Soviet SFX: Alexandr Ptushko

Soviet SFX: Alexandr PtushkoLong before computer graphics took all the fun out of special effects, Alexandr Ptushko was creating fantastic visions of sorcerers, dwarves, gargoyles and underwater kingdoms the old-fashioned way: by hand. With a career that began in the 1930s, Ptushko used virtually every trick available to him, including makeup, stop-motion and cell animation, matte paintings, double exposures, and sheer ingenuity to bring his creations to life. Long unavailable in the US (or in a truncated and dubbed version edited by a young Francis Ford Coppola in the employ of Roger Corman), BAMcin