"Star Wars" visual effects artist McCune dies at 67

[RogueTrooper]

I saw this last night, another member of the Star Wars family has past away.

May Grant McCune Rest in Peace. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

Grant McCune, a special effects artist who earned an Oscar for his work on the 1977 film Star Wars, has died. He was 67.

McCune died Monday at his home in Hidden Hills, Calif., of pancreatic cancer.

McCune created scenes with miniatures, models and special effects for dozens of movies, including Spaceballs, Ghostbusters II and 2008's Rambo.

He began in special effects in 1975 when he and friend Bill Shourt were hired to make a giant white shark model for Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

They got no credit for the film, but McCune caught the eye of the film community and he became chief model maker for Star Wars, where he created R2-D2 and many of the creatures that populate the film.

He later became a partner at Apogee Productions, where he worked on films such as Die Hard, Never Say Never Again and Caddyshack.

McCune went on to launch his own company, Grant McCune Design, which handled films such as Speed, Batman Forever, U.S. Marshals, Red Planet, U-571 and Spider-Man.

He got a second Oscar nomination in 1980 as part of the special effects crew for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He also was chief modelmaker for 1978 TV series Battlestar Galactica.

McCune, who trained in biology, advised others wanting to get into his business to take up photography.

"The most important thing is what you see with your eye," he said in an interview with Popular Mechanics.

"Movies are a lot different from reality. This is because you've isolated the viewer's eye to a certain spot — you can't look anywhere else. If you're a photographer, you get the idea of what you need to do by analyzing what it is that needs to be set and where it is and how much detail it should have."

Most models are made on a 1:4 scale, he said, but those that must come in contact with fire or water may need to be full-sized because neither fire nor water can be made to look realistic on the smaller scale.

He is survived by his wife, Katherine; a son, Cole; a daughter, Lily; and a sister, Shelley.

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=epNyCg0vsr0

Filmography

2008 Rambo (miniature effects supervisor)

1998 Sphere (model/minature supervisor: Grant McCune Design)

1996 Daylight (model/miniature supervisor: Grant McCune Design)

1996 Executive Decision (miniature effects supervisor: Grant McCune Design)

1995 Batman Forever (supervisor: Grant McCune Design)

1994 Ri¢hie Ri¢h (minature supervisor: Grant McCune Design)

1994/I Speed (supervisor: Grant McCune Design)

1989 Ghostbusters II (model shop: Apogee)

1988 My Stepmother Is an Alien (model shop supervisor)

1987 Spaceballs (chief model maker: Apogee, Inc.)

1985 Lifeforce (miniature supervisor)

1983 Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land (TV movie) (miniatures supervisor)

1982 Firefox (chief modelmaker: Apogee, Inc.)

1980 Caddyshack (special animator)

1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (miniatures supervisor: Apogee, Inc.)

1979 Avalanche Express (chief model maker: Apogee)

1978 Battlestar Galactica (TV series) (chief model maker: miniature and optical effects unit - 1 episode) – Pilot (1978) (chief model maker: miniature and optical effects unit)

1977 Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (chief model maker: miniature and optical effects unit

[Pappy]

RIP sir

[FIVE]

He's one of the faces I associate with the effects from Star Wars... just from watching the old "behind the scenes" films.

Sad to hear it.

[Scootch]

Terrible to go so young and to be sick like that.

[Short TRooper]

What a talented man!

I think half the stuff he did listed I have seen in a movie!

God be with his family and may He give them peace.

Diana (ShortTrooper )