Joe Fordham
As seen in:
Flashfilms,
Animation World Network,
NewsBreak,
American Cinematographer,
VFX Voice,
Redshirts Always Die
Covers:
Film.
Articles by Joe Fordham
Building, and Destroying, Victor's Lab
Editors' note: This spotlight on the visual effects of Frankenstein is part of AC's in-depth coverage of the film, which is featured in our December 2025 issue. Below is an expanded photo gallery showcasing the production's miniature builds. Frankenstein’s laboratory, a neo-Gothic pinnacle on a rugged Scottish clifftop, took shape in miniature for establishing scenes and for the tower’s destruction.
Designing 'Frankenstein'
Production designer Tamara Deverell first worked with the horror impresario Guillermo del Toro as part of production-design department on Mimic (1997). She later joined the filmmaker on his television productions, The Strain (2015) and Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022), and more recently Nightmare Alley (AC, Jan. 2022) — and what may be the filmmaker's most extravagant paean to the horror genre in Frankenstein.
Building the World of 'Alien: Earth'
Three decades after Ridley Scott's Alien (shot by Derek Vanlint, CSC; AC Aug. '79), plans emerged for a television series, Alien: Earth. With Scott on board as an executive producer and Noah Hawley, creator of the TV series Fargo (AC July '24) as show-runner, the series appeared on FX Networks as eight one-hour episodes, predating Alien by two years.
Building the World of 'Alien: Earth'
Three decades after Ridley Scott's Alien (shot by Derek Vanlint, CSC; AC Aug. '79), plans emerged for a television series, Alien: Earth. With Scott on board as an executive producer and Noah Hawley, creator of the TV series Fargo (AC July '24) as show-runner, the series appeared on FX Networks as eight one-hour episodes, predating Alien by two years.
Black Mirror's "Eulogy" VFX Turn Photos Into Living Memories
In the Black Mirror Season 7 episode “Eulogy,” a sad and solitary man named Phil (Paul Giamatti) uses a cranial-input device to relive memories of his recently deceased, long-estranged lover, Carol (Hazel Monaghan).
A Thousand Suns: Shooting Interplanetary Micro-Shorts
MacGregor brainstormed stories with his team and planned logistics for an initial three-episode production schedule, following a Stateside shoot for “Red” with Icelandic locations representing a Japan-esque forest in “Deal” and a glacier location for a frozen planet in ‘Ice.’ While colleagues in Iceland helped organize locations, MacGregor recruited crew closer to home. “We brought cameras from L.A. and did our homework,” says MacGregor.
The American Society of Cinematographers
Battle action includes Lee’s first encounter with Jessie on the streets of Brooklyn, where a suicide bomber attacks a Western Forces gathering. The production staged the conflagration in downtown Atlanta, where Schwalm’s special-effects team initiated the pyrotechnic event. Framestore added the Manhattan skyline in the distance and enhanced the explosion, referencing a mix of documentary footage.
The American Society of Cinematographers
Scaling Cootie To assist with scale calculations, Perry enlisted associate VFX supervisor Scott Kirvan, who kept track of Cootie’s 2.1x scale ratio; standard-scale performers stood a proportional distance from the camera, while Jerome occupied foreground — occasionally interacting with half-scale props — on grip-fabricated platforms. In pre-production, Kirvan, Perry and their team used Unreal Engine to develop techvis.
How Autodesk’s New Asset Management Platform Flow Evolves Cloud-Based Production Pipelines
By signing up for our newsletter, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
Star Trek: Picard: The Art and Making of the Series
Buy US/Canada Buy UK/Rest of World Buy Australia/New Zealand Star Trek: Picard stars Patrick Stewart, reprising his role as Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The… US/Canada $49.95 UK/Rest of World £39.99 Star Trek: Picard stars Patrick Stewart, reprising his role as Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The American Society of Cinematographers
Preproduction, 2022 Henley’s role included early collaborations to brainstorm the conceptual approach toward the recreation of historical environments and, in particular, six battles across Europe and North Africa that interwove the tempestuous love story between the despotic French emperor Napoleon (Joaquin Phoenix) and his lover Josephine (Vanessa Kirby).
The American Society of Cinematographers
The story is focused on the perspectives of three Flight 751 passengers — Numa (Enzo Vogrincic), Nando (Agustín Pardella), and Roberto (Matías Recalt) — not all of whom emerged alive in 1972.
The American Society of Cinematographers
Global Effects ILM visual-effects supervisors Ian Comley, Charmaine Chan and David Dalley worked with Cooper at ILM’s studios in London, San Francisco and Sydney. As the project grew, New Regency visual-effects producer Julian Levi distributed visual-effects assignments to ILM and more than a dozen additional studios on three continents. Cooper notes that “it was a non-traditional structure. I had my eye over everything. Ian and Charmaine supervised around 500 shots in London.
