Smoke and Mirrors - Neil Trifunovich Talks Special Effects
Trifunovich has a resume most people in the movie business only ever get to dream about. He’s a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AKA: the people that hand out the Oscars yearly) and has worked on 55 movies creating special effects for directors like David Cronenberg, Norman Jewison, Chris Columbus, Lasse Hallstrom, John Singleton, Kevin Costner, and Robert Redford. Remaining humble though, Trifunovich calls himself “the little guy from Fergus” that can do lunch with the head of production at Paramount.
 |
As many of these things go, Trifunovich’s Hollywood ambitions started as a child when he saw a behind-the-scenes TV show about a John Wayne movie. It was right there and then that he knew he wanted to work in movies, and like any kid would, he told his mom about his epiphany. But according to Trifunovich, his Mom’s initial reaction was that getting into movies “was like going to the moon; how would you ever get there?” |
He started to get into radio while he was in high school, first at the school’s station and then in community radio at CJOY in Guelph. After graduating high school, he studied radio and television at Conestoga College, where he won several awards. While at Conestoga, Trifunovich saw a special effects demonstration and realized that was something he could get into. He worked a couple of summers in the CBC special effects department and began working there permanently after graduating, turning down an offer from CFRB Toronto.
While at the CBC, Trifunovich worked on Wayne & Shuster, Tommy Hunter, The Friendly Giant, and the Louie Riel mini series, but jobs for a special effects technician at the broadcaster were often few and far between. He left the CBC with another technician there to find their own work as independent FX men. He was a set foreman on Quest for Fire, A Christmas Story, and Porky’s; an FX technician on Superman III; and then a set manager on the first Police Academy before starting his own company.
As a special effects supervisor, Trifunovich describes his job like this: “What we do is anything that you see that has to actually happen, like the top of a champagne bottle goes off on cue or a car really crashes and blows up; all that’s real. In the visual effects end of things, they will take the elements of what needs to be done, like a car blows up and they’ll add pieces flying everywhere. So we have to work in tandem together. Normally on a show, we’ll get together and say, ‘What do you need from us?’ and they’ll say, ‘we need the car to roll at this point and just land on the roof over here', and we’ll take care of the rest.”
Trifunovich starts with the script and then sees if it’s something he’d like to do. Then, he and his team start to breakdown the script and decide on how many technicians they’re going to need and how much the whole thing’s going to cost. He then breaks that down further and starts figuring out what specific crew and equipment he’ll need before meeting the producer and director. Once hired, he’ll meet with the rest of the design team, for example the production designer and the transportation, construction and stunt coordinators, and begin working on the actual logistics of filming.
“Then it becomes a huge family where everybody starts to cooperate with each other—well, we try to cooperate...let’s change that to communicate—to make sure it all fits together like a puzzle. Every movie, for some weird reason, is like the first movie ever shot in history; everybody always forgets what they’ve done fifty times before, like we’re reinventing the wheel.”
| Trifunovich’s job involves supervising the set; he’s a perfectionist and sees it as his responsibility to make sure everything runs smoothly. That includes all safety concerns, which Trifunovich sees as his ultimate responsibility. “In my case, I do a lot of testing; things that are pretty intricate or dangerous I have to have a minimum of three times that it works in a test, and then I know for sure with fairly good confidence what’s going to happen and what it looks like. I don’t like to wing it; I take every film like it's the biggest thing I’ve ever done.” |  |
| Such an attitude comes from experience, as Trifunovich notes that sometimes the simplest things pose the greatest challenge. “When somebody calls me and says, ‘We’ve got this great movie; it’ll be a breeze for you,’ I think ‘Uh-oh...I know what’s coming.’” | |
| Another consideration, of course, is money. “We also have to be on budget; sure the director can ask for the moon, but we have to give them what we can give them with the time and money allowed and sort of coordinate all of that. Normally, on a motion picture we don’t have much time because on average a movie costs about $25,000 an hour to shoot. So if you make a mistake or it’s not ready to go and you hold it up for an hour, you just cost the production 25 grand. So you try and be as efficient as possible.” | |
| Ever humble, Trifunovich credits his success in pictures to the people he brings with him to the show. “I think one of the most important things is to find a great crew that can work with you, and once you have that machine working well, my job is really to make sure that everything is coming out the way the director wants it.” | |
| Along with his ongoing work in film, Trifunovich also makes time to give talks to kids, movie buffs, and aspiring filmmakers alike but all with the same message at heart. “When you work hard and stay with a dream, it’s incredible what you achieve.” Secondly, you have to have passion for what you do. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a tiny shoot by somebody from Ed Video in Guelph; I put just as much energy and passion into that thing as I can. It’s not a pay cheque for me; it’s a passion. The money’s great, but at the same time I love to make movies, and if you’re going to get ahead, you have to have that passion.” |
Login
Create an account
