Jim’s Story
Industrial Light & Magic, The Art of Special Effects
We all enjoy the escapism of television and films; what got you interested in the creative side of it?
Jim. I was interested in monsters and special effects when I was young. Star Wars, for so many people of my age, was a significant influence; mind-blowing stuff!
A good schoolmate, Chris, lived over the road, and we shared a passion for Star Wars, like millions of other kids. But he was also creative; he had the book Industrial Light & Magic, The Art of Special Effects. It was a beautiful, glossy coffee table book. When I saw it, I thought I needed a copy of that! It was maybe £40, so it was a lot of money for a 14-year-old, and I had to wait months for it to be sent over from America, obviously way before Amazon, but it ignited the passion that became my career.
I treasured that book; I still have it today. It has fantastic illustrations from people like Ralph McQuarrie, whose illustrations were a driving force behind getting the Star Wars films into production. So, in this book, I saw beautiful sculptures through images of people holding a tool over something like the Rancor Monster; I thought, wow, this is what I want to do!
As a kid, I saw the glossy, finished sculpted characters through rose-tinted glasses because, at that time, all I knew was this book. I had yet to learn how much work and hours go into it. Chris had sculpted a few things, and he said I should try it, probably partly to give him a break; I was always hanging around his house.
A significant part of my life has been the fact that I had epilepsy. I’d been having mild seizures from the age of six or seven at school, which I can sort of remember. I told my mum something was happening, and she took me to see the doctor, but they misdiagnosed it for a while. Eventually, it transformed into a monster.
When puberty hit, it kicked in in a big way. It was Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, and it affected me in an incredibly strange and terrifying way. The best way I can describe it is like being in The Upside Down from the Stranger Things TV series; I’d suddenly go from being in my reality into an utterly distorted reality. This resulted in me being terrified of leaving my house; I became agoraphobic, so I didn’t go out as a teenager, only when I had to. Obviously, I had to go to school, but it was all very traumatic for me.
In introducing me to sculpting, Chris gave me something to focus on. He knew I was suffering from epilepsy and looked out for me. He showed me there is so much more to this interest than just watching a film, and I could learn to do it myself.
So, I got some clay and set up in my bedroom. I’d start with drawings; I still have the first thing I ever sculpted. It looks like a cross between Yoda and a big-jawed Goblin; it is awful, but I made it. I just kept making things, then started doing a bit of mould-making. My friend had done a course about moulds, so he showed me how to do it. I used those skills in my Creative Arts GCSE, the one subject I got a good grade in; I got an A. I made an animatronic hand with Latex skin, like the Terminator’s skeletal hand.
So now I knew what I wanted to do in life; I just needed to find out how to do it.
I met this guy called Chris Bartle. He lived over the road from my grandparents and was a commercials director. I spent ages making a Star Wars Star Destroyer from a Coco Pops box, which looked pretty good; I still have that. Chris took my Star Destroyer away with him. He did a blue screen thing with it, just used black paper and sugar for stars, added sounds and music, and gave it to me on VHS. That showed me more of what was achievable.
Then, when I was 16, he got me into Pinewood Studios while working on one of his commercials. It was a difficult time for me to go anywhere because of the epilepsy, although, mentally speaking, I was a bit better at that point. Chris told me to look around a place called the Image Animation, run by Bob Keane, where they had done Nightbreed. It’s a reasonably hokey movie, but it was billed as having all these creatures and characters. Their studio had all this amazing stuff, like animatronic bear costumes. I remember seeing a Tauntaun head from Empire Strikes Back on a shelf and being impressed that they had it.
A knock-on effect of the epilepsy was regular visits to Guy’s Hospital, and that, combined with the anxiety that I might have a seizure at any time, meant I missed a fair bit of school. When it came to sitting exams, I was forced out the door with my head down to walk to school and sit the exam. I couldn’t focus on what I was writing; I just sat there, head in hands, until I could leave. So, I spent my first year of sixth form resitting my GCSEs.
