Hoy os presento un libro queacaba de salir a la venta dedicada a la obra y vida del director de cine Juan PiquerSimón. Uno de esosdirectores malditosque fueron ignorados y abandonados por la industria, por la critica y portodos esos gerifaltes de la cultura políticamentecorrecta. Piquerera realmente un cineastaindependiente, que como unos pocos, iba a su aire buscando financiación privadapara hacer un cine comercial. El cine que a él le gustaba y en el que creía, ycon el quemantener una industria queotros se empeñaron en destrozarpor quererimpulsar unmal entendido cine de autor.Más cine de autor que el de Piquer hay pocos. Es cierto quea sus películas se le pueden sacar defectos ysu filmografía es muy irregular. Unas veces acertó y otras dio un buenpatinazo.Pero eso le ha pasado a todoslos directores. No creo que su cine seamejor ni más respetable que el de otros que trabajaron géneros diferentes. El problemaes que para casi todos ellos, su cine, por ser diferente era calificado de peory poco respetable.
Esa es mi opinión, ahora paso apresentaros este libro.
Coordinado por José Luís Alonso ymaquetado por Pedro A. Rueda Es un extenso estudio de su obra de más de 600paginas, generosamente ilustrado y escrito por multitud de colaboradores conmas de 30 entrevistas. Con un prologo escrito por el productor José Ortega, quetrabajó con Piquer en sus tres ultimas películas rodadas en Valencia.
Yo también he colaborado en estelibro homenaje a Piquer, ya que sus autores me pidieron que escribiese unaspaginas sobro mis trabajos con él. He querido extenderme en esas paginas sobre algunosproyectos de Piquer en los que trabajé yque nunca consiguieron financiación o que fueron a parar a manos de otros directores.
La primera edición es limitada y está casi agotadaasí que a los interesados les recomiendo que se den prisa en sus pedidos. Para ellopueden accedera la pagina de laeditorial caltiki@gmail.como bien en su blog caltikiediciones.blogspot.com.es
Nota de prensa de la editorial:
Eldía 8 salió a la venta el primer librode CALTIKI EDICIONES s.f., una nueva y pequeña editorial especializada enlibros de cine oscuro. Juan Piquer Simón.Un titán en el confín de la Tierra,es un libro coordinado por José LuísAlonso, para conmemorar el 2º aniversario de la muerte del directorvalenciano.
Estenuevo libro dedicado a su figura, constituye todo un apasionante recorridomonográfico por el cine fantástico y de aventuras del valenciano Juan PiquerSimón. Dicho director fue una figura inusual dentro de las coordenadas del cinecomercial español de la década de los ochenta y noventa, y todo un icono deculto fuera de nuestras fronteras. Profesional emprendedor en proyectos de bajopresupuesto que lograron recaudar beneficios sustanciales y éxito de público.
Estehomenaje a uno de los directores españoles más internacionales del fantaterrorha contando con un prólogo de José Ortega y la colaboración de diversoscríticos especializados: Alfonso y Miguel Romero, Carlos Benítez Serrano,David García, Diego Morán, Jesús Bernal, José Luís Salvador Estébenez, Manuel Valencia,Miki Martínez, Toni Junyent, etc.
En la página de la editorial encontrareis unas pocas imágenesdel interior de libro. Ya que laprimera edición está casi agotada esperemos que haya pedidos suficientes parauna segunda edición. Os dejo mientras la portada del libro que no es otro queel cartel de su primera película Viaje al centro de la Tierra.
Escrito por domingo-lizcano el 27/01/2013 15:04 | Comentarios (0)
Junto con la exposición dedicada al maestro de la animación Ray Harryhausen en la Coruña, la fundación Luís Seoane, publicó un libro sobre sus trucajes y películas. Gracias a mi buen amigo Asier Mensuro, pude además de colaborar en la exposición con la escultura del talos yla diosa Kali, dejar testimonio de mi admiración por Harryhausen escribiendo uno de los capítulos del libro.
Losotros autores son, el mismo Asier, comisario de la exposición, Alberto Ruiz de Samaniego, director de la fundación Luís Seoane, Jorge Gorostiza, crítico yespecialista en cine y arquitectura, y mi buen amigo y colaborador Antonio Garcinuño.
En el capitulo en que escribo, dedicado a los efectos especiales en sus películas he queridomostrar no solo las diferentes técnicas que Harryhausen usó, sino también aportar nombres y datos de sus numerosos colaboradores. Aunque lo más destacado de su trabajo sea la animación fotograma a fotograma, y eso lo realizó él solo, contó en otras tareas, con la ayuda de muchos profesionales, escultores, pintores, maquetistas etc.