The American Society of Cinematographers
Tight Quarters Jouffret drew on his recent experience shooting the fourth season of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan using the Sony Venice with the Rialto extension. The approach was similar to how Claudio Miranda, ASC, ACC captured cockpit action on Top Gun: Maverick (AC May ’22). “I had worked with Claudio, so I called him and Dan Ming, his first AC,” Jouffret says. “I somewhat followed their path. It made perfect sense. Claudio had cameras in F-16 fighter aircraft, while I was in race cars.
An Eye for the Cameras: Richard Edlund, ASC
This article was originally published in AC Aug. 2023. Camera photos courtesy of Richard Edlund, ASC. Other images courtesy of the ASC Archive. The private workplace of Richard Edlund, ASC is an Aladdin’s cave of cinema history.
The American Society of Cinematographers
Ten years ago, in an office at Shepperton Studios, a group of people gathered around a furry creature snarling atop its handler’s shoulders. The raccoon, Oreo, and a tiny mewling “kit” were serving as references for Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn and the team planning to create a CGI raccoon as a lead character in the film, photographed by Ben Davis, BSC (AC Sept. ’14).
The American Society of Cinematographers
John Dykstra, ASC has been called a visual-effects titan, an iconoclast and a pioneer, but above all, he is a sincere, passionate advocate of the motion-picture image. Dykstra has won two Academy Awards for visual effects, for Star Wars (AC July ’77) and Spider-Man 2. He received additional nominations for Spider-Man (AC June ’02), Stuart Little and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (AC Feb. ’80). He also shared an Academy Scientific and Engineering Award (with Alvah J.
The American Society of Cinematographers
Creating special visual effects — seemingly impossible motion-picture images essential to telling the story at hand — is an art form that combines daring creativity and trailblazing technology, and requires practitioners who constantly seek new challenges. For Sam Nicholson, ASC, recipient of the 2023 Curtis Clark ASC Technical Achievement Award, this role seems tailor-made.
BUILDING A POST-MODERN PARADISE FOR DON’T WORRY DARLING
Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures Alice Chambers (Florence Pugh) and her husband Jack (Harry Styles) are the perfect couple in the mysterious thriller Don’t Worry Darling. After the critical and commercial success of Olivia Wilde’s feature film directorial debut with the coming-of-age drama Booksmart, the filmmaker seized on a challenging assignment for her next project in Don’t Worry Darling. The Warner Bros.
5 Star Trek: First Contact facts you may never have known
Titan Books publishes a lavishly illustrated volume about Star Trek: First Contact. It’s almost a year late for the film’s silver anniversary, but the new book Star Trek: First Contact: The Making of the Classic Film is a gorgeous celebration of what’s not only the best Star Trek movie starring The Next Generation cast but also one of the best moves the franchise has yet given us.
Star Trek: First Contact: The Making of the Classic Film
Jump to header and navigation. Jump to main content. Jump to footer. Description Twenty-five years ago, Star Trek: First Contact saw Picard, Data, and the Enterprise crew go back in time to stop the Borg before they could prevent Earth’s first contact with an alien species and assimilate the entire planet. Celebrate this landmark anniversary by taking a deep dive into the stories behind this beloved film.
Star Trek First Contact: The Making of the Classic Film - Fordham, Joe
Added to Baby Wishlist Item is already in your registry Requested: 1 Must-have item Enable group gifting Private
NEW STAR TREK BOOKS & MORE FOR 2022
2021 delivered a plethora of new Star Trek reference books, comics and novels, from the Coda Trilogy, to Hero Collector’s popular ‘Shipyards’ series. And 2022 looks set to deliver even more epic tomes to fill up those bookshelves. We’ve got new Shipyards volumes, a new Star Trek: The Next Generation season-by-season guide series, anniversary specials for the Genesis Trilogy and much more headed our way this year.
Cinefex 134
Iron Man 3 Rough Around the Edges Article by Jody Duncan Following two highly successful Iron Man outings helmed by Jon Favreau, director Shane Black deftly picks up the reins to deliver a third film in Marvel Studios' popular franchise.
Cinefex 142
Jurassic World Indominus Article by Jody Duncan Twenty-two years after Steven Spielberg joined with Industrial Light & Magic, Phil Tippett and Stan Winston Studio to bring Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and its array of genetically engineered dinosaurs to the screen, director Colin Trevorrow helms Jurassic World.