“Any time I spent with people, I was acting because I had to pretend everything was normal when, inside my head, things were just crazy. I could function on that weird level, but it was incredibly stressful. A teacher at school told me that if you were any more laid-back, you would fall over. And I remember thinking, you’ve got no idea what’s happening.”
Did you study more or try to get your foot in the door at a studio?
Jim. I felt like I wanted to go to university or college because I wanted to live a life; I had these teenage years to catch up as my epilepsy seemed to ease, and I could function more freely. I still carry it with me; it will always be there, but I can live with it much more as an adult.
I went on to higher education to experience life. I went to Bournemouth for two years on an Audiovisual BTech course. It was a massive step for me; it was a great couple of years, and I met some fantastic people I’m still friends with today.
Then, I went to the Central School of Speech and Drama and studied for the Theatre Design Degree. It was cool, although it had nothing to do with films. However, I did engineer most of my coursework towards commercials or puppetry. Puppetry was part of the degree, which was an interesting concept. There was performance involved in puppeteers or doing movement courses.
At this point, I was aware that my course was coming to a close, and I knew I wanted to go into films, so I started ringing around effects houses to try to find a way in. Hardly anybody responded, but I persevered. I spoke with an art director, and she mentioned a company called Animated Extras at Shepperton Studios. So, I contacted them, and they invited me for a chat.
The bosses at Animated Extras back then were Nick Williams, Pauline Fowler and Dan Parker. I visited their studio in Shepperton and asked a few questions, and they left me to wander around the workshops. I came across Julian Murray; he’s a fantastic sculptor, one of the best in the industry, with many strings to his bow. In hindsight, I must have annoyed him by constantly standing over his shoulder while he was working, asking incessant questions.
I desperately wanted a job there, so I contacted them twice a week. Eventually, they said, look, we’ve got a bit of work for you, £70 a week, and count yourself lucky! It was an hour’s drive from my parents’ house. I was spending all the money I earned from the job on petrol every week. But the experience was priceless, and you don’t care when you are young!
So, you made that first step into the industry.
Jim. The first actual job they gave me was to make a silicone mould to make hard copies out of. They asked me to cut up some fibreglass, and I needed to learn all the step-by-step processes. Through practice and different jobs, I became a mould maker for a few years.
Eventually, someone else had too much work on, or someone hadn’t turned up, and I got my next break. I started getting a few small sculpting jobs. By this stage, I was working on bits and bobs as a freelancer at several places. I was working on stuff for HBO’s TV mini-series Band of Brothers and Ocean Warriors, all about Greenpeace, a big job for Animated Extras. They went out to Holland because they needed facilities at a specific price and sculpted a 40-foot sperm whale. I sculpted a Blacktip Shark with another very talented sculptor, Max Patté, and a few other things.
I was really into fitness at this point and got into martial arts. I was doing a Jeet Kune Do, which was Bruce Lee’s martial art. The gym, health and fitness had the added bonus of helping with the Epilepsy side of things. I was starting to wonder, do I want to work in a mould shop breathing fibreglass fumes anymore? So, the idea of working as a freelance personal trainer took over for a while. I qualified as a personal trainer with Premier International. I had great fun qualifying, but freelance is freelance, whether in sculpting or personal training, so there was no financial stability. After that brief intermission of a few years, Animated Extras called me in to sculpt a gorilla for a film.
“I got back into sculpting, much like The Godfather; they pulled me back in. It was all sculpting from that point; I didn’t take any mould-making work. It wasn’t endless jobs being thrown at me; other people were always doing the same, looking for work.”
I worked on the most recent Star Wars films on and off over five years: Episode Seven, Rogue One, Episode Eight, Solo and Episode Nine. I met the producer J.J. Abrams several times in the workshop at Pinewood Studios; he was a nice guy. They would come in to look at the design board. There were roughly 11 of us working as sculptors as a team at any time, along with concepts and artists. You get handed the concept, which is often quite vague, depending on who the concept artist is. They all have their different styles.
