Stan Winston Studios

John Rosengrant from Legacy Effects talks TERMINATOR SALVATION, AVATAR, and IRON MAN 2

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: May 22nd, 2009 at 4:29 pm

While you might not know who John Rosengrant is (IMDB), I promise that you have seen his work. That’s because John worked for Stan Winston Studios since the early 80′s and did both make-up and special effects for the legendary company. After Stan passed, John was one of the founders of a new company called Legacy Effects, and it’s where many of Stan’s crew will continue his brilliant work. In fact, Legacy Effects is hard at work on some of the biggest films in development – from “Iron Man 2″ to James Cameron’s “Avatar”.

Anyway, the other day I posted some VERY cool videos from the recent “Terminator Salvation” junket. The videos showed John explaining how they made the various props for the new “Terminator” movie, and you also got to see the behind the scenes of the actual junket. If you’re curious how Legacy Effects made the robots come to life, you should definitely click here.

But now it’s time for the actual interview.

After I finished walking around with John, we sat down and did a full interview. We discussed what was the toughest stuff to build, what else is Legacy Effects working on, and a lot more. If you’re curious about movie props and how that world operates, you’re really going to dig this interview. And if you’re the type of person that likes to hear any info on “Avatar”, John says a few things…take a look after the jump:

John Rosengrant from Legacy Effects gives us a tour of the TERMINATOR Junket and explains how the props were made

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: May 21st, 2009 at 11:38 am

While you might not know who John Rosengrant is, I promise that you have seen his work. That’s because he worked for Stan Winston Studios since the early 80′s and did both make-up and special effects for the legendary company. After Stan passed, John was one of the founders of a new company called Legacy Effects, and it’s where many of Stan’s crew will continue his brilliant work.

In fact, Legacy Effects is hard at work on some of the biggest films in development – from “Iron Man 2″ to James Cameron’s “Avatar”.

But getting back to John…a cool fact is John is one of the few who can say he’s worked on every “Terminator” movie. Actually, his resume is so impressive…all I can really do is say check out his IMDB page and then come back. You’ll be blown away.

But for the lazy ones, John has worked with every major filmmaker over the past three decades and he’s currently working for James Cameron on “Avatar”. So, as I said, the guy knows his make-up and special effects.

Anyway, at the recent press junket for “Terminator Salvation” I ran into John and he agreed to give me a tour of all the props on display and explain how everything was made.

While it’s unusual for a movie studio to display props from a movie, this is “Terminator”, so Warner Bros. pulled out all the stops.

If you’re a fan of the “Terminator” movies, or are just someone curious about special effects and how they make the props, you’ll love seeing John explain what’s on display.

Finally, tomorrow I’ll post part two of my conversation with John, and it’s the interview portion. We talked about making “Terminator Salvation”, “Avatar” and a bit on “Iron Man 2″.

Of course I need to say a big thank you to John for agreeing to give me so much time. I think everyone is really going to like watching this tour. Take a look:

TERMINATOR SALVATION Movie Review

by Matt Goldberg    Posted: May 20th, 2009 at 8:05 pm

While “Terminator Salvation” may want to come down on the side of humanity, it’s as soulless as its robotic antagonists and puts all of energies into its thrilling set pieces and puts as little attention as possible towards its characters.  While director McG has shown himself as a skilled director when it comes to designing his action sequences, he still has a lot to learn about what makes a film compelling and his film remains ambivalent in trying to forge its own direction while still remaining faithful to James Cameron’s first two films in the series.

The film opens in 2003 where death row inmate Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) signs his body away to a dying scientist (Helena Bonham Carter) and her research for Cyberdyne Industries.  Oddly, even without WB’s over-zealous marketing attempts (which gave away just about everything there was to give), the film spoils what would have been a remarkable reveal: that Marcus Wright comes back in 2018 as a Terminator, or, a hybrid but definitely not 100%-human.  It would take time to set up Marcus’ motivations and keep his secret secret (not skipping him like a stone across a river during a set piece would help).  There’s no time for that in “Terminator Salvation”.

Once in 2018 we meet up with John Connor (Christian Bale) who is not the leader of the resistance but definitely one of its higher-ups as he sends out radio messages to the masses from his secret bunker (which oddly can’t be picked up by the machines but they can zero in on rock music in about five seconds) but we’re told (via prologue titles) that some see him as humanity’s salvation while others view him as a false prophet.  We never get to see that division.  We also never get to see if Connor, a man who’s been at war before he was even born, has doubts, frustrations, passions, or anything outside of being a soldier.  He hugs his wife Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard) from time to time.  The film needed to make John Connor into a fully-realized character rather than further typecast Bale as “grim, unsmiling gentleman who occasionally screams at someone so you know he has a pulse.”  But there’s no time for that in “Terminator Salvation”.

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