Sony Imageworks and Men in Black III

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| May 28, 2012 | 7:42 pm or 7:42 pm GMT

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from the Creative COW Magazine article:

Five-time Academy Award winner and visual effects pioneer Ken Ralston was Visual Effects Supervisor on Men in Black 3. Ralston, who is Senior Visual Effects Supervisor and Creative Head at Sony Pictures Imageworks, was also recognized with an Academy Award-nomination for his work on Alice in Wonderland 3D. During his tenure at Sony Imageworks, Ralston has collaborated with director Robert Zemeckis on Beowulf, The Polar Express and Cast Away. He also received a Special Achievement Oscar for the visual effects in the 1984 Star Wars: Episode VI -- The Return of the Jedi. Other film credits include the Back to the Future trilogy, Jumanji, Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and several Star Trek films.

Jay Redd, also Visual Effects Supervisor on Men in Black 3, has spent more than a decade at Sony Imageworks during which time he was Visual Effects Supervisor on Monster House and The Haunted Mansion. Previously he was Digital Effects Supervisor on Stuart Little 2 and honored with the VES Award for Best Character Animation in an Animated Film. Redd is also credited with helping to create the title character for the first Stuart Little film. Before Imageworks, Redd spent four years at Rhythm & Hues where he worked on Waterworld and Babe.

Creative COW spoke to Ralston and Redd about their work on Men in Black 3.

Ken Ralston: I started on Men in Black 3 about two years ago. Literally, the week after I finished Alice in Wonderland, Barry Sonnenfeld came by and wanted to see some of the 3D work and animation we'd done on that movie. Imageworks ran some footage for him and then he came by my office, and I talked to him about doing the 3D and animation. Before he left, he begged me to do MiB3. I was so burned out from Alice that I thought, you've got to be kidding me. Then I read the script and loved the variety of the work and the funny absurd humor and thought, why not, it could be a lot of fun.

Jay Redd: I'd just finished doing three Looney Tunes CG shorts, Rabid Rider, Fur of Flying and Coyote Falls, and was in between things. I got a call from Ken Ralston by way of Imageworks Executive Producer Debbie Dennis, who asked me what I was doing, and said, how about working on MiB3? A few weeks later, I was over at Imageworks reading a script.

KR: The most fun part of any movie is before you start shooting. Once production begins, there's an insane schedule. Pre-production on MiB3 was a blast. [Special make-up effects artist] Rick Baker and I go back to when we were 17. We'd done odds and ends but this was our first project together. He was doing the make-up and a lot of creatures and we brainstormed about possible ways we could create these creatures. Jay and I would meet with Barry and talk about approaches to do the Cape Canaveral scene.

But this is the most fun of all, we were working on the giant fish, and I was doodling and coming up with ideas.

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Categories:

• Visual Effects

Tags:

• jay redd
• ken ralston
• men in black iii
• sony pictures imageworks