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Stan Winston

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Stan Winston
Born(1946-04-07)April 7, 1946
Arlington, Virginia U.S.
DiedJune 15, 2008(2008-06-15) (aged 62)
Malibu, California
Occupation(s)Special effects and make-up artist, film director
SpouseKaren Winston
ChildrenMatt Winston (son)
Debbie Winston (daughter)

Stan Winston (April 7 1946 – June 15 2008) was an American special effects and make-up artist, and film director. He was best known for his work in the Terminator series, the Jurassic Park series, Aliens, the Predator series, and Edward Scissorhands.[1][2][3] He won a total of four Academy Awards for his work.

Winston, a frequent collaborator with director James Cameron, owned more than one effects studio, including Stan Winston Digital. The established areas of expertise for Winston were in makeup, puppets and practical effects, but he had recently expanded his studio to encompass digital effects as well.

Career

Stan Winston was born on April 7 1946, in Arlington, Virginia. He studied painting and sculpture at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, from which he graduated in 1968. In 1969, after attending California State University, Long Beach, Winston moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as an actor. Struggling to find an acting job, he began a makeup apprenticeship at Walt Disney Studios.[3]

1970s

In 1972, Winston established his own company, Stan Winston Studio, and won an Emmy Award for his effects work on the telefilm Gargoyles. Over the next seven years, Winston continued to receive Emmy nominations for work on projects such as The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Winston also created the Wookiee costumes for the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special.

1980s

The Terminator endoskeleton designed by Winston

In 1982, Winston received his first Oscar nomination for Heartbeeps, by which time he had set up his own studio.

In 1983, Winston designed the Mr. Roboto facemask for the American rock group Styx.[4]

Winston reached a new level of fame in 1984 when James Cameron's The Terminator premiered. The movie was a surprise hit, and Winston's work bringing the metallic killing machine to life led to many new projects and additional collaborations with Cameron. In fact, Winston won his first Oscar for Best Visual Effects in 1986 on James Cameron's next movie, Aliens.

Over the next few years, Winston and his company received more accolades for its work on many more Hollywood films, including Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands, John McTiernan's Predator, Alien Nation, The Monster Squad, and Predator 2.

In 1989, Winston made his directorial debut with the horror movie Pumpkinhead, and won Best First Time Director at the Paris Film Festival. Although poorly received at the box office, Pumpkinhead has since become somewhat of a cult classic. His next directing project was the child-friendly A Gnome Named Gnorm (1990), starring Anthony Michael Hall.

1990s

James Cameron drafted Winston and his team once again in 1990, this time for the groundbreaking Terminator 2: Judgment Day. T2 premiered in the summer of 1991, and Winston's work on this box office hit won him two more Oscars for Best Makeup Effects and Best Visual Effects.

In 1992, he was nominated and won again with yet another Tim Burton film, this time for Burton's superhero sequel, Batman Returns, where his effects on Danny DeVito as The Penguin, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, and in delivering Burton's general vision for what was an increasingly gothic Gotham City earned him more recognition for his work ethic and loyalty to what was an intrinsic ability to bring different directors' ideas to life. It was particularly poignant because for Batman Returns, Winston had to follow on from Anton Furst's earlier work, and recreate change according to what Burton wanted to do differently the next time around.

Winston turned his attention from super villains and cyborgs to dinosaurs when Steven Spielberg enlisted his help to bring Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park to the cinema screen. In 1993, the movie became a blockbuster and Winston won another Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

In 1993, Winston, Cameron and ex-ILM General Manager Scott Ross co-founded Digital Domain, one of the foremost digital and visual effects studios in the world. In 1998, after the box office success of Titanic, Cameron and Winston severed their working relationship with the company and resigned from its board of directors.

Winston and his team continued to provide effects work for many more films and expanded their work into animatronics. Some of Winston's notable animatronics work can be found in The Ghost and the Darkness and T2 3-D: Battle Across Time, James Cameron's 3-D continuation of the Terminator series for the Universal Studios theme park. One of Winston's most ambitious animatronics projects was Steven Spielberg's AI: Artificial Intelligence, which earned Winston another Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects.

2000s

In 2001, Winston produced a series of made-for-TV movies for HBO/Cinemax with the titles of old American International monster films - including Earth vs the Spider (1958), How to Make a Monster (1958), Day the World Ended (1956), The She-Creature (1956), and Teenage Cave Man (1958) - but with completely different plots.

According to reports, next for Stan Winston was Jurassic Park IV.[5][6] Winston was also signed on to help with the monster effects on The Suffering, which is based on the horror video game.

Death

Stan Winston died on June 15 2008, at his home in Malibu, California after suffering for seven years with multiple myeloma.[1] A spokeswoman reported that "Stan died peacefully at home surrounded by family."[2] It is not known if his work on