Derek Meddings
| Derek Meddings | |
|---|---|
| Born |
15 January 1931 St Pancras, London, UK |
| Died | 10 September 1995 (aged 64) Buckinghamshire, England, U.K. |
| Residence | Cookham, Berkshire |
| Occupation | Special effects designer and technician |
| Years active | 1950s – 1995 |
| Employer | AP Films (1957 – 1970) |
| Organization | The Magic Camera Company |
| Known for |
James Bond film series Superman film series |
| Television | Supermarionation productions |
| Spouse(s) |
|
| Children | 6 |
| Awards | |
Derek Meddings (15 January 1931 – 10 September 1995) was a British film and television special effects designer, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" TV puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s and 1980s James Bond and Superman film series.
Derek Meddings was born in St Pancras, London, England. Both Meddings' parents had worked in the British film industry: his father as a carpenter at Denham Studios and his mother as producer Alex Korda's secretary and actress Merle Oberon's stand-in. Meddings went to art school and, in the late 1940s, also found work at Denham Studios, lettering credit titles. It was there that he met effects designer Les Bowie and joined his matte painting department.
During the 1950s, Meddings' work with Bowie included the creation of Transylvanian landscapes for Hammer Films and a "string and cardboard" invention that proved useful when Meddings was hired for Gerry Anderson's earliest TV puppet series.
In 1953, he married Anne S. Dodge (born 1935). In 1972, Meddings married Alexe Anne Inglis (born 18 May 1954).
Meddings' first work with Anderson was as an uncredited art assistant on Anderson's second puppet series, Torchy the Battery Boy, produced in 1957. In 1960, he painted cut-out backgrounds of ranch houses and picket fences for Four Feather Falls. He was credited with the special effects in Anderson's 1960 and 1962 series Supercar and Fireball XL5, being elevated to special effects director for Stingray (1964) for which he and Reg Hill designed the main models. Meddings became special effects supervisor for Thunderbirds (1965–66), during which time he was responsible for the design of the Thunderbird machines themselves. He was visual effects supervisor for all the Anderson puppet series of the late 1960s (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90 and The Secret Service) and also Anderson's first live-action series, UFO, at the start of the 1970s. He performed the same role on Anderson's three 1960s feature films, Thunderbirds Are Go (1966), Thunderbird 6 (1968) and the live-action Doppelgänger (1969; also known as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun). During his time working on these series, Meddings and his team developed a number of innovations in the filming of miniature models and landscapes which have since become standard in the industry.
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