Mark McLaughlin
Edinburgh Evening News
February 17, 2009
YOU won't know the name or recognise the face, but if you've been frightened at the cinema in the last 20 years, he's probably had a hand in your nightmares.
From his early work on the creepy Gerry Anderson puppet show Terrahawks and sci-fi blockbuster Aliens, to his upcoming special effects on the Benicio Del Toro update of horror classic The Wolf Man, Steven Begg has established himself as one of the masters of movie shock and awe.
From Batman to James Bond, Lara Croft to The Golden Compass, most of the biggest cinema franchises of recent years have benefited from Steven's wizardry.
And yet it all started in a cramped garden shed in Trinity.
For Steven, now 48, cut his special effects teeth as a schoolboy under the wing of Edinburgh amateur filmmaker Ian Rintoul.
He assisted on the local classic The Hour of the Eagle, which tells the story of the Nazis' raids on the Firth of Forth, helping him adapt old Airfix Spitfires for use in the 1974 film.
"I went to the old Ainslie Park High School with Ian's son Alan and he invited me round to see his dad's shed one day," recalls Steven.
"Ian quickly drafted me in, making models, setting up the cameras and drawing backgrounds for use in the scenes, and I soon had a fair bank of work behind me."
The teenager's big break came thanks to the legendary Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson.
Armed with a bag full of reels and a dodgy old projector, 18-year-old Steven took his work to an Anderson exhibition in Blackpool in the hope of presenting it to the great man himself.
"He agreed to take a look at it, so there I was trying to show off to one of my heroes - and the projector kept breaking down. I managed to get it going a couple of times and he agreed to keep in touch. Eventually, he asked if I was any good at drawing, and invited me to create the storyboards for a new puppet show called Terrahawks."
Although the show wasn't as well received as some of Anderson's earlier work, many fans of the cult TV show will still get a shiver down their spine thinking of its haggard witch-like villain Zelda and her freakish family of half robots.
The show also gave Steven a chance to show his flair and set him on the road to a lifelong career. He was quickly promoted to the position of special effects director and has never looked back.
"I was only 21 and it scared the living wotsits out of me," says Steven, whose enthusiasm for his art is never more evident than when talking about his early work.
"Gerry Anderson was, of course, famous for his marionette shows, but I was chatting to him one day about my love of [stop-frame animation legend] Ray Harryhausen and he told me to go off and think of an idea for a stop-frame show."
Steven dug out his cheap Bolex camera from his days in Ian Rintoul's shed, bought at Lizars (now Black & Lizars) on Shandwick Place, and created sci-fi detective spoof Dick Spanner. He used his trusty old camera to make all 22 episodes of the hit show.
Spanner was a cult success with viewers of all ages, achieving the rare feat of getting both a Sunday morning children's slot and a late night showing on Channel 4.
It was also to be Steven's calling card for Hollywood filmmakers.
It was enough to land him a job as a model maker on what would turn out to be a famously fraught production of James Cameron's 1986 sequel to seminal 70s creature-feature Alien.
"Aliens was a real education because it introduced me to the murky politics of filmmaking," adds Steven. "It was filmed at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, but Cameron, who was a brilliantly focused and determined director, was constantly frustrated by the British crew's insistence of frequent tea-breaks. There was a real breakdown of relations between the British and American crews and I subsequently didn't receive a credit for the work I did."
Steven says those transatlantic tensions continue today.
"American directors will fly inexperienced special effects crews all the way from Hollywood at double the price with, in my opinion, much poorer results," he says. "You could see it on the last Bond film, Quantum of Solace, which I thought was a mess."
And Steven knows a thing or two about James Bond special effects. His work on Casino Royale, Daniel Craig's first outing as Bond, earned him a BAFTA nomination for best special effects. He also worked on Pierce Brosnan's earlier Bond resurgence GoldenEye.
Curiously, Casino Royale brought Steven's career full circle, when he resurrected his old plastic and glue Airfix tricks to trump more expensive special effects.
"It was filmed at Dunsfold Park Airfield in Surrey, which is normally the home of the BBC's Top Gear, and I was tasked with making it look like a bustling city airport. We took a whole camera unit to Heathrow to film the planes that we were later going to superimpose on the airfield, but the final results didn't quite work out. So, we went to the nearest toy shop and bought a big pile of Airfix models, and kitted them out with ultra-bright LED lamps.
"It took me right back to the days in Ian's garage, where we would fix lights and motors to old Airfix and Revell kits to make them come alive, and blew cigarette smoke through the motors so it looked like they were flying through clouds.
"I didn't tell the director Martin Campbell - who's one of my favourite directors - until the movie was finished because he invariably would have seen it in a different light. When it came to the final screening he remarked how worthwhile it was spending all that money sending me off to Heathrow because the results were so impressive. That's when I confessed!"
Steven, who now lives in Windsor, admits the rigours of Hollywood have taken their toll on his private life. The gruelling 18-month shoots all over the world and frequent visits to LA to put the finishing touches to his work perhaps explain why he is still single. But the living-out-of-a-bag lifestyle does have its compensations, including working with some of the world's biggest stars in some beautiful locations.
He said: "I remember directing an underwater scene with Angelina Jolie on Tomb Raider. She was such a great actress to work with, really easy-going and approachable, and she also spent most of the shoot dripping wet.
"I also became well acquainted with Daniel Craig on Casino Royale. He came running over to reintroduce himself on set in the Bahamas - thankfully wearing more than those famous swimming trunks - to reminisce about our work together on the first Tomb Raider movie."
Steven is back in Edinburgh on a short break from adding puddles of gore to the new Wolf Man movie, visiting his mum Nancy, who still lives close to the house where he grew up in Silverknowes.
Next on his agenda is coffee with Neil Connery, brother of the original Bond star Sean. "He looks more like Sean than Sean does," adds Steven, with a laugh, before commenting on how many heads turn whenever Neil's around.
So, if you thought you caught a glimpse of James Bond in Edinburgh this week and came away disappointed, you can console yourself with the thought that the city's lesser-known Bond star may have been sitting at the other end of the table.
IMPRESSIVE CV
STEVEN BEGG has worked on the following films and TV series in a variety of roles, including special effects supervisor, director, animator and artist.
* The Wolf Man (2009)
* Inkheart (2008)
* The Golden Compass (2007)
* Casino Royale (2006)
* The Brothers Grimm (2005)
* Batman Begins (2005)
* Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet (2005)
* Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)
* Stargate SG-1 (2003)
* Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
* RKO 281 (1999)
* The Avengers (1998)
* The Acid House (1998)
* Lost in Space (1998)
* 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997)
* The Adventures of Pinocchio (1996)
* GoldenEye (1995)
* Space Precinct (1994)
* Nostradamus (1994)
* Project Shadowchaser II (1994)
* Time Runner (1993)
* Shadowchaser (1992)
* Landslide (1992)
* Strauss Dynasty (1991)
* Hardware (1990)
* Batman (1989)
* Aliens (1986)
* Dick Spanner (1986)
* Terrahawks (1983)
No comments:
Post a Comment