that they do not like, don't worry about it because Jeff Okun will fix it.'
That just freezes your heart. I learned not to panic and that I could do
anything, given enough time and money."
Okun's next big break
came when he was offered
the visual effects coordinat-
ing job for Tomorrow Never
Dies. He would be the first
American to handle the
visual effects for a Bond film.
At about the same time, he got
a call from Barry Levinson to
work on Sphere. Deciding he
needed to do a "serious"
picture over another action
movie, and knowing there
would always be another Bond film, Okun took the Levinson film. "How
did I know it would turn out to be a terrible movie?"
After repeatedly turning down the invitation to work with Renny
Harlin again on Deep Blue Sea, Okun was "blackmailed" into taking the
job. "It was the first film where I got to create CG co-stars [the sharks]."
He went on to work on Delivering Milo, directed by Nick Castle, who had
also directed The Last Starfighter, Okun's first feature. Red Planet, Death to
Smoochy, and the pilot for the television series Birds of Prey followed.
Okun is currently at work on The Last Samurai.
Job Overview
"Physical effects designers are called upon by the production company
when they cannot find a vendor that can do what it is they want to do, in
a standard way," explains physical effects coordinator Jim Gill. "We come
in and build or fabricate custom equipment for the shoot. A physical
effects person also deals with elemental effects such as wind and rain,
and other offshoots like pyrotechnics--where we blow things up and
create fire and things like that."
Special Skills and Education
"For me," says Gill, "petroleum engineering was a good study because
it deals with electronics, hydraulics, and pneumatics--all the subspecies
JOB TITLE: PHYSICAL EFFECTS
"Take a drawing
class because they make
you look at real life and
see how a shadow falls;
the effects of light on a
curved surface or reflected light . . . Then,
when you're putting a shot together, you
realize what you need to see to sell the
illusion."--Jeffrey Okun
CAREER TIPS
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