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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:50 am 
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trooper18938 wrote:
All I can Say is Bullshit on AA's part... I received #47 trooper stunt in the first run and compared to to my TE, and thought W T Fuck? I also got the TIE Pilot #70, and was more impressed, aside from the faceplate... conclusion - he's a liar! given eveything as of late. I equate AA with O.J. Simpson... those din the U.S.A will know what I mean... but this is beating a 30 year old dead horse to post-mortum death many times over. I gather some of those in the U. K. have a soft spot for AA... But I am proudly in the indisputable camp supporting Brian and Liz.......... REMEMBER: Anything we have is a recast, anyway ... don't ever forget that !


Thanks for your support :thumbsup As you say anything out there is a recast - if people are happy to buy from Ainsworth knowing the true facts that's fair enough. It's just trying to make people aware of the truth as there are still many out there that have been and will carry on being duped.


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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 6:06 pm 
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They guy is a tosser, pain and simple :nono shame on him :putty

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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 12:50 am 
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And it's sad to think about who introduced him to our hobby...

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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:16 am 
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Timeline of Ainsworth’s changing history
Two articles that were set up as links on Ainsworth’s SDS website under

‘Frequently Asked Questions’


2005 Article featured in Model and Collectors Mart – February 2005

(Talking about his involvement in Star Wars)

I took on the work to subsidise the work on my cars which took a lot of money. I used to give friends of mine a hand to paint scenery and one of them was a friend of John Mollo (costume designer on Star Wars). John asked him if he could make something 3 dimensional which he didn’t know how to do , but he knew a man who could…. and I’m the man who could!
He brought over some images and colour plates from John Mollo and said ‘Can you make this?’. So I knocked him up something very quickly. I thought it was for his kids or something. It was a fairly early effort and I knocked out about half a dozen Stormtrooper helmets. My friend then said ‘Well actually they’re not for me. They’re for a film for John Mollo. Here’s the contact if anything comes of it just buy me a drink. He certainly got that drink.
I think what happened next was that George Lucas took them back to America. Got the film funded. Came back and said, ‘We like that. We’ll have a lot more!’ John Mollo then got in touch with us directly and realised we could produce anything in any format overnight and away we went.

Feature – Collectible Stormtrooper Helmets Rebelscum.com: Rebelscum Home Page

At the beginning of January in 1976 Mollo approached Shepperton Design Studios with a vague brief – to produce a plastic helmet – and a copy of one of McQuarrie’s final proofs. Working from scratch Ainsworth built a clay sculpt of the helmet, broke it up into castable parts and pulled sheets of heated acrrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) plastic using a vacuum pump. The completed helmet was rushed to John Mollo who passed it to Lucas. So pleased with the job, Lucas requested that Mollo ordered 62 helmets and the body armour suits (56 stunt Stormtroopers and 6 hero Stormtroopers to go with them.

2007 Ainsworth’s final statement for court case

52. Nick said that a customer of his had asked him to produce a helmet as a prop for an actor to wear. Nick said that his customer had given him 2 pictures to guide him and he showed me the helmet made out of clay which he said he had produced.
69. My recollection is that I had an accident with Nick’s helmet early on in which the helmet was destroyed. It was the result of the rush involved in producing the helmets.
71. I had spent a lot of time thinking about how I would make the helmet. I could have made it in lots of different ways. I did not have to do it by vacuum-forming sheets of ABS material. I could have cast it in polyurethane or resins or rotationally moulded it, or slush moulded it, but these methods would have required more expensive and time consuming techniques. I decided to knock up some tools using the method taught by the foundry in order to produce a vacuum-formed helmet.

(If he had ‘destroyed ‘ the clay helmet as he says then why was he supposedly contemplating any sort of moulding?)

2010 Ainsworth’s new website Original Stormtrooper: genuine, authentic, quality

Nick was approached by the Star Wars 'buyer' to make various helmets and ancillary items for the film. As Nick recalls, 'the film was just another no hoper'; he was also very busy at the time on a large puppetry job for Tyne Tees television in Newcastle.

Nevertheless he took the job on, with the intention of convincing Andrew to produce the characters as Nick was impressed with the plastic moulding techniques that Andrew was developing, just a couple of doors away (see image below).

Nick's diary states that at first, he only had contact with George Lucas, as at that early stage, there really wasn't anyone else - John Mollo (ANH Costume Designer) had not been employed at that stage - and in any event Mollo`s remit did not include the Stormtrooper
(John Mollo and John Barry both started on the film on 15th December 1975 and Pemberton wasn’t contacted until January 6th 1976)


Image


In 1976, Andrew Ainsworth and his friend Nick Pemberton were living in Twickenham, London. Nick, a successful scenic artist, had been given the go ahead by George Lucas to produce the Stormtrooper helmets for ANH. Now it was down to Andrew to create the helmet prototype.
"I made no sketches, no models, no engineering drawings.I sculpted the production moulds directly, using my own blends of resins, fillers and metal dusts. The production moulds were the sculptures - they were positives,negatives and reverse engineered. They incorporated undercuts and tumblehomes and produced a moulded finished article that caught the highlights and shadows of an organically formed being. It wrapped around the body as if it had grown." Andrew Ainsworth describing his approach to sculpting the Stormtrooper helmet mould in 1976.
Andrew's task was to take his friend Nick's clay model and Ralph McQuarrie's concept drawings and sculpt the moulds which would form the iconic white plastic helmets worn by the Stormtroopers in ANH. Andrew recalls "The concept drawings from Ralph McQuarrie suggested that the Stormtrooper was a futuristic being that had evolved through continuous genetic modification, and perhaps able to operate in adverse pungent climatic conditions. The helmet would therefore be able to filter noxious gases and the armour be so flexible that it could have actually grown on the character that way - much the same as an armadillo has natural armour."
It was obvious to Andrew that no joins or fabricated parts should be seen, the character should be homogeneous and so the head must flow into the body and be undercut to disguise any suggestion of an actor inside the costume. The surface of the character was to be hard and protective, but flexible with a smooth, slick finish. The drawing suggested a silver, metallic look. Producing a prototype with all these features would be a challenge, given the non-paying, speculative nature of the job.


