From the Niagara Falls Review:
In a way, Colin Chilvers owes his Oscar-winning film career to a pipe that wouldn’t explode…
Within a decade, Chilvers faced a much more difficult task as the special effects supervisor on Superman: The Movie.
For the film to work, Christopher Reeve’s Superman had to appear to actually fly. In an age before digital effects, past attempts to make a live action Superman, including the George Reeves TV show, were unable to do it well.
“In fact, when I first got the script for Superman, I thought ‘How in the hell are we going to make this work?’” Chilvers said.