Meet Dick Van Dyke, Computer Animator
Yep, that Dick Van Dyke -- the star of Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and his self-titled TV show. Jim Hill saw Van Dyke at SIGGRAPH 2004 and watched a presentation the actor gave at the NewTek booth. Apparently he's been dabbling in computer animation for years now and even did a little CG work for one of his own TV shows back in 1996:
To explain: The script for this particular [Diagnosis Murder] episode called for a spectacular crash involving a motorcycle. The only problem was... There was no money in the budget for a location shoot and/or a stunt driver.
But this didn't stop Dick Van Dyke. He just went out -- on his own, mind you -- and shot a live action background plate. Then -- on his own time at home -- he used his personal computer to create this realistic looking CG motorcycle which crashed. Dick then combined the two pieces of footage and screened them for the producers of "Diagnosis Murder." These folks were just stunned that the star of their show was this sort of technicial whiz.
Wow! The fact that old-school Hollywood actor Dick Van Dyke could be sitting in his den right now, at age 79, editing and creating CG animations on his home computer is just plain awesome.
