Mark A.Z. Dippé (born November 9, 1956) is a Japanese-born American film director and visual effects supervisor. He made his directorial debut in 1997 with ''

Spawn Spawn or spawning may refer to: * Spawn (biology), the eggs and sperm of aquatic animals Arts, entertainment, and media * Spawn (character), a fictional character in the comic series of the same name and in the associated franchise ** '' Spawn: Ar ...

''.

Biography

Mark Earnest Dippé was born in Japan to a Chinese mother and an American father, both of whom worked for the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

. At the age of two, the Dippés moved back to the United States, where his father was discharged from the Army. Dippé grew up in

Anchorage, Alaska Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...

, after his family moved there in 1960. When Dippé was 5, he persuaded his mother to take him to see the 1958 horror film '' The Fly''. The film's transformation sequences impressed the child, who would grow an interest in visual effects. He left home at 17 for college, earning a

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

in computer graphics at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1985. In 1988, he went to

Industrial Light & Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began pro ...

as some friends of his were hired to do the

computer-generated imagery Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the use of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, simulators, and visual effects in films, television programs, shorts, commercials, and videos. The images may ...

for '' The Abyss''. Dippé wrote most of the code that created a photorealistic pseudopod built out of seawater, which was mostly animated by Steve 'Spaz' Williams. Dippé's later work included the T-1000 in '' Terminator 2: Judgment Day'', and the dinosaurs of ''

Jurassic Park ''Jurassic Park'', later also referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton and centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of cloned dinosaurs. It began in 1990 when ...

'', which were rendered in computer graphics after a successful demo made by Williams and Dippé. Dippé, Williams and Clint Goldman left ILM in 1997, forming production companies Pull Down Your Pants and Complete Pandemonium. The former was a production company in Dippé's directorial debut, the comic book adaptation ''

'', and the latter created various television commercials in the following years. He is co-founder of

The Animation Picture Company The Animation Picture Company is an American animation studio in Sherman Oaks, California Sherman Oaks is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California located in the San Fernando Valley, founded in 1927. The neighborhood includes a po ...

Filmography

References

External links

* Film directors from Alaska Special effects people Living people 1958 births Artists from Anchorage, Alaska Visual effects supervisors American voice directors American film directors of Chinese descent Industrial Light & Magic people {{US-film-director-1950s-stub