Phil Tippett

Tippett was born in Berkeley, California. When he was seven, Tippett saw Ray Harryhausen\'s special effects classic, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and his life\'s direction was set. Tippett completed a bachelor\'s degree in art at the University of California, Irvine, and went to work at the animation studio Cascade Pictures in Los Angeles.\n', '

In 1975, while still working at Cascade Pictures, Phil Tippett and Jon Berg were hired by George Lucas at Industrial Light & Magic to create a stop-motion miniature chess scene for the original Star Wars film. When Star Wars was being released on theatres, in 1977, Tippett was approached by Joe Dante and Jon Davison to create the fish for Roger Corman\'s Piranha (released in 1978, although Tippett was not credited in the film). That year, 1978, Tippett headed the ILM animation department with Jon Berg for The Empire Strikes Back (released in 1980…