Dado que Harryhausen rodó en España varias de sus películas, entre sus colaboradores habitualestuvo a grandes técnicos y artesanos de nuestra cinematografía. Nombres desconocidos para la mayoría del publico, que hemos querido rescatar para ofrecerles, al menos un pequeño reconocimiento a su aportación.
Mientras, Antonio y yo llevamos ya varios años trabajando en un libro sobre los efectos especiales en el cine español. Hemos estado entrevistando a numerosos profesionales, rebuscando entre libros, revistas y publicaciones todo tipo de información relacionada con el tema. Con este libro hacemos un repaso a la historia de la cinematografía española, centrándonos en el trabajo de los artesanos, carpinteros, pintores, maquilladores, escultores y técnicos varios, que ha menudo ni siquiera vieron sus nombres aparecer en pantalla.
Parte de esa información la usamos en le capitulo dedicado a los efectos en las películas de Harryhausen, que aparece en el libro mencionado.
Domingo Lizcano.
Escrito por domingo-lizcano el 20/06/2011 16:54 | Comentarios (0)
Emilio Ruiz del Río, was born in MadridSpain in 1923.As a young man he studied arts in the“Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando” where he was the alumni of the reputed painter Jose Bermejo. Around this period Ruiz studied in the “Escuela de Madrid de arte y decoracion”; and he made some money painting signs and posters for theatres.
In 1942 he started to work at Chamartin Studios in Madrid as assistant scenic painter to Enrique Salvá, a well-known landscape painter, who became scenic artist and later an art director. It was during that year when German art director Sigfredo Burmann came to Spain after working at UFA Studios in Germany. Burmann explained him (Salvá) about the glass shot technique, he learned in Germany.Salva had no doubt that he could adopt this technique for the Spanish film industry.For his next film, “El Abanderado”, Burmann commissioned Salva to make some “in camera” glass shots, with Emilio Ruiz working as Salva´s assistant. As art director, Burmann made use of glass shots frequently, and always painted by Salvá and his protégé.
For the next few years Enrique Salvá and his young assistant shared the work painting scenic backdrops and matte paintings. At the 40´s they worked at more than 10 films by year, it was an exciting, wild and crazy experience painting always under pressure, running from one to another studio. Salvá was the fastest and most wanted background painter, and Emilio was forced to learn fast, how to paint very fast
During the 1940’s in addition to Salvá and EmilioRuiz, there was only one othermatte painter in Spanish film industry, the Russian born art director Pierre Schildneck, who worked in France during the 20´s and 30´s, where he collaborated with British matte painting pioneer Walter Percy Day. Schildneck learned the technique of matte painting, and when he came to Spain in 1938, he started to use this knowledge to integrate photographic tricks in his films. Although he achieved the same impressive outcome with his paintings, he created an atmosphere of mystery surrounding his work due to his method of painting at post-production in a small separate room on the studio lot, just the oppositeof the “in camera” glass shot used by Salva and Emilio.
In the mid 50´s, Emilio had matured in his painting skills and he now started to work on his own. A couple of years later Enrique Salvá died tragically in a car accident. Pierre Schildneck retired at 1956, with Emilio Ruiz remaining as the only matte painter on Spain
It was in 1955 during the filming of “La cruz de Mayo” when Emilio discovered a new system. He had just completed a painting of a cityscape on a huge sheet of glass. When Emilio arrived to the studio at the morning, he found the glass cracked.Probably caused by the extreme cold during the night. They did not have time to prepare a new glass, so Emilio asked the construction team to help him cut a wooden silhouette of the city. He then painted the required scenic effect over the masonite surface. The shot was a huge success and Emilio immediately saw the advantages of using the painted cut out rather than the old glass shot. There wasn’t the problem of unwanted reflections showing up on the sheet of glass, and it was more easily set up and lighter to handle. Emilio thought about someother material lighter than the wood and finally came up with the idea of using a thin aluminium cut out piece. He tried that technique in his next film successfully. From then on, depending on the requirements of the production he used both techniques, glass and aluminium cut out, the last one more often mostly because was a cheaper and easy to handle one.
In the late 50´s, foreign productions from Britain and the USA started to come to Spanish location for exteriors. They became aware of the studios facilities and the skilled construction teams there, and they also shot various interiors, and finally they came to shoot entire movies of all genres.
Italian film makers also migrated to Spain to produce “sword and sandal” films (generally low-budget movies on a gladiatorial, Biblical or mythological subject) and later on in the mid60´s the so called ‘spaghetti’ westerns became enormously popular. Emilio Ruiz gradually got more and more work onglass painting.
