By Erin Free
Starting out as an assistant cameraman on Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977, Ken Ralston was there for the birth of modern visual effects, and he’s been pushing the envelope ever since, conjuring up stunning on-screen trickery in the likes of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, Cocoon, Back To The Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Death Becomes Her, Forrest Gump, The Mask, Jumanji, The Polar Express, Beowulf, and Men In Black 3. FilmInk spoke exclusively with Ken Ralston about his work on Alice Through The Looking Glass, shifting from practical to digital, and where he keeps his many Oscars.
On Alice Through the Looking Glass, you’re returning to a world that you’ve visited once before. Does working on a sequel offer its own specific challenges, or is it generally less difficult than creating entirely new visuals and effects? “It wasn’t any easier. When we go back to similar places, we want to find better ways of portraying it. We want to make it look a little better, and make it look more believable even though it’s a fantasy world. It’s the same with the characters; we really had to go back in and dig into their digital skeletons and repair them and make them work better for what we needed for animation and rendering them. As far as revisiting some of the worlds, we tried to make it feel like Alice In Wonderland, but it is different. Then we had all the other new and complicated items to do, which were all stupidly complicated. That took a lot of effort.”
Was working with new director, James Bobin, far different from working with the original’s Tim Burton? “It was different, but every director is different. Tim approaches things differently to the way that James did, but it was all fine. Tim and I got along great on certain levels, and James and I got along great differently. They’re very different personalities. It really was an education for James, especially taking on something so massive like this particular movie. So we really had to help everyone get through that a bit. I’m sure that he had no idea that it would be quite as difficult as it turned out to be.”
What was your greatest challenge working on Alice Through the Looking Glass? “I always say the same thing: the sheer scale of these things makes everything hard.”
What do you think people’s greatest misconception is about working in visual effects and the whole visual effects industry? “I have a hunch that the biggest one is that it’s not as hard as it is [laughs], because when they hear computer and digital, it suddenly sounds easy. I think some directors think that too. It’s like, ‘Sure, you press the button, and everything happens, right?’ No, it does not! And because of what’s asked for in movies now, it’s amped up to complicated themes and technologies, and it never stays the same. We’re not building widgets, doing the same thing for forty years. Every movie is different, and every movie has gotta be done, not from scratch necessarily, but you really have to invent a lot of new ideas and technologies to achieve what movies are asking for.”
You’ve seen two big shifts in special effects, first with the incredible advances of Star Wars, and then with the introduction of CGI. Do you long for more practical effects, or do you love digital technology equally? “I do not love digital technology equally, but I admire it, and I’ve been able to, with everyone involved, achieve some interesting work over the years. But when I got into the business, it was because I loved the reality of grabbing a model, or building a set that was a miniature, lighting it with real lights, pumping in some smoke to get some atmosphere, and shooting it in slow motion and all that stuff. That’s what got me intrigued to get into the business in the first place. None of it’s easy, but it’s a lot of fun, and there were a lot of great people doing it. With digital technologies, we can achieve subtleties that would not have been possible with the way that we were doing those movies in the past. It’s just a different way of working. There are hundreds of work stations with people seated in front of them. I miss going out in the back of Turner Optical and blowing something up in slow motion for whatever movie it would be. There was a nice, edgy danger to it all [Laughs].”
Was there one specific film that awakened your interest in visual effects? “Oh, yeah! The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad by Ray Harryhausen. Even then, as a seven-year-old, I was amazed. I didn’t know what I was looking at. I didn’t understand what it was because it looked real to me. I’d never seen anything like those movies that Ray’s work was in. I’ve always said the same thing: I can’t tell you what happened, but it was like something got into my brain, seared it, and got me on that path. I kept going. It was great because years later, I actually became friends with Ray, and we got to know him quite a bit.”
You’ve deservedly won so many Oscars. How do you quote-unquote “share” them with your co-recipients, and where do you actually keep your Oscars? “I’m ashamed to say that they’re just on a shelf in this house that I’m sitting in, and they’re not featured. In fact, I don’t ever hardly see them. How do I share them? All I can do is what I always try to do, which is thank all the people that are involved in these things. There are only four of us who get to go up there and grab one of these things. But we represent hundreds of hard working people, and without them, we wouldn’t be up there getting these awards…none of us would be. It’s a gigantic team effort, and it always has been.”
After so many years in the industry, and with such extraordinary experiences under your belt, do you feel that you’re still learning with every new film? “I am…it’s shocking! I guess it’s a good thing…sometimes I get exhausted by it all, but with every movie, the challenges can be different. You have to jump into the maelstrom and try to make it work.”
Is there one particular film that you’re most proud of…is there one that was most profound in terms of your career? “I should feel very honoured and delighted that that’s a hard question for me, because I’ve been lucky on the movies that I’ve worked on. I would probably have to narrow it down to a couple. One would be Forrest Gump…that’s my favourite movie, and I think that we did some interesting work. Then Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland was, creatively for me, one of the most exciting experiences that I’ve ever had. I loved working on that; even though it was brutal, it was fun!”
Alice Through The Looking Glass is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.
