Tippett Studio is a premier, full-service, animation and visual effects production company helmed by two-time Oscar and Emmy award winner Phil Tippett, and staffed by designers, supervisors, animators and producers dedicated to the delivering premium visual effects at a competitive price. From hands-on stop-motion animation to bleeding edge computer graphics, our Berkeley, California and Toronto, Canada studios service clients from around the world, and has a reputation for excellence and customer satisfaction.
From our storied early days as the go-to company for stop motion animation (Robocop, The Star Wars Trilogy, Honey I Shrunk The Kids), Tippett Studio is proud to have maintained its position as one of the most renowned character animation studios in the world. The studio was founded in 1984 after Phil Tippett received his first Oscar (Return of the Jedi), re-dedicated after its second Oscar (Jurassic Park) as a computer-graphics innovator. It thrives today with a diverse roster of clients and projects. Our passionate team faces every challenge with ingenuity, curiosity and out-of-the-box thinking.
Contact our team for more information about how we can help you bring your project to life.
Tippett Studio is proud to have be honored by our peers in a variety of forums.
Phil Tippett has received the prestigious George Melies Award for Pioneering in the realm of Visual Effects by the Visual Effects Society, as well as this highest festival honors at the German Film Museum of Frankfurt among others.
Tippett Studio commendations include:
1993: Jurassic Park – Best Visual Effects (Awarded to Phil Tippett, Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Michael Lantieri)
1983: Return of the Jedi – Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects (Awarded to Phil Tippett, Richard Edlund, Dennis Muren, Ken Ralston)
2015: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Nominated Parties: Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan, Chris Corbould)
2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (Nominated Parties: Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, John Richardson)
2007: The Golden Compass – Best Visual Effects (Nominated Parties: Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, Trevor Wood)
2006: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – Best Visual Effects (Nominated Parties: John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson, Allen Hall)
2000: Hollow Man – Best Visual Effects (Nominated Parties: Scott E Anderson, Craig Hayes, Scott Stokdyk, Stan Parks)
1997: Starship Troopers – Best Visual Effects (Nominated Parties: Phil Tippett, Scott E Anderson, Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff Jr,, John Richardson)
1995: Dragonheart – Best Visual Effects (Nominated Parties: Scott Squires, Phil Tippett, James Straus, Kit West)
1988: Willow – Best Visual Effects (Nominated Parties: Dennis Muren, Michael J McAlister, Phil Tippett, Christopher Evans)
1982: Dragonslayer – Best Visual Effects (Nominated Parties: Phil Tippett, Dennis Muren, Ken Ralston, Brian Johnson)
Phil Tippett is the founder and namesake of Tippett Studio. His varied career in visual effects has spanned more than 40 years and includes 2 Academy Awards, 6 Academy Award nominations, 1 BAFTA, 4 BAFTA nominations, 2 Emmys and the advent of modern digital effects in motion pictures.
Follow Phil on Twitter @PhilTippett, Instagram @MadPhilG and on Facebook @PhilTippett.
As a child of seven, Phil was profoundly inspired by Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion classic, ‘The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad’ and by Willis O’Brien’s classic character ‘King Kong’. His subsequent devotion to the creation of the fantastic creatures in film has become his raison d’etre. As a kid, and then as a student always drawing, sculpting and making animations he developed his skills in a broader context first with a Fine Arts degree from University of California, Irvine, then as an animator at the commercial house, Cascade Pictures, Los Angeles. As a young adult Phil sought out teachers and mentors establishing connections and friendships with Ray Harryhausen and Ray Bradbury.
At Cascade, in the early ‘70s, traditional effects: hanging miniatures, stop motion animation, rear screen projection, forced perspective were used to enhance a variety of commercials: Pillsbury Doughboy, Jolly Green Giant etc. It was there, in the playful atmosphere of that rough workshop/stage in the center of Hollywood, that Phil Tippett, Dennis Muren and Ken Ralston cut their teeth in the world of VFX, inspired and egged on by Tex Avery the great animator, and their boss and mentor Phil Kellison. At the time of this apprenticeship visual effects was a little regarded wing of the motion picture business but it was to become one of the most influential and game changing aspects of filmmaking.
In 1977 Phil was approached by Joe Dante and Jon Davison to create the viscous fish for Roger Corman’s, ‘Piranha’. It was a lesson in low budget, seat of the pants filmmaking and cemented a bond between Phil and Jon.