In the wake of Tippett Studios’ closure, a digital archive appears online
A digital archive of 90 CD-ROMs from the closed Tippett Studios has been uploaded to the Internet Archive by an anonymous donor.
summary is enough The news is a simple announcement of a digital archive's existence; the primary value is the link to the archive itself.
summary
Following the bankruptcy and closure of Phil Tippett's Berkeley-based effects house, an anonymous fan purchased a folder of CD-ROMs at an auction and uploaded the contents to the Internet Archive. The collection includes .ISO images of 90 discs containing behind-the-scenes images, test clips of CGI creatures, and publicity stills from films like Star Wars, RoboCop, and Starship Troopers. This preserves a significant portion of the studio's digital history that would otherwise have been lost to private collectors.
key points
- The archive contains 90 .ISO disc images totaling approximately 50-63 GB of data.
- Materials include test clips, interviews, and production stills from major films including Star Wars, RoboCop, and Starship Troopers.
- The data was rescued from a physical auction of studio assets following a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
- The donor, known as 'TippettFan', digitized the discs to prevent high-resolution assets from vanishing.
who should read it
Film historians, VFX artists, and fans of Phil Tippett's stop-motion and CGI work.
discussion warm
consensus
Commenters are grateful to the anonymous donor for preserving film history and express sadness over the studio's bankruptcy.
pushback
One user notes that the archive is a small sliver of the studio's total output and focuses more on later CG work than early stop-motion processes.
I recall my first live action blockbuster I got a vfx job on, "Charlotte's Web".
Rising Sun Pictures (RSP) in Australia had pitched for Templeton, the rat. But Templeton had already been given to Tippet.
So RSP got the option to either take Charlotte, the spider, or get no work on the show at all. A scary proposition for a company of 20 people at the time that only done hard-surface work and no creatures until then. They hired a lot of people in a short period and I was lucky to be one of them.
The work coming out of Tippet we saw in the first dailies of Templeton intercut with our work …
Provides a first-hand account of working with Tippett Studios on 'Charlotte's Web' and highlights the quality of their work.
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