When the Italian producer Italo Zingarelli came to Spain to supervise the exterior shooting of his films, he saw one of Emilio’s on location paintings and became aware of the extremely useful he could be for his next epic projects. During a decade, Emilio Ruiz worked with him in more than a dozen films travelling for Europe, painting miniatures in Italy, Yugoslavia, Hungry, etc, for sword and sandal and war movies like “The LastDays of Pompeii” (1959), “Legions of the Nile(1960), “The Colossus of Rhodes”(1961) or “The Invincible Seven” (1963).
For some years he was at the de Paolis studios in Rome, where he painted all kind of palaces, fortress and castles exterior and interiors for many Italian films. These were years of fast painting and learning by doing hundreds of in camera trick shots. He began to explore new ways to give realism and movement to some of his paintings. He started to make armies of small soldiers silhouettes glued over hidden belts, moved by a crank.For a Roman Circus shot, he included hundreds of small rubber figures in a cut out painting, moved along with hidden wires. He also provided armies and vehicles moving through miniatures and squadrons of airplanes painted on a moving sheet of glass, for war movies.
Duringthe 60´s, he was travelling from Italy to Spain, where he was asked to work on most of the British and American movies filmed on Spanish locations, in addition to his work on Spanish films.
From that period he collaborated on David Leans’epic Lawrence of Arabia. When that production moved to Spain for exteriors, Lean wanted some long shot views of Muslim cities. They used Seville and Cordoba.To get rid of some undesirable building shapes and to give it more Islamic touches, the construction team built some wooden silhouettes of minarets and domes.To complete the effect a fast skilled painter was required to paint the light and shadows according to the real buildings, to make colour, light and shadows blend perfectly at the hourof the shooting. The task was commissioned to Emilio Ruiz.
Someyears later, he became involved again on another gigantic David Lean project, “Doctor Zhivago”. He was involved on the huge set built to reproduce a Moscow street. Early on in the production the production designer, art directors and set construction crew discussed the notion of utilising foreground miniatures, but David Lean wanted all full scale. As a result they went to use scenic paintings at full scale instead of three-dimensional building. Emilio Ruiz was commissioned to paint far away view of The Kremlin, on the street set.
Emilio’s’filmography was full of international names like Mann, Lean, Cukor, Annakin,Vidor, Buñuel, Welles, Lester, Siodmak and Kubrick. He also worked on some ofthe films of Ray Harryhausen, painting backdrops on the early ones and in camera glass shots for the last Sinbad films. For most of the big budget American and English films, he was required to paint backdrops and very often glass paintings. They usually prefer to commission the matte paintings to American and British matte department studios instead of in location cameratricks provided by Emilio.
He collaborated at the epic films produced by Samuel Bronston in Spain, and begun a prolific collaboration with Italian director Enzo Castellari for whom he created glass shots and miniatures for westerns,World War II, action films.
It was during these years after the huge experience working on the cheap low budget Italian films when he begun to get involved in some projects on a big or medium budget where they required his skills, and he could go for the use of foreground miniatures instead of the painting cut out, which was cheaper. However, the painting method has a significant disadvantage; it must be filmed on a specific hour when the light and shadow on the real sets blended with the painting.Working with the construction teams, carpenters and plasterers, he begun to build foreground models or hanging miniatures, which could be filmed at any time in the available sunlight without the worry of matching the actual set with the special effect through intricate lighting.
In Spain,he collaborated with Juan Piquer Simon on a series of fantasy and adventure films - generally made on a low budget. Piquer counted on with some other professionals of equal talent of Emilio, like Francisco Prosper. (Prosper, although was specialised on three-dimensional miniatures, he also made some matte paintingsby himself)
Prosper was a colleague and close collaborator of Emilio. As a construction manager and art director, he worked on most of the foreign films made in Spain, during the 50´s, 60´s and 70´s. Including the Ray Harryhausen films for which he madeapart of the sets and props, some miniatures. Francisco Prosper had a vast experience on foreground miniatures from his work with Spanish art director Enrique Alarcon, and his work under art director Eugene Lourie.
n the early 80´s, Emilio had another lucky encounter with an Italian producer; this time was Dino de Laurentiis who came to Spain for the shooting of the first Conan adventure. In fact Emilio was approached by Laurentiis some years early, to make the miniatures for his “King Kong” film. But the circumstances didn’t allowthem to work together that time.
Emilio Ruiz was commissioned to build the miniatures. Due to the ample budget, he used foreground model miniatures for most of the shots and only made used of glass shots for some fast solving solutions.
DeLaurentiis was so satisfied with his work; he embarked him on his next futuristic epic project, Dune. Emilio Ruiz went to Mexico for almost one year to make the most big and spectacular foreground miniatures he had made to date.
