Oscar-winning art director and production designer Leslie Dilley, 84, died on May 20. The Welsh-born Dilley won Oscars for his work on Star Wars (the first one) and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and was nominated for Alien, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Abyss. He started his career with a five-year apprenticeship in plastering and construction apprenticeship at the Associated British Picture Corporation, and began working in films by 1970, as art director or production designer. Among his other films were Invaders from Mars, Honey I Blew Up the Kid, Caspar, An American Werewolf in London, Never Say Never Again, and The Distinguished Gentlemen. Dilley told Buzzmag that CGI and AI had changed his whole profession: “For us old guys, we had it all because we did learn how to create illusions using practical effects with much smaller budgets, and most of the time it gave us great satisfaction creating these special effects to the director’s liking. The thinking and engineering done through CGI comes from a different skill set than the one I was trained on, so of course I am less enamoured with it compared to old-school techniques. Still, I recognize that our profession is always evolving and moving forward with the times.”
