Post-RA&A, Abel remained a pioneer of new media. He created an educational CD-ROM for IBM that sits in the Smithsonian. He also entered academia when he became a lecturer at UCLA, where he was an alumnus.

Unfortunately, Bob had never operated with a financial cushion, since he was always willing to spend his own money to make a project look better. By 1987, even a merger with Canada's Omnibus Computer Graphics and Digital Prods. wasn't enough to save RA&A.

While Abel's career in visual effects ended with the studio's demise, he remained a pioneer of new media. He created the educational CD-ROM Columbus for IBM, a watershed project that is now in the Smithsonian Institution. And he became a lecturer at UCLA, where he had once been a student himself. It was at UCLA that he had first glimpsed the future of image-making, working as a camera assistant to the father of computer graphics, John Whitney Sr. Being back at UCLA brought things full circle for Bob.

The Influence Remains
The VES honor for Abel recognizes not only Bob's personal accomplishments, but also his enduring influence on many individuals who came of age at RA&A. The list is a long one, including John Hughes and Richard Hollander (Rhythm & Hues), Tom Barron (Image G), Ray Feeney (Silicon Grail), Sherry McKenna (Oddworld Inhabitants) and Allen Debevoise (Creative Planet).

The RA&A alumni who've won Oscars for visual effects is especially notable as well. In addition to Edlund, it includes Tim McGovern (Total Recall), Rob Legato (Titanic), Charlie Gibson (Babe), John Nelson (Gladiator) and Scott Farrar (Cocoon).

Bob would have pointed to these artists' accomplishments with pride were he here to accept his VES award. And his remarks would undoubtedly attempt to paint a big picture of the creative challenges that artists have grappled with ever since the days of Méliés himself. As Bob once observed, "The challenge to us as filmmakers is that we don't know what the solution is going to be until we inherit the problem." While today's visual effects assignments present problems far more complex than those that Abel conquered, his words still ring true.

Ellen Wolff is a Southern California-based writer whose articles have appeared in publications such as Daily Variety, Millimeter, Animation Magazine, Video Systems and the Website CreativePlanet.com. Her areas of special interest are computer animation and digital visual effects.