Anything Can Be Done With Money (or Imagination)

In a recent article on the growth of Japanese investments in Hollywood, Newsweek magazine cited special-effects wizard Richard Edlund as one of the benefactors of the growing trend. The article said that Japanese money was helping Edlund “break into directing” with “Crisis 2050,” a science-fiction adventure budgeted at “a whopping $50 million.”

For Edlund, would that it were so.

“Everybody loves to get into ‘Newsweek,’ but that kind of publicity can work two ways,” says Edlund. “Somebody may read it and say, ‘We’re not going to call him, he’s up to his ears with a $50 million movie he’s making.’ ”

Actually, Edlund’s deal with a consortium of Tokyo investors makes him the producer of “Crisis 2050,” not the director, and the feature film will account for only about one-third of a $50 million package that also includes eight programs for Japanese public television, an IMAX film and “other overhead factors and promotion in Japan.”

It’s unlikely any film maker would miss a chance to work with Edlund, regardless of how busy he seemed: He’s one of the very best special-effects artists in the business.

He helped establish George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic, supervising the visual effects on the “Star Wars” trilogy, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Poltergeist.” Boss Film, the company he founded after leaving ILM in 1983, created the effects for “Ghostbusters,” “2010,” “Big Top Pee Wee,” “Die Hard” and other major releases. Edlund has won four Academy Awards (out of nine nominations), three scientific/technical Oscars, two British Academy Awards and an Emmy for special achievement.

After making training films in the Navy and studying at the USC School of Cinema, Edlund entered the film industry “in one of the most bizarre ways I’ve ever heard.” The Hollywood unemployment office referred him to Joe Westheimer, who did special effects for television commercials. His commercial work for Westheimer and, later, Robert Abel--and his ability to jerryrig equipment out of odd parts--brought him to the attention of Lucas and Gary Kurtz.

“When we started on ‘Star Wars,’ I walked into a huge, empty warehouse in the San Fernando Valley that contained a card table and a telephone,” Edlund recalls. “We had two years to build all the equipment, design the shots and finish the show. We were able to do it quite inexpensively by combining cameras that had been on the rack so long the salesmen had to shake the dust off them with digital technology that had been developed for the Space Race. A day didn’t go by that we didn’t do something that had never been done before.”

This “C-clamp-and-surplus store” approach to effects technology remains the rule at the Boss Film studio, a sprawling building in Marina del Rey that was once a 7-Up bottling plant. On a typical afternoon, one crew is operating a complicated optical printer, while a second group of artists and technicians runs tests on underwater tanks and miniature submarines for the upcoming feature “The Hunt for Red October,” surrounded by models of the buildings on Times Square from a recent commercial. The mounted head of a Terror Dog from “Ghostbusters” glowers at visitors in the foyer.

But Edlund stresses that he and the members of his staff (which numbers around 80) are not “effects loonies who live for gadgets.” He dislikes flashy special effects that call attention to themselves, “like Arnold (Schwarzenegger) striking a pose,” he says, flexing his biceps to underline the point.

“I think in the context of a dramatic film, it’s more important that we become a kind of cog in the dramatic train--as opposed to creating magnificent, overly composed classic shots with every element perfectly placed--virtuoso shots that just say ‘look at me,’ ” he states in a husky voice, roughened by the unfiltered Camels he smokes. “Even though those shots are magnificently carried out and every element in them is perfect, they really do a disservice to the film.”

“We had the opportunity in ‘Die Hard’ to become part of the film--to become one with the film in a Zen sort of way. The effects in that film were invisible effects. (Director) John McTiernan wanted them to look real and have the same kind of verve the sequences had built, so they would fit perfectly. That seamless quality is exactly what we’ve been after.”

It was Edlund’s ability to blend special effects into the body of a film that brought him to the attention of the Tokyo investors (a consortium involving Gakken Publishing, GHK Enterprises and three other partners). After studying prints of several dozen science-fiction films, they felt the best--and best-integrated special effects--were in “2010,” which he describes as “one of the most polished films we’ve done and something of a benchmark in terms of visual quality.”

The choice proved fortuitous: Edlund spent two years in Japan while in the Navy and is a enthusiastic student of Japanese culture. He speaks Japanese and has an extensive collection of books on the history, art and culture of the country.

“I was initially approached to do the visual effects for the film, but after they got to know me, they asked if I’d produce the whole movie,” he says. “I’d wanted to work with the Japanese for some time--I’ve made 15 trips to Japan and been interviewed hundreds of times.”

When the investors approached Edlund, they had only the basic concept for the film. The script is being written by a Los Angeles writer within guidelines set by the Japanese; Edlund has begun talking with directors.

“We have an outline that we’re all happy with, and we’re already designing sets and miniatures,” says Edlund. “I don’t want to give away too much, but the basic idea is that the sun has gone haywire and we have to go to the sun to fix it--a hell of a job. The film will be out next summer, so we’ve got a big, big job on our hands.”

In addition to the as-yet untitled feature, parts of eight episodes of a Japanese educational television program about the universe will be shot on the sets at Boss Film, and a related project using the large-format IMAX system is being prepared for a theme park tie-in “under a cloud of secrecy.”

“I’ve wanted to start producing for a long time. It’s a natural step for the company to take,” Edlund concludes. “The film industry moves quickly; we can’t expect to sit here forever as an effects facility, as we were five years ago. I think that effects have become part of the grammar of film. It’s evident from the scripts I get that writers have no compunction about writing anything into a script because they know it can be done.

“And anything can be done--given enough time and money, or, if you’re lacking enough of both, which you always are, no matter what the budget, sufficient inventiveness.”