Renowned British cinematographer and vfx artist Bruce Logan, best known for his work on sci-fi classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) and Tron (1982) has passed away at age 78 in Los Angeles. According to is wife, Mariana Campos-Logan, he died on April 10 after a short illness.
Born on May 15, 1946, Logan was drawn to making animated films at age 14, and eventually he began making vfx-driven projects at 19. His father Campbell, who directed several classic dramas for the BBC, taught him how to use split-screen effects. “My father told me that every frame of a film should be a perfect picture,” said Logan in an interview. “He’s responsible for all my knowledge of film history and for introducing me to the films of all the great directors of the day, including Stanley Kubrick.”
“As director of photography on Tron, [which was among the first movies] to use CGI, I pulled heavily on my experience in animation and visual effects,” Logan told American Cinematographer magazine. “In fact, every frame of film that I shot on that movie was duplicated onto Kodalith film, [and each] was used as an animation cel. Without intimate knowledge of the animation process, I wouldn’t have been able to optimize the live-action photography. Ultimately, I was creating a series of graphic images, so I had to completely eliminate motion blur and create infinite depth of field. Otherwise, the fine detail in the images would have disappeared.”
Logan landed his first job working for vfx supervisor Douglas Trumbull as a visual effects artist for 2001: A Space Odyssey. His list of eclectic cinematic credits include The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Firefox, Batman Forever, Airplane and Avalanche Express. His work on the unreleased Zabriski Pointe are also included in the opening titles for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. He also directed episodes of Disney’s The Book of Pooh and the PBS series It’s a Big, Big World as well as music videos Prince, Madonna, The Go-Gos, Rod Stewart and Aerosmith, as well as the 1986 feature, Vendetta.
Logan is survived by this wife Mariana Campos-Logan, daughter Mary Grace Logan and son Campbell.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
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