I wouldn’t have believed it if anyone had told me I would be working on a Star Wars film someday when I was 15. It was a childhood dream come true! It was brilliant because everyone was so excited by the idea of a new episode, and of course, we didn’t know they wouldn’t be as amazing as the originals. I went on the Millennium Falcon set and sat in the seat; it was beautiful and perfect. It was super cool having been a nerd fan from a kid.
I also went to New Zealand to work on The Hobbit for a few months out in Wellington with other good friends in the industry. They are not my favourite films but fantastic experiences for me.
“Every job is part of that learning curve; even when things don’t go well, you still learn from it.”
My friend Barry Gower took over prosthetics on Game of Thrones in season four. I had yet to do that much prosthetics, just bits and pieces; I’d never done a really good full makeup. But when they brought me in through Animated Extras to work as a sculptor on the White Walkers and zombie masks, it was interesting. There were a lot of proper pieces, with multiple makeup, rather than just being a pullover mask. That was when Barry set up his studio workshop based in Slough. Sculptor is now the one string to my bow, which can be limiting, but it’s nice to focus on something.
Your workshop/shop, Orca, in Rye. How did that come about?
Jim. We moved to Rye around 2017. We married, had our wedding reception at The George, and now have a three-year-old daughter. I started getting fed up with the two-hour commute, driving up to Shepperton Studios whenever I worked. I wanted to have a go at doing my own thing.
I built a little rig, which I could sculpt on as I worked on wall-hanging sculptures. I had the idea to start sculpting a few busts to sell, and I would try to take on a shop if I could find one in Rye. After half looking on and off over a few years, I found my place on Cinque Ports Street in Rye, Orca Sculpture Studio.
My intention is that the sculpture studio is a draw; seeing me sitting there sculpting through the window might bring people in for a chat to see what’s happening. The best-case scenario is that it could lead to a commission to make something, which is the ultimate goal. I began by selling other smaller, affordable film memorabilia, too.
The studio allows me to do what I enjoy, be close to home, have time with the family and avoid the commute. If and when it works, I can fit in the occasional film project; it’s the best of both worlds.
I recently put a chair in the corner of the space; I’m happy for interested people to visit me, sit down and talk to me while I’m working. Most of the time, I’m happy to chat. I’ve always got a few irons in the fire of projects coming up and a few on the go. I’m currently working on a roe deer head as a private commission, which will be solid bronze when finished.
I made a Jimi Hendrix bust a long time ago; I had the idea of making wall art that is kind of classical in its interpretation, but you wouldn’t need a plinth in a corner of a room to display it. While I was at Barry’s workshop, he let me use his space; he’s a lovely guy. So, I sculpted a bust of Jimi Hendrix while I was there. I had started to think I didn’t want to be doing film stuff for the rest of my life; I’d like to do something more creative.
When working on a film job, I have to stick to a brief and follow the lead of a designer, the director, the producer, or whoever. If someone wants changes that you don’t think are needed, I can find it quite hard to be motivated.
I’ve recently created a bust of Jack Nicholson’s ‘Here’s Johnny’ scene from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Then, the bust of Robert Shaw’s Quint character from the original Jaws film. That took me much longer to capture his likeness; there must be a likeness for it to work. But that said, I don’t want to do a Madame Tussauds type of thing; that’s almost too precise and mathematical. My primary target is to capture a likeness with some energy.
With Quint, there is something in the eyes that works. But I remember the first couple of weeks, turning it around to look at it, and I thought, “Oh no, I’ve made Bill Murray!” It took weeks to hone it. Then, I created a limited edition of each sculpture. All told I’m very lucky to be where I am today.
“When you’re doing your own work, you are the boss, and you can say when you’re finished. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
Jim Sparrow
Orca Sculpture Studio & Film Emporium
6 Cinque Ports St, Rye TN31 7AD
orcasculpture.com
orca.sparrow@gmail.com
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