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A Lifetime Creating Special Effects for James Bond, Harry Potter, Superman and More
‘It made for an easy read and a lot of chuckling. If you didn’t have respect for physical special effects in films before, you will now.’ - G. F. Willmetts, SFcrowsnest
‘the perfect blend of autobiography and behind-the-scenes storytelling. Making Movie Magic is a magic movie-making book.’ - Brian James Smith, From Sweden With Love
John Richardson is an Oscar-winning special effects supervisor and designer, who has been involved in over 100 movies, including nine James Bond adventures, all eight Harry Potter films, Aliens, Superman, A Bridge Too Far, Straw Dogs, The Omen, Cliffhanger, Far and Away, Willow . . . and many, many more.
In creating the magic that flows through these films – by creating huge explosions, beheading people, producing futuristic gadgets, making a man fly or breathing life into creatures that amaze and haunt us – Richardson has come to hold a unique place in cinema history.
The son of pioneering FX technician Cliff Richardson, he learned his trade at the feet of a master of the craft.
With over five decades of adventures under his belt, and a vast photographic collection of unseen pictures, Richardson now lifts the lid on his exciting and fascinating career of making movie magic.
14th December, 2018 in Entertainment
It may have become as much a part of Christmas as the turkey and the tree, but It’s a Wonderful Life was deemed ‘not a good film’ when it first came out in 1947, while Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Vertigo was dismissed as ‘not an important film or even major Hitchcock’ in 1958 – o…
4th May, 2018 in Entertainment
In the month Watching Skies finally lands its mothership in a Californian forest of Star Wars and Spielberg nostalgia, author Mark O’Connell looks at the onscreen legacy of a space scoundrel and childhood icon. “Han Solo!” rejoices a hundred-year-old pirate queen upon glimpsing s…
21st September, 2016 in Entertainment
When Harry Saltzman and Albert R ‘Cubby’ Broccoli produced Dr. No in 1962, they brought together an artistic and technical family, some of whom went on to become legends in the film industry: John Barry, Ken Adam, Ted Moore, Maurice Binder, not to mention Sean Connery. Norman Wan…
21st September, 2016 in Biography & Memoir, Entertainment
In 1961, aged 22, Alan Tomkins had just completed a three-year apprenticeship and was happily contracted to continue in the employment of the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC). However, when Tomkins heard that art director John Box, who was based over at Pinewood Stud…
14th January, 2016 in Biography & Memoir, Entertainment
In Shooting 007, beloved cameraman and director of photography Alec Mills, a veteran of seven James Bond movies, tells the inside story of his twenty years of filming cinema’s most famous secret agent. Among many humorous and touching anecdotes, Mills reveals how he became an int…
