Blown Away by Special-Effects Biz

Jim Gill was five years out of college before he found his calling. He might have saved time if he’d taken a cue from childhood.

“My mother told me that when I was a kid, I ignored all the presents under the Christmas tree to play with the extension cord,” recalls the 40-year-old co-owner of Reel EFX, a North Hollywood company that creates special effects for films and other venues.

A vast industrial space jammed with mechanical parts is now the womb for Gill’s creations. Among the most spectacular is a 40-foot tornado that helped British director Tony Kaye win a best cinematography award at the Cannes Film Festival for a Volvo commercial. Knott’s Berry Farm has leased a smaller version of the twister, and Universal Studios is licensing it for its Florida theme park.

Kaye’s request for wind effects started the process. Gill remembered seeing a small tornado displayed at San Francisco’s Exploratorium, but it was confined in plastic. The challenge was to make one in open space where a camera could maneuver around it. Using an overhead fan spinning at 100 mph, Gill managed to create a free-standing, low-grade tornado. When he adds coal dust, old clothes and straw, the effect is complete.

While the result isn’t dangerous, Gill doesn’t recommend stepping inside. “It would knock you around,” he says.

Fans, low-tech as they may be, are a key ingredient in Gill’s magic. Sales of fans and other products make up nearly half the company’s annual $3.5-million revenue. One model, a tube fan, straps on like a backpack and shoots air into towering, sky-dancing puppets that have appeared at the Super Bowl. A collection of smaller fans with adjustable blades awaits testing in another corner of the room.

Gill, the son of an artist and engineer, excelled in physics and engineering at Marietta College in Ohio. After graduating in 1982, he spent several years as a commodities trader in Chicago. A fortuitous visit to a cousin in Los Angeles introduced him to his future partner, Martin Becker, and changed his life.

Gill was so excited by Becker’s special-effects operation that he volunteered to work for free until a job opened up. “It’s the kind of business I always wanted to be in but never knew existed,” Gill said.

Two weeks later Gill was on the payroll. Within a year, he began looking for other opportunities in the field. That’s when Becker offered Gill a partnership.

“I realized quite quickly his talent and knew I had to make him a partner or he would be a major competitor,” Becker said. “Jim brought a light to the technology business that had not been lit in a long time.”

The company, which began in Becker’s garage nearly two decades ago, now employs a dozen full-time workers, including three research-and-development people on the technical side.

In the past, Gill said, special effects were done mostly by craftsmen. But technology is changing the trend.

“More and more it’s becoming an area for college graduates in physics,” Gill said. “As digital technology grows, the physical-effects side is going to keep diminishing.”

Susan McRae can be reached at sumac1@earthlink.net.