Special effects pioneer Phil Tippett has shuttered his Berkeley-based studio after 40 years, auctioning off years of movie memorabilia from his beloved, innovative work on such memorable classics as Star Wars, Jurassic Park, RoboCop and Starship Troopers.
There was a liquidation sale between Aug. 28 – 30 which drew collectors and fans to Tippett’s warehouse, looking to walk away with props, costumes, stop-motion models and signed promotional items, as well as production equipment, cameras, effects gear, and prototypes. Some of the more noteworthy items were models used for the stop-motion Holochess sequence aboard the Millenium Falcon in Star Wars, and an AT-AT Imperial Walker model from The Empire Strikes Back, built during Tippetts tenure as head of animation at Industrial Light and Magic.
The auction comes after Tippett Studio filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2024, following an acquisition by Indian company PhantomFX.
As sad as all this sounds, it doesn’t mean that Phil Tippett is retiring, or that Tippett Studios is out of business. It just means that this one location is closing. The company released a statement on social media Sunday to assert that its Toronto-based studio remains “in active production on a large feature film.”
Despite the sale, Tippett says that he doesn’t intend to retire, telling CBS News that “I will die with my sword in my hand … We had almost a 40-year run. It was a good run.”
“We have recently decided to evolve our physical footprint and production approach, and to exit our longtime Berkeley facility. As we make this transition, Tippett Studio continues its visual effects and animation work across film, television and entertainment,” reads the post. “Stop-motion remains an important part of our creative capabilities, but maintaining a large permanent physical footprint is no longer necessary for our current requirements. When projects require dedicated stages, fabrication, motion-control photography or other specialised physical infrastructure, we will work with appropriate external facilities to meet the needs of each production. As we move forward, we remain focused on the work ahead, continuing to collaborate with our clients, creative partners and artists on current and upcoming productions.”
This year, Tippett’s work appeared in a battle sequence in The Mandalorian and Grogu. In 2021, Shudder released his long-gestating passion project Mad God, a stop-motion silent film about a masked figure traversing rings of the underworld.
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