Cinefex Celebration
In the year One-Nine Nine-Nine... While the world was bracing for ‘Y2K’ meltdown, a rag-tag family of ‘niche-survivor’ journalists in a nondescript industrial estate in Riverside, California, was busy preparing to celebrate the 20th year of publishing Cinefex magazine. Just before Christmas of that year, a visual effects website in Hollywood published an article that its editor (yours truly) had written before jetting off to visit his family in England.
Ray Harryhausen, A Celebration
At 7 p.m. on July 13, cars began to line the streets outside the home of British Consul General and Mrs. Paul Dimond in Los Angeles. A band was set up in the consul general's garden, situated west of the Wilshire Country Club in the residential district of Hancock Park, along with cocktail bars, a buffet dinner and attendant security, and a large screen and video projection system which loomed over the swimming pool.
"Wendy" - Q&A with Benh Zeitlin & Jason Hamer - Cinefex BlogCinefex Blog
Searchlight Pictures’ Wendy was one of the last films to open in North America before the coronavirus pandemic darkened cinemas worldwide. The film opened, in limited release, after its Sundance Film Festival premiere where critics heralded Wendy as filmmaker Benh Zeitlin’s second feature – following his Oscar-nominated postdiluvian fantasy Beasts of the Southern Wild – which they described as a loose retelling of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.
"Undone" - Q&A with Hisko Hulsing - Cinefex BlogCinefex Blog
Anyone who tuned into Amazon Studios’ eight-episode, three-hour animated drama, Undone, last Fall knew they were in for a strange ride. From its first episode, the series depicted its heroine, Alma Winograd-Diaz (Rosa Salazar), as a feisty young kindergarten teacher, in painterly rotoscoped animation, with limpid eyes and a feisty temper.
Cinefex 169
$15.00 (outside the U.S. add $7.50 shipping) The Illusionists VFX Roundtable Discussion Article by Graham Edwards Join us for an exclusive roundtable panel in which we bring together 21 Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisors to examine the ways in which the industry has changed over the past 40 years and to offer enlightened speculation on the shape of things to come.
"2001: An Epilogue" – Q&A with Steve Begg - Cinefex Blog
In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, it is the beginning of the end for astronauts on the spaceship Discovery when co-pilot Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) ventures out into space on a maintenance mission and he is suddenly cast adrift, his oxygen line severed.
Cinefex 166
The Lion King A Moon-Shot Movie Article by Jody Duncan Coming off their successful collaboration on Jungle Book, director Jon Favreau and the team at MPC elevate the craft of computer animation to astonishing heights in the remake of Walt Disney Pictures' The Lion King.
Cinefex 164
Captain Marvel The Power Within Her Article by Joe Fordham Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Studios wind back the clock to 1995, when a freak accident propels U.S. Air Force officer Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) into the ranks of an intergalactic Starforce, partnering her with Mar-Vell (Jude Law), commander of the Kree, and U.S. government agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).
Cinefex 97
$17.50 (outside the U.S. add $7.50 shipping) Hellboy To Hell and Back Article by Jody Duncan Based on the graphic novels of Mike Mignola, Hellboy features the demon head of an occult crimefighting team gathered to counter the forces of evil. Charged with delivering the effects-heavy film on a modest budget, director Guillermo del Toro relied heavily on practical effects by Nick Allder and makeup and animatronics by Cinovation Studio, Spectral Motion and DDT Efectos Especiales.
Cinefex 95
The Matrix Reloaded Neo Realism Article by Joe Fordham Delivering the first of two sequels to their 1999 hit, The Matrix, which took audiences by storm with its tale of alternate realities, the Wachowski Brothers are back with The Matrix Reloaded. This time, returning visual effects supervisor John Gaeta and an international array of visual effects vendors — led by ESC Entertainment — advanced synthetic imaging techniques and motion capture technology.
VFX Q&A – Van Ling on ‘Cliffs of Freedom’ - Cinefex Blog
During the television broadcast of the 91st Academy Awards, viewers may have glimpsed a trailer for a sweeping historical epic, Cliffs of Freedom. The independent feature, released by Round Hill Media, boasted an impressive cast – Billy Zane, Christopher Plummer, Patti LuPone and Lance Henriksen – and glamorous co-stars, Jan Uddin as a Turkish colonel and Tania Raymonde as a feisty Greek woman, in a Zhivago-esque romance of star-crossed lovers set against a backdrop of Ottoman oppression.
Cinefex 163
Alita: Battle Angel Iron Maiden Article by Joe Fordham After decades in development, 20th Century Fox and producers James Cameron and Jon Landau present their adaptation of Yukito Kishiro's manga classic about a 26th century scientist (Christoph Waltz) who salvages a damaged female cyborg (Rosa Salazar) whom he nurses back to consciousness as a deadly warrior.
