Hello!

Here’s something nice for special effects fans, posted quite a while ago by by Ellen Woodrue.

Correspondent Lee Kaplan pointed us to this documentary on a fascinating film artist, Emilio Ruiz del Río.  He’s been creating film illusions with hanging miniatures and complex perspective tricks since the 1940s; we first learned of him through  David Lynch’s Dune in 1984. The ingenuity and precision employed are truly fantastic.

The hour-long show was directed by Sigrid Monleón for Aiete-Ariane films in 2008. Other notables contributing are Enzo G. Castellari, Guillermo de Toro, Ray Harryhausen, José López Rodero, Juan Piquer Simón, and Eduardo Noriega.

I could bring up Spanish language closed captions, and friend Malcolm Alcala showed me how to shift them to other languages. But the effects work on view needs no translation. The title does … it means ‘the ultimate trick.’

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson