A renowned visual effects supervisor who worked on Star Wars, Encounter of the Third Kind, Battlestar Galactica, Alien 3 and Starship Troopers, David M. Jones died of complications related to cancer. He was 74 years old.
After the death last February of Douglas Trumbull, absolute legend of visual effects to whom we owed those of Blade Runner and 2001, a space odyssey, it is unfortunately another famous name which dies out. We learn of the death of David M. Jones on April 8, from complications related to cancer, at the age of 74.
Born in Sacramento and graduated in Industrial Design from the University of Cal State Long Beach, David M. Jones entered the world of cinema as a model designer. Over a career spanning more than 40 years, he worked on the development of visual effects on numerous films, some of which have become absolute classics. He thus began his career in 1977 by working on the design of optical effects and the creation of models for Star Wars by George Lucas.
Consultant on Steven Spielberg’s Encounter of the Third Kind, he had also collaborated on this film with Douglas Trumbull. In a rather limited filmography finally (he is credited on 19 works for small and big screen), he had worked on the first series Battlestar Galactica (1979), Buck Rogers (1979), Alien 3 (as head of visual effects), Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, Batman, Tim Burton’s Challenge, The Hunt for Red October, Cliffhanger, and Air Force One.
In 1996, he had obtained a citation at the Primetime Emmy Award for his work on the SF series produced by Fox, Space 2063, and had signed the visual effects of the brilliant series (cult!) Tales from the Crypt, between 1989 and 1995. So long the artist…