Cinefex 162
$12.50 (outside the U.S. add $7.50 shipping) Aquaman Romancing the Sea Article by Jody Duncan When Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) discovers his true destiny as heir to the underwater throne of Atlantis, he must confront his brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) in a battle to decide who will rule. James Wan directs this adaptation of the DC Comics stories for Warner Bros.
Cinefex 152
The supersized simian lives again in Warner Bros. Pictures' 1970s-era reimagining of Merian C. Cooper's and Ernest B. Schoedsack's 1933 fable King Kong. Brie Larson stars as photojournalist Weaver, who journeys with fellow expeditionaries Captain James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), Lieutenant Colonel Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) and Bill Randa (John Goodman) to unlock the secrets of a lost island stalked by strange beasts and ruled by a lonely god.
Cinefex 161
Universal Pictures and DreamWorks present a biographical account, based on a book by James R. Hansen, dramatizing the experiences of Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling), a former test pilot and commander of NASA's Apollo 11 moon mission, who, on July 20, 1969, was the first person to set foot on a planetary body other than his own.
Cinefex 160
The young Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) swaggers his way through an interstellar underworld, where his path crosses that of Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) and a Wookiee named Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo). Ron Howard directs this Star Wars spin-off, and visual effects supervisor and co-producer Rob Bredow leads a global team at Industrial Light & Magic piloting the Millennium Falcon into new corners of a familiar galaxy far, far away.
Cinefex 157
The eighth chapter of Lucasfilm and Walt Disney Pictures' space adventure saga explores the evolving relationship between the vagabond Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) while the threat of the First Order continues to grip the galaxy.
Cinefex 159
This third 'Avengers' movie, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, is the biggest yet from Marvel Studios, following the nefarious exploits of interdimensional being Thanos (Josh Brolin) as he seeks to claim infinity stones and depopulate the universe. Characters from all of the previous Marvel Studios films join forces to defeat the powerful foe.
Cinefex 158
Director Ryan Coogler transports audiences to the hidden kingdom of Wakanda as its new king, T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), takes the throne. Production designer Hannah Beachler conjures an exotic African world, brought to life by visual effects supervisor Geoffrey Baumann and team. A defining moment in the Marvel Comics experience was flipping through the pages to find "Stan's Soapbox," a yellow box crammed with the opinions, arguments and advice of Marvel Comic publisher, the inimitable Stan Lee.
Edlund, Kroyer and Oscar 2018 - Cinefex Blog
It is perhaps impossible to summarize the careers of Richard Edlund and Bill Kroyer without turning a blog into a full-blown magazine article. But, for the uninitiated: Richard Edlund, with Millennium Falcon, at Chapman University. Image © Chapman University.
Blade Runner 2049 / Dunkirk / The Dark Tower / Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Three decades after the SFPD retired a group of renegade Nexus 6 replicants, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling) picks up the trail of a new cybernetic threat that leads him to legendary 'blade runner' Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). Denis Villeneuve directs Warner Bros. Pictures' sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 adaptation of Philip K.
John Bruno Q&A - James Cameron's Deepsea Challenge - Cinefex Blog
Visual effects supervisor John Bruno first met filmmaker James Cameron at the 1985 Tokyo Film Festival, where Cameron was screening Aliens and Bruno was promoting the visual effects of Poltergeist II.
Giger Flashback - Cinefex Blog
Seeing the news, last Tuesday morning, that H.R. Giger died triggered a flashback. Back in 1995, I was coordinator for a creature effects studio in a nondescript corner of Sun Valley, when the phone rang. A whispering voice, reminiscent of Peter Lorre, asked to speak with my boss, Steve Johnson. “Who may I ask is calling?” I asked. “It is Gee-ger from Switzerland,” the voice replied. H.R. Giger self-portrait, 1954 © Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH.
Jimmy T. Murakami - Cinefex Blog
Sad news this morning. A giant of the animation industry, Jimmy Teruaki Murakami — director of When Wind the Wind Blows, and co-director of The Snowman — has died in Dublin, Ireland. Painting by Jimmy T. Murakami. Jimmy was born in San José, California, June 5, 1933. As a boy, he was interned with his family at the Tule Lake War Relocation Center during World War Two. He studied fine arts at the Chouinard Art Institute (forerunner to CalArts) where his classmates included animator Chuck Jones.
Cinefex Review: Europa Report - Cinefex Blog
It’s a tricky business choosing stories to cover in Cinefex magazine. Studios prefer our editorial to coincide with the releases of their movies, some of which are very far from finished when we start hounding the filmmakers. And it can be a high-wire act to predict what films are worth covering. Sometimes we strike out, covering real stinkers. Occasionally, we’ll delay coverage if we figure it will be worth the wait. Once in a while, we have to let some gems pass us by.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Joe
Contact Joe, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack