50 YEARS OF JAWS
THE SHARK
SPECIAL-EFFECTS VETERAN SHANE MAHAN DISSECTS JAWS ’ SON OF A BEACH
WORDS NICK DE SEMLYEN
Say that to my face!”;
FOR ONE OF cinema’s most iconic beasts, Jaws’ marquee monster has gotten a lot of bad press. Legend has cemented the three remotecontrolled ‘hero’ sharks —designed by Joe Alves and built by Bob Mattey —as malfunctioning, migraine-inducing nightmares which almost sunk the entire production. Well, Legacy Effects’ Shane Mahan, who has worked on otherworldly beings for everything from the first two Terminator films to Aliens, Jurassic Park and The Shape Of Water, has something to say about that. “Let me tell you, I defy anybody to make a 25-foot mechanical shark that actually has to work in the ocean,” he states. “Just go ahead and try, then come back to me in six months and tell me how you did. Because that was a Herculean task, to figure out how to make an artificial and quite spectacular shark function underwater. And those shots really look great.”