Iain McCaig – Imagination & cinema

As an artist, Iain McCaig has never ceased to draw on my imagination. Working in movies, television, and music industry, this American-Canadian is fascinated with fantastic images.

As a designer, Iain McCaig was a major contributor to the Star Wars saga, The Avengers, and also the film « Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire » (2005).

He has an immense spirit of freedom and pure imagination. The imagery is both elegant and unbridled—the imagination remains limitless.

Interview with Iain McCaig, master of the fantastic.

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You are American but you also lived in Canada, you studied arts in Great Britain. With your different inspirations, with your style, do you see yourself as an international artist ?

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Actually, I’m a dual national—US and Canada.  I was born in LA, but grew up a thousand miles north of there in Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia.  My family briefly moved to Glasgow, Scotland for my final year of high school.  They returned to the US shortly after, but I stayed and got an Honors Degree in Design at the Glasgow School of Art.  I would have happily stayed in Scotland forever, but the last major publisher closed their doors the day I graduated, so I moved to London to start a career as an illustrator. Ten years later, I took a summer job in San Francisco animating Sesame Street cartoons, then moved there to begin work as a concept and storyboard artist at Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas’ special effects company. I went freelance after a few years, but later joined George’s personal art department at Skywalker Ranch to work on his new Star Wars movies.  In 2000 I moved back to Victoria, where I’ve lived ever since.

I do feel somewhat international, or at least trans-Atlantic.  In the early 70s, pre-Internet, moving to Great Britain made it almost impossible to find the work of the artists who inspired me growing up—Norman Rockwell, James Bama, Frank Frazetta—so I found new inspirations from the artists of Great Britain and Europe—Arthur Rackham, John William Waterhouse, Alan Lee and Brian Froud, Moebius and Sergio Toppi.  Life inspires me now, more than any other artist, but I’m sure their DNA is still in my work somewhere.

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As a young artist, you worked in projects such as Sesame street and Game Workshop. Did you integrate your personal approach in some early works ?

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At my Art School in the ‘70s, it was frowned upon if you drew fantasy or science fiction, which were not the mega-genres they are today (don’t forget, this is pre-Star Wars and Harry Potter).  I think it was a genuine concern that faeries and dragons would lead to lazy drawing habits and a penniless career.  The moment I got to London, I threw my Art School portfolio out and started a new one, filled with the kind of things I really wanted to draw (the first image was a boarded up fireplace where the board had been torn away, revealing dark little homoculae crawling from the coals, eager to nibble your soul).  Fortunately, a new company called Games Workshop had just started up and needed exactly that kind of art.  Also fortunately, my favorite fantasy characters are human beings, so I was happy to draw real life art too, as long as I could give it just a little twist. 

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You cancelled a surprise trip to Paris where you planned to propose to your girlfriend so that he could get the job to design the cover of The Jethro Tull album ‘Broadsword and the Beast’. Is drawing an unstoppable passion ?

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Paris is my favorite city, so of course I had to propose to my girlfriend there.  The Jethro Tull ‘Broadsword and the Beast’ commission came just as we were about to leave, but she understood and went anyway so I could work on the painting.  I got a postcard from her afterward of the Seine and the bridge where I was going to ask her to marry me.  On the back she wrote: ‘I said yes.’

Is drawing an unstoppable passion?  Yes.  Almost.  I’ve been married now for 43 years.  Today, for her, I would go to Paris.
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You worked in the Terminator 2 project. James Cameron is also a draughtsman. Was it easier to work with him ?
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Terminator 2 was my first official job in the film industry.  I had just joined ILM, and my boss was a young Art Director called Doug Chiang.  Doug was the liason with James Cameron, while I stayed in the art department and sketched.  Primarily it was the sequence at the end, where the T-1000 falls in the pit and begins to melt.  I sketched  all kinds of crazy ideas of what might happen there and some of them made it into the final film.  And I thought, gee this film industry thing is easy.  Little did I know…

I did end up making a piece of art for James Cameron later in my career.  It was after Titanic surpassed Star Wars at the box office.  George Lucas asked me to draw something to congratulate him, so I took all the Star Wars characters I could think of, put them on the Titanic, and sank it.  It ended up as a full page ad in Variety and Hollywood Reporter.  I hope he liked it.  I have still never met him.
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You did some work for ‘Interview with a vampire’ and ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’. Is the vampire figure an endless inspiration for you ?

