Phil Tippett shuts studio, auctions art

Legendary animator Phil Tippett is retiring and closing his Berkeley studio. A two-day auction of his props, memorabilia, and art began on August 28th.

Speaking to Berkleyside, Tippett stated, "I'm retired from the racket." He said he is keeping the Oscars he won for his work on Return Of The Jedi and Jurassic Park, but described making "a lot of painful decisions" as years of work is sold off.

Tippett's career began in the mid-1970s. His first major credit was the stop motion Dejarik creatures in Star Wars. He later developed a smoother technique called 'go motion', used for the AT-ATs in The Empire Strikes Back and the creature in Dragonslayer.

Studio founded and sold

Tippett Studio was founded in 1984. The animator and his team adapted to changing technology, animating the ED-209 for RoboCop and later incorporating computers after Jurassic Park ushered in the CG age.

In 2024, Tippett Studio was acquired by the Indian company PhantomFX. Financial struggles led it to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection shortly after. This prompted the fast auction of the studio's assets. Once complete, the building will be cleared out.

A passion for stop motion

Tippett's first love was always hand-animated stop motion, a passion sparked by seeing Ray Harryhausen's The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad as a child. He channeled this into his magnum opus, Mad God, a dark fantasy completed in 2021 after roughly 30 years of off-and-on production.

The studio's last piece of work was for a new Twilight Zone series. On the big screen, Tippett's influence is evident in The Mandalorian And Grogu, released earlier this year. The film features gigantic versions of the Dejarik monsters, and Tippett worked on two mechanical threats in its third act. Alongside work on the Disney+ series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, this brought his career full circle.

Auction highlights

The auction features a wealth of memorabilia from Tippett's decades of work. Key items up for sale include signed AT-AT models and miniature bugs from Starship Troopers.

As film fans and speculators descend on Berkeley, Tippett's contribution to cinema is being remembered. He continued a golden thread of animation that goes back through Ray Harryhausen to Harryhausen's own inspiration, Willis O'Brien. In a statement to the press, Tippett reflected on the end of his studio's run, marking a definitive close for the legendary effects house.