Laurentiis like Zingarelli years earlier saw the benefits of Emilio’s work and employed him on his regular production team during the 80´s. This time Emilio had the chance to work on films with that for once were not so restrained by tight budgets, and had the chance to show all his skill and talent on the use of foreground miniatures, and forced perspective tricks. (Dune, Conan II, Red Sonja, Cat’s Eye, orTaipan)
During the last two decades, he kept working with his traditional techniques providing glass paintings, cut out miniatures and foreground models for Spanish, French, Italian and American films. With the advent of the digital era, he became probably the last practitioner of the old art of glass painting in the world. When all the matte painters around the world were forced to put aside their brushes for the digital palette, Emilio kept alive the tradition of the old pioneers, like Norman Dawn or Percy Day.
Some of his last contributions were “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” (2004),or
“Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006)
In 2007, he was asked to collaborate on a documentary on his life and career.It was during the filming of the documentary when he became ill and died at the age of 84, some weeks after filming his last foreground miniature and cut out painting trick.
Emilio Ruiz del Rio’s career spanned from 1942 to 2007, and he was probably the last of the practitioners of the now lost art of glass painting, invented by Norman Dawn in 1911.
Domingo Lizcano 6-2009
Thanks to Peter Cook
Escrito por domingo-lizcano el 24/07/2009 21:05 | Comentarios (0)
El año pasado participé en el rodaje de un documental que se estrenó el pasado 21 de Noviembre en Barcelona (cines Verdi). Dirigido por Sigfrid Monleon “El ultimo truco” un homenaje al maquetista Emilio Ruiz del Rio.
Durante noventa minutos, es el mismo Emilio Ruiz el que nos lleva de la mano desde los inicios de su carrera en los años 40, mostrándonos los entresijos de un oficio ya perdido en el tiempo, los trucajes con maquetas, perspectivas forzadas y maquetas pintadas en primer termino, todo ello directamente en cámara, nada de postproducción ni efectos digitales. Un arte extinto en el que se especializó desde sus comienzos en 1942, y en el que llegó a ser uno de los máximos exponentes mundiales, siendo requerido en la mayoría de las películas extranjeras rodadas en España, hasta su fallecimientoen el 2007, pocas semanas después de terminar el rodaje del documental.
En su filmografía que abarca unas 500 películas, destacan títulos como Goyescas(1942), Locura de amor(1948), Mister Arkadin (1955), El coloso de Rodas(1959), Lawrence de Arabia (1960), La caída del imperio romano(1961), DoctorZivago (1965), Patton (1970) , El viaje fantástico de Simbad(1973)Operación Ogro (1978), Conan el bárbaro(1981), Dune (1984), Acción mutante (1992), La niña de tus ojos (1998) ,Soldados de Salamina ( 2002), o El laberinto del Fauno(2006).
El documental, cuenta con apariciones de profesionales como RayHarryhausen, Fernando Trueba, Guillermo del Toro, Rafaella De Laurentiis, o Enzo Castellari.
Producido por Andres Santana (Aiete Ariane)ha sido presentado en varios festivales de cine (Malaga, Valladolid, Roma, Jaén) y ofrece una oportunidad única de explorarla obra de uno de los más internacionalesy exitosos artistas de nuestra industria del cine, que sin embargo es un gran desconocido para la mayoría del público. Al fin y al cabo, su trabajo, al contrario del de otros, consistía en ser invisible, pasar desapercibido y que sus maquetas se confundiesen con la realidad. La película, estuvo nominada al Goya al mejor documental del año pasado.
He adjuntado unasimágenes en las que se ve una maqueta de ”Red Sonja” (1985), el cuerpo del gigante suspendido frente acámara encajado con las piernas del fondo, y una foto deEmilio Ruiz durante la presentación de una exposición sobre sus trabajos hace unos años en Madrid.
El ultimo truco. Emilio Ruiz del Rio
Dirección: Sigfrid Monleón. País:España. Año:2008. Duración:90 min. Género: Documental. Intervenciones:Fernando Trueba, Guillermo del Toro, Biel Durán, Eugenio Caballero, Enzo G.Castellari, Raffaela de Laurentiis, David Trueba, José López Rodero, GinetteAngosse, Juan Piquer, Ray Harryhausen. Guión:Sigfrid Monleón y Asier Mensuro. Producción:Andrés Santana e Imanol Uribe. Música: JoanValent. Fotografía:Gonzalo Berridi y Rafael Cedrés. Montaje:Buster Franco.
Escrito por domingo-lizcano el 11/05/2009 00:36 | Comentarios (1)
