Filming to scale endless reaches of the Universe, gigantic spaceships and a vast and strange cosmic phenomenon that no one has ever seen demanded infinite patience and the expertise of an entire career
THE BLACK HOLE has been the most difficult special effects film that I've ever worked on, In FANTASTIC VOYAGE we had more than 400 special effects in the final out, including mattes. In THE BLACK HOLE there are at least 550, a tremendous number.
At the very beginning we had extensive storyboard meetings concerning what visual concepts would be involved in the making of the picture. We had many discussions and I drew the assignment of miniature photography. I worked in close coordination with Peter Ellenshaw (Production Designer), Eustace Lycett (Composite Optical Photography) and Frank Phillips, ASC (Director of Photography).
Frank and I would try to blend our efforts so that what he shot in the First Unit would match with what I was about to shoot in miniature photography. How ever, sometimes the cart was before the horse, because I would shoot something and Frank would have to match to it.
On every picture I had been involved with up until THE BLACK HOLE, the practice was always to complete the principal photography first. The film was given a rough cut and then we decided what we were going to need in the way of miniature photography to augment what had been shot by the First Unit. I prefer to work that way, because when you are shooting live action and miniatures concurrently, there has to be a constant flow of information back and forth. Fortunately, in this case, such an interplay was possible. Frank has such a great talent and is so cooperative that we were able to exchange viewpoints and information that kept us rowing the same boat, so to speak.
[…]
