considered to be his equipment to work on a project that was in direct competition to the Star Wars films. Several members of Apogee, including Richard Edlund and Dennis Muren, would return to ILM.

Dykstra also worked on the effects for Star Trek: The Motion Picture with some of these effects being recycled in subsequent films.

Firefox

Dykstra's next major achievement was the effects work on Firefox in 1982. Here, he took on the same challenge that Lucas had set with The Empire Strikes Back of combining miniature effects with actual backgrounds and matte work on white backgrounds using reverse bluescreen. The film secured further awards but was only a modest box office hit.

Comic book films

Dykstra was supervisor for the special effects of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. He was also Senior Visual Effects Supervisor for Stuart Little. Dykstra was Visual Effects Designer on the first two Spider-Man films, and was rewarded with an Oscar for Best Visual Effects for his efforts on Spider-Man 2.

Video games

Dykstra was involved with the laserdisc-based arcade game spin-off from Firefox that proved a big hit and for the next decade concentrated on video games.

Dykstra directed the 1992 full-motion video game Sewer Shark. The game was a critical and commercial flop, and was packaged with the Sega CD.

External links

• John Dykstra at the Internet Movie Database
• Miniature and Mechanical Special Effects(July, 1977) - an article written by Dykstra for the American Cinematographer concerning his work on Star Wars)
• 2006 IMNO Interview with John Dykstra