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Not really.  The Frankenstein Monster is my guy.  I saw the original Boris Karloff movie when I was three.  I had snuck out of my room and was peering through the stairway at an old black and white TV that my parents were watching. It was about half-way through the movie, the scene where the Monster meets the little girl, Maria, and they throw flowers into the lake and watch them float. In those days, the censors cut the moment where he picks her up and throws her into the lake too, thinking she would float like the flowers.  So all I saw was this amazing Monster spending quality time with a kid.  And he’s been my best friend, ever since.

I am a big fan of monster movies in general, as long as the monster is actually a character, like Frankenstein or King Kong, and not just something for the heroes to kill.  I’ve been lucky enough to work on two vampire movies that fit that description, with two of my favorite Directors—Neil Jordan and Francis Ford Coppola. 

That said, I long to create monster stories of my own.  I’m working on those now, in fact.

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Do you find inspiration in your daily life (family, friends, pets,…) ?

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Life IS my inspiration.  It is the clay from which I create.  I recently wrote an anthology of short stories called ‘Smalltown Tales’.  Ordinary tales of ordinary folk, some of whom just happen to be  supernaturals. But every story in the book is a true story, based on the extraordinary people I’ve encountered in my life.  I turn them into monsters to protect their identities (and because I like monsters).
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Did you imagine Darth Maul as a wild man ? You say you become the character…

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Ray Park, the actor who performed Darth Maul, described him as being ‘cheeky’.  I think that suits him perfectly.  In the movie, everyone else is worried about politics and trade embargos.  Darth Maul just wants to kick some Jedi ass.  And he picks on, not one, but two Jedi at the same time, both of them taller than him.  A wild man?  You bet.  But with a crazy gleam in his evil golden eyes.

As for me, yes, I do become the characters that I draw, at least while I am drawing them. Woe betide anyone interrupting me at the drawing board when I’m drawing rampaging monsters.  I’ve banned phones from the Studio because people started hanging up on me.
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Padmé Amidala is a complex character. She is a queen and also a young servant. With your design, did you humanize her ? Did you convince George Lucas sometimes on specific artwork ?
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Padmé is my favorite character in the trilogy.  Powerful good is much harder to portray than powerful evil—evil is just corrupted good, but good can’t just be an absence of evil or the character ends up bland.  George let her innocense and curiosity struggle against the demands of being a Queen on a planet under seige.  I tried to capture that struggle in her face and costumes, full of expression and playfulness when she sneaks out as a handmaid, mask-like and imposing when she is acting as a Queen. 

Doug Chiang, who was heading George’s Art Department for the first two prequels, said we should let the artwork speak for itself and not try to ‘pitch’ it to George—any convincing had to be done with the art.  But I had a specific person in mind for Padme, a young actress who starred in a film called ‘Léon’ (‘The Professional’). She was ten in that film, and it had been four years since then, so she was perfect to become the Queen of Naboo.  Of course, there was no internet yet, and I could find no images of her at age fourteen, but I was only drawing her essence anyway, not her actual face. One day, George came up and asked me, “Do you know this girl?”   “No, George,” I said, “but she’s your Queen.”  Shortly after that, Natalie Portman was cast.  Co-incidence?  I think not!
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The Harry Potter and Marvel movies are full of monsters and other wonders. In these particular worlds, do you have to limitate your imagination ?
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Limit my imagination?  You must be kidding.  They HIRE me for my imagination!

Working on a existing character is like adapting a book for movie.  First, you have to identify the heart of the story and characters.  This you must guard with your life.  But beyond that, anything can change, so long as it supports the storyteller’s vision.  It’s similar to an actor taking on a role: you honor the screenplay, but find a way to bring your own truth to the character too.  But never, ever, EVER limit what you can do!
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Are you a fan of your daughter’s work, Mishi ? You worked together on ‘John Carter of Mars’ (2012).

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Fan is the word! Mishi is an amazing concept and storyboard artist, as well as my best art and story advisor. My son, Inigo is also a wise and empathic storyteller.  They are both my first call, whenever I’m looking for sage advice on stories or designs.
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As a film maker, what do you want to make now ?

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I have a closet full of stories that have yet to be published or put on the screen.  Eight years ago, I had a near-fatal heart attack, and when I came home, I realized that all those stories would have died with me too.  So now I’m hard at work getting those stories out of the closet, in any form and as fast as I can!

Two books have resulted so far: a purely visual story called ‘Once Upon A Time In The Sketchbook’, published by Design Studio Press, and an anthology of delightfully creepy ghost stories called ‘Smalltown Tales’, published by Titan Books.  Right now, I’m working on a horror fantasy novel, a French murder mystery, and a musical about the Frankenstein Monster.  Wish me luck!
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