Talk by Eugene Mamut

Back in the Soviet Union, cinematographer Eugene Mamut began making movies and creating special effects at Kharkov Polytechnic Institute’s Movie Studio. In 1988, he received the main award of the American Film Academy – “Oscar” for his work on the film Predator, as he invented a camouflage effect for a character on the screen who is noticeable in movement and becomes transparent when he freezes. But even earlier, in 1979, another Eugene’s ‘special effect’ appeared in  an advertisement for “Renault.” He used the so-called “elastic effect”, when the car stretched out in the frame around corners. It was something unimaginable at the time. Using this technique, any moving object on regular production footage can appear to stretch, twist, shape-shift. The elastic effect was an optical trick consisting of 1200 split screens per frame of motion picture film.

His wife, Iryna Borisova, also from Kharkov, began her career as an art director, first at a Kharkov Movie Studio and later at the Kharkov State Puppet Theater. Iryna established herself in various genres of art – ceramics, puppets, book illustration, theater stage set and costume design, theater posters.