Effects artist who won an Oscar for Star Wars
The visual effects artist Grant McCune, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 67, won an Oscar for giving life to the droid R2-D2 in the first Star Wars movie, now known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977). He created the models for many of the film's spacecraft, including the X-wing starfighters, the Millennium Falcon and the Tie starfighters, one of which sold at a Hollywood auction in 2008 for $350,000. He also took an acting role as a Death Star gunner. McCune went on to design the helmet worn by the bounty hunter Boba Fett in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
Although he did not create R2-D2 – the robot was credited mostly to John Stears, who shared the visual effects Oscar with McCune and others – McCune became the artist most associated with the character. He finetuned...
The visual effects artist Grant McCune, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 67, won an Oscar for giving life to the droid R2-D2 in the first Star Wars movie, now known as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977). He created the models for many of the film's spacecraft, including the X-wing starfighters, the Millennium Falcon and the Tie starfighters, one of which sold at a Hollywood auction in 2008 for $350,000. He also took an acting role as a Death Star gunner. McCune went on to design the helmet worn by the bounty hunter Boba Fett in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980).
Although he did not create R2-D2 – the robot was credited mostly to John Stears, who shared the visual effects Oscar with McCune and others – McCune became the artist most associated with the character. He finetuned...
- 2/4/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Visual-effects artist Grant McCune (above, with R2-D2), whose most notable effort was probably George Lucas's Star Wars (1977), died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Hidden Hills, 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles. McCune was 67. McCune won an Oscar for Star Wars, which he shared with visual-effects specialists John Stears, John Dykstra, Richard Edlund and Robert Blalack. Two years later, McCune was nominated for another Oscar for Robert Wise's Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Along with Bill Shourt, McCune also designed a giant white shark model for Jaws, though neither man was credited on the Spielberg film. Other efforts include Die Hard, Speed, Batman Forever, and Spider-Man. About his work with miniatures, McCune told Popular Mechanics in 2008: "I’ve always told people to get a good background in photography first. The most important thing is what you see with your eye. … All the best people who ever...
- 12/30/2010
- by Anna Robinson
- Alt Film Guide
Academy Award-winning special effects artist Grant McCune died on Monday from pancreatic cancer at the age of 67. McCune won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for his work on George Lucas' 1977 classic "Star Wars." He was also nominated by the Academy in 1980 for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," and served as the chief model maker on the 1978 pilot of "Battlestar Galactica." McCune got his start in special effects when director Steven Spielberg hired him and Bill Shourt to create a realistic model of the deadly white shark in...
- 12/30/2010
- The Wrap
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