Starman at 40: John Carpenter's forgotten sci-fi masterpiece, interview with special effects artist John Rosengrant
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the film, so I sat down with John Rosengrant, who worked as a special effects apprentice on the movie in 1984. Rosengrant went on to co-found his own special effects workshop, Legacy Effects, which gave the world the gill creature in The Shape of Water, "Baby Yoda" for The Mandalorian and VFX for the best chunk of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Did you set out to work in special effects? It seems like tedious work for a young man.
John Rosengrant: Oh, I wanted to be in visual effects all the way. There was no CG back then, so there was no other way to do this other than practically. Everything was thought out, storyboarded and talked out.
I was in go mode and Stan Winston Studios was a lot like film school for me. Back then, I was just so excited to be doing make-up special effects as one of "Stan's Guys." It started with the first Terminator, and he just kept me around.
That's a hell of a starting point.
JR: Yeah, the trajectory of Terminator launched everything. I very much owe my career to Jim (Cameron) and Stan that way.
Can you walk us through the work on the Starman transformation scene?
JR: We broke some ground on that "change-o-baby."Stan came up with the idea of having this child with an accordion-moving-core inside so that when the mechanics moved it, it still held its shape while it lengthened.
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