ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Pow, you've summarized the situation perfectly. And from our phone conversations, you know I agree with you statements completely.

[Pow]

Splendid pix, Bud.

The vivid colors make it compelling. I loved the dino skull covered in moss and vegetation.

Your airship looks awesome. Majestic and formidable.

This sequel to The Lost World should really happen.

[Pow]

Special Effects: The History and the Technique by Richard Rickitt.

On the strength of his previous efforts featuring stop-motion dinosaurs in his films (most notably Nippy's Nightmare and The Ghost of Slumber Mountain), Willis O'Brien was hired to bring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's dinosaurs to life for The Lost World.

Conscious that his dinosaur puppets---pliable clay bodies sculpted over jointed wooden skeletons---would not be sophisticated for The Lost World (1925), O'Brien hired a young sculptor called Marcel Delgado, whom he had met at art class.

Using the classic dinosaur paintings of Charles Knight for reference, Delgado spent two years coaxing fifty exquisitely detailed prehistoric beasts back from extinction. Each 18"creature was given an anatomically correct steel armature, complete with articulated spine and tiny ball-and-socket joints for every moving limb and digit.

Once complete, the skeletons were painstakingly built up with cotton wadding and pieces of sponge to represent bulging muscle and flesh.

Some models were fitted with air bladders so that they could be inflated and deflated during animation to mimic the animal's labored breathing.

The skeletons were supplemented with wire inserts where extra movement might be required, such as in the lips, eyebrows and cheekbones.

Each padded body was then given an outer skin of liquid latex. Warts, scales and other surface textures were cast in latex and individually stuck on to the dinosaurs before the skin was painted.
--------------------------------------------------------------Note: This article makes me appreciate even more, if that's even possible, the tremendous amount of time and labor that went into creating and executing the special effects for The Lost World.

Note: It also shows that it was a team effort. No one is a greater admirer of the legendary Willis O'Brien than I am. However, we must acknowledge that it also took the talented Marcel Delgado, inspired by artist Charles Knight, to make The Lost World come together to become the cinematic innovator and success that it did.