Aaron McBride

Aaron McBride
Career
Occupation	Art Director Concept artist
Companies	Industrial Light & Magic

"I was a concept artist on The Hulk [2003], and they asked me to work for a couple days on Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl [2003]. It was very early on the project, and they wanted to find a unique look for the skeletal pirates. My brain immediately went to sometime before when my wife had given me this turkey jerky snack to eat. So I asked if I could run to the grocery store and pick some up. I then took photos of it on my desk and collaged them onto the surface of a skull. The director of the film really liked it. So a two-day stint turned into my first full-fledged role as an Art Director! You never really know when the best projects will come."

―Aaron McBride

Aaron McBride is an artist for Industrial Light & Magic. After joining the ILM Art Department in 1998, McBride worked as a concept artist and designer on A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Minority Report. Since then, among other projects, McBride has worked on films like The Hulk, Peter Pan, Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, Iron Man, The Avengers, Rango, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Disney's Aladdin and The Lion King. McBride's concept design work had been widely recognized by directors like Steven Spielberg, Gore Verbinski, George Lucas, and Joss Whedon, as well as Visual Effects Supervisors Dennis Muren, John Knoll, and Scott Farrar. Additionally, McBride's work had been chronicled in various "Art of" books.

For Pirates of the Caribbean, Aaron McBride worked as a Visual Effects (VFX) Art Director for The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End, and On Stranger Tides, as well as provided concepts for Dead Men Tell No Tales. McBride's work was also chronicled in various books, namely The Art of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Biography

Early life and career

Aaron McBride grew up near Mystic Seaport and spent his childhood drawing as much as possible. After The Hulk, McBride worked as a concept artist with visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar for Peter Pan, creating storyboards of the children flying through the streets of London and concept art and paintings of Captain Hook's pirate ship, the Jolly Roger.

Pirates of the Caribbean

The Curse of the Black Pearl

Aaron McBride first worked on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, directed by Gore Verbinski, having been selected by John Knoll of Industrial Light & Magic. When he started in September 2002, McBride was only supposed to help out as a concept artist for two days, and ended up with his first job as the Visual Effects Art Director. John Knoll and a team of experts at ILM were entrusted with the job of designing the skeletal pirate characters to life, a process which began with taking photographs of the actors in wardrobe and makeup. Knoll said, "Then VFX Art Director Aaron McBride spent time painting a version of each of them in skeletal form. We went through a couple of revisions until we got approval from Gore on what these characters should look like." From there, the team got 3-D scans of all the actors. A few layers of skin are then built; designers scanned turkey jerky to help them replicate what McBride calls "the dried and desiccated meat look" of the skin of the skeleton pirates. According to McBride, "My brain immediately went to sometime before when my wife had given me this turkey jerky snack to eat. So I asked if I could run to the grocery store and pick some up. I then took photos of it on my desk and collaged them onto the surface of a skull. The director of the film really liked it." McBride's work was credited, and further explored in the bonus feature An Epic At Sea found in The Curse of the Black Pearl DVD/Blu-ray releases. Afterwards, McBride considered The Curse of the Black Pearl one of his most rewarding projects to work on, as he was only supposed to work for two days and ended up working in a full-fledged role as an Art Director.

Dead Man's Chest and At World's End

McBride continued to work as "Visual Effects Art Director" on the Pirates films in the sequels, Dead Man's Chest and At World's End. His work mainly included the character Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and his cursed crew aboard the Flying Dutchman. McBride's work on Davy Jones was based on an earlier concept by Mark "Crash" McCreery, focusing on Nighy's eyes and cheekbones, which made it onscreen. By December 4, 2006, during an tour of the Industrial Light & Magic facility in San Francisco, McBride said of Nighy as Davy Jones, "When I had started on these photorealistic drawings based on Crash McCreery's drawings, they hadn't really cast anyone yet. They were talking about certain people [like] Christopher Walken and Ian McShane. And then about halfway through, they finally cast Bill Nighy. So I grabbed a bunch of reference photos of him and tried to work in his signature facial features, like he's got super-chiseled cheekbones and very tight pursed lips."

According to McBride, Penrod was partly based on the actor Marty Feldman. His favorite character was Maccus. For At World's End, among his other work, McBride did concepts, including Jack's Delirium, where Jack imagines himself encrusted on the Flying Dutchman.

On Stranger Tides

For On Stranger Tides, Aaron McBride shared the "Visual Effects Art Director" credit with John Bell. McBride's work on the film included concept art of mermaids, as well as his work with ILM VFX Supervisor Ben Snow. By this point, McBride described the inspiration behind the franchise's monsters as being based around drawings on old pirate maps. He also described how director Rob Marshall was big on using photographs of dancers and models as points of reference, whereas Verbinski was more technically-minded, thanks to his history with effects work, according to McBride.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

In 2013, Aaron McBride did concept artwork for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. While McBride's early concepts featured Captain Brand and the crew of the Silent Mary, the film's script was later rewritten and, to account for the casting of Javier Bardem, John Brand was redesigned with Armando Salazar by the final version of the film.

Later work

Post-Pirates, Aaron McBride worked on the "Pirate King" Gorian Shard in the third season of The Mandalorian, which aired on March 1, 2023. McBride drew two pieces of concept art of Shard on his flagship's bridge.

Work

Filmography

Year	Title	Contribution(s)	Notes
2003	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	VFX Art Director	Credited as "Art Director"
2003	"An Epic At Sea" — The Making Of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	Himself
2006	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	Visual Effects Art Director
2007	Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End	Visual Effects Art Director
2011	Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	Visual Effects Art Director	Shared credit with John Bell
2017	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales		Uncredited; early concept artwork

Sources

• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: "An Epic At Sea: The Making of Pirates"
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: "Meet Davy Jones: Anatomy Of A Legend"
• The Art of Pirates of the Caribbean
• The Art of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

External links

• Aaron McBride on Industrial Light & Magic's official website (backup link)
• ArtStation - Aaron McBride
• Aaron McBride (@amcb_toraidhe) on Instagram
• Aaron McBride (@AmcbToraidhe) on Twitter
• Aaron McBride at the Internet Movie Database