Phil Tippett

Phil Tippett (born September 27, 1951) is an American film director, visual‑effects supervisor, and producer renowned for his pioneering work in creature design, stop‑motion, and computer‑generated animation. He grew up in Berkeley, California, and at the age of seven was mesmerized by Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, a moment he later described as the decisive spark for his career. After earning a bachelor's degree in art from the University of California, Irvine, Tippett began working at Cascade Pictures in Los Angeles, where his talent for practical effects quickly attracted attention. In 1975, while still at Cascade, he and fellow artist Jon Berg were recruited by George Lucas to craft the iconic holographic chess scene for Star Wars, marking the start of a long association with Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Tippett’s work on The Empire Strikes Back introduced the revolutionary go‑motion technique, which he used to animate the terrifying AT‑AT walkers and the alien tauntauns, earning his first Academy Award nomination for Dragonslayer in 1981. By 1983 he headed the Lucasfilm creature shop for Return of the Jedi, winning an Oscar in 1984 for his groundbreaking dinosaur effects.

In 1984 Tippett founded Tippett Studio, initially operating from his garage, where he produced the groundbreaking short Prehistoric Beast that evolved into the Emmy‑winning documentary Dinosaur! The studio’s expertise shone again on Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993), where, despite the shift to CGI, Tippett supervised the realistic movement of fifty dinosaur shots, securing a second Oscar. His later credits include the terrifying arachnids of Starship Troopers (1997), the relentless ED‑209 robot in RoboCop (1987), and the creature‑laden Evolution (2000). After decades of industry success, Tippett fulfilled a long‑standing ambition with the stop‑motion feature Mad God, finally released in December 2021 following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Continuing to explore new storytelling frontiers, he announced work on an original project titled “Pequin’s Pendequin,” a darkly comic tale inspired by 1940s Warner Bros. cartoons. Throughout his career, Tippett’s blend of artistic imagination and technical innovation has cemented his status as a visionary in the world of visual effects.