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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 3:29 pm 
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Its a crime that many will fall prey to anothers false claims. At least the truth is out there for people to find...if they are willing to look for it.

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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:44 am 
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http://wwwshotsmagcouk.blogspot.com/201 ... court.html


It'll be interesting to see the final outcome


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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 10:08 am 
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Hope that say not will speak many and say nothing.


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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 10:32 am 
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Daily Mail online 7th March 2011
From a galaxy far far away to a battle in court: British designer in fight over Star Wars stormtrooper copyright


It has terrified a generation of film-goers since it was created in a galaxy far far away.
But now the The Star Wars stormtrooper is involved in a battle closer to home at Britain's Supreme Court.
Film-director George Lucas is attempting to take British designer Andrew Ainsworth, who made the first replica helmets, to court to try and stop him from continuing to make and sell them.

The film tycoon's company Lucasfilm claims Mr Ainsworth, from Twickenham, is breaching copyright.
Mr Ainsworth is arguing that he made the original helmets, seen in the film, based on 2D artwork before eventually perfecting the design and creating a further 50 helmets and other body armour.

He then began selling the helmets in 2004 to fans attending fancy-dress parties.


After some of the items sold in the US, Lucasfilm successfully sued Mr Ainsworth for $20m and tried to get the judgement enforced and establish copyright in the UK.
But the case was thrown out after judges in the High Court and the Appeal Court rejected the idea the helmets were the equivalent of sculptures and ruled that the items were industrial props rather than artworks.
The decision comes as a huge blow to the Star Wars market which has raked in an estimated $7bn since 1977.
Lucas is now taking his fight to the UK's highest court to overturn the decision.
Steven Speilberg, James Cameron , Jon Landau and Peter Jackson are among those said to be backing him.


According to the Independent Sunday, in a letter due to be submitted to this week's hearing, Spielberg said: 'The court was wrong in this case and has placed the UK at odds with the world community and, perhaps most disturbing, the creative community.
'This ruling must be reversed.'
The Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson added: 'The UK's long-standing reputation as a creative hub and a centre for film production is significantly threatened.
'To assert a film's props and visuals are not the product of an artistic endeavour and therefore not worthy of copyright protections is ridiculous.'


However Mr Ainsworth said he originally created it.
'The copyright for three-dimensional work is invested in me but I didn't do anything about it for 30 years, as English people don't. 'We won in the High Court and the Appeal Court, but he has got so much money he can convince the Supreme Court it's got to be done again.
'What he is after is to change the law, to change European law,' said Mr Ainsworth.

A Lucasfilm spokeswoman said: 'These works of art should receive the full protection of UK copyright law, just as they do in the rest of the world.'
Another quote from Ainsworth in the Independent on Sunday newspaper

Mr Ainsworth remains defiant. "I created it all originally and he made a film of it"


Last edited by vaderman on Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:23 am, edited 2 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:02 am 
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So now AA is fighting for UK and European laws from being altered... how noble. Jeez... where does he get those delusions? :lol

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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2011 3:17 pm 
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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2011 4:25 pm 
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Wel as i have read this sentence i got sick.

Adrew Ainsworth,who built the original costumes from 2D drawnings.....selling his outfits online.... based on his orginal moulds
:nono :nono :nono


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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2011 6:41 pm 
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Yeah. All lies. But there are a few people who think that regurgitating something enough times makes it true.

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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:39 pm 
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..Anything could happen I suppose, but I can't help feeling that this latest development isn't going to change anything.

If LFL wanted to shut AA down they should really have been able to do it by now, and the way I understand it (which may not be 100% correctly) Lucasfilm are going to have to persuade UK law to redefine what it understands as 'art' versus 'industrial design/manufacture' in order to overturn Justice Mann's judegment. It's like digging up an entire mountain to destroy the house sitting on top.

Could happen, and maybe it will, (as it's obvious that industrial design and manufacture go hand in hand with art if you consider how a lot of art works are made), but I wonder if the best that can happen would be that this loop-hole is closed for any cases like this from now on...

Time will tell.


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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2011 3:42 pm 
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There's a saying that 'the Law's an Ass'. Well Birtish Law has certainly developed longer ears than most if this example is anything to go by. History is littered with works of art that were achieved through an Industrial process. How many of Brunels accomplisments are often talked about as 'works of art'? Was Krenov an artist or a furniture maker? I've been to art galleries showing sculptures that were welded together. Welding is an industrial process yet still the sculpture was acknowledged as art.

I think this ruling says a lot about British culture: we've become very good at dragging things down into the muck but quite pitiful at lifting them up.


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 Post subject: Re: SDS has a new name
PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 11:08 am 
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And the story continues!

Bloomberg Report on Lucasfilm vs Ainsworth ‘Star Wars’ Stormtrooper Helmet Copyright Lawsuit;
UK Supreme Court Decision Still Pending: LINK

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