Those of us in the arts all have people whose lives and careers have inspired us to do our best and to love our professions and sometimes we are fortunate enough to have real mentors. I was indeed fortunate to have Wally Gentleman as one of my mentors.
Wally came to Canada from England in 1957. His special effects film work in the UK such as GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946), BLACK NARCISSUS (1947). THE RED SHOES (1948), OLIVER TWIST (1948), ANASTASIA (1956) led him head that discipline at the National Film Board of Canada. His seminal work there was UNIVERSE (1960) which was about the planets and so on in our solar system. So well done and realistic were his scenes that it was hard not to believe that they had sent a real cameraman to these heavenly bodies! It was nominated Best Documentary Short at the Academy Awards,
The film attracted the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who hired Wally to create the special effects for his future feature 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968.) Wally imagined most of the film's memorable scenes, such as the woman who walks around and upside down in the zero-gravity spaceship, secured by her grip shoes. The shots of the planets was an updated version of his work in UNIVERSE, but much trickier. In color and Cinerama, any defects in the special effects shooting would be easily seen. People looked for the so-called invisible wires holding up the planets. Wally's simple answer to that threat was to suspend the planets upside down and shoot the scene with an inverted camera. The film was a huge success, with only one sour note. The film's credits say “Special Effects by Stanley Kubrick” and it was he who collected that Academy Award at the next Oscar ceremony.
He formed SPEAC (Special Photographic Effects and Allied Crafts) in Montreal and also became involved with industry affairs with various film organizations and guilds. We met when he was President of the Society of Film Makers and I was a board member. He fought government bureaucracy to secure a good cultural climate for Canadian filmmakers and was instrumental in getting positive legislation. I was happy to learn and work under him on these goals and battles and learned much. After a few years he reached the term limits of the position and I became President of the SFM. We worked well together. Wally wrote many technical articles for film publications and had time for everyone who loved film as did he.
Wally was an excellent cameraman as well as special effects person and was a major member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers. He shot various live-action projects for Disada Productions. One had a little special effects in it, which was fun to do. Over the years we became good friends and I learned a great deal from him about film and the art of film in which he was much experienced and well-versed. Early on, we would go to see a film together and afterwards in a nearby restaurant he'd ask what I thought of it. I'd say something simple like “I liked it” or “It was good” and then he'd go into enormous detail about the film, what worked, what didn't and why it was so. His analysis was always deep and detailed and I felt pretty inept. Over the years, learning from him how to think about film, I was finally able to at least keep up and possibly make our talks a little interesting for him. He taught me how to think about film in all its aspects. He was also a great enthusiast for animation, so we had a bond there as well. Now, many years later I frankly find myself in his position when I talk with new young film enthusiasts. I find myself thinking of him when I reach for some supposedly insightful thought about film when talking to the next generation.
Wally, Peter Benison and I took the Society of Film Makers and turned it into the Canadian Academy of Motion Picture and Television Arts and Sciences. Wally was a bridge-builder. One year the Canadian film industry was cut in two with Quebec film makers on one side and English Canadian film makers on the other. Neither was talking to the others, and the annual Canadian Film Awards was coming up with neither side wanting to attend as a result. Wally and I did some shuttle diplomacy, travelling back and forth between Montreal and Toronto talking to both sides until we finally got them each to agree to attend the televised awards and a series of talks in future.
One day we got in a challenging film to do: a live-action and animation film for the military . It would have a good number of scenes combining the two onscreen at the same time. In those days this meant a lot of matte work or aerial image work, which were very expensive, much more than the budget we were to have. I called Wally and he invented a new kind of aerial image machine that could serve. To make things more complicated, the characters were to move within a MOVING live-action scene at times. Up to then, in combination live-action and animation scenes, like in some Disney feature films the camera would be “locked down”. But we wanted to try animating the characters in moving perspective with the real footage. No point in doing things the easy way! We found it amusing when years later WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT was acclaimed the first time this had been done. Wally's invention did the job very well, and we completed the film within our budget. Wally secured a patent on his invention, and sold the unit to Universal, where it was put to use on the television series BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA, he told us later. I should point out that with Wally you also got to work with his dedicated and loyal crew. You could say the prime person was his wife Margaret, a creative dynamo in her own right. Theirs was the best showbusiness marriage I have ever known on both personal and professional grounds.
Wally remained excited by film, and I could see the young man in the older man though his enthusiasm. When a new feature would open and it was loaded with special effects, we'd close the studio early Friday afternoons and everyone would go to see it, then hear his analysis afterwards. New films like CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND fit the bill. I was too busy to go with the gang to see this new STAR WARS thing when it opened, but all I heard was raves on Monday morning from everyone, especially from Wally.
Wally went to Europe to do some feature films and his letters were creative and funny. Later he became a director at Film Effects of Hollywood, the longtime effects company of the legendary Linwood Dunn (King Kong, Citizen Kane etc.) In 1982 Wally made history by using video and electronics to shoot Francis Ford Coppola's pioneering film ONE FROM THE HEART.
Though Wally died in 2001, I still sometimes find myself seeing something on film and absent-mindedly thinking I've got to tell him about it. He was a great mentor and friend and is no doubt missed by all who knew him. Never was anyone as aptly named as Wally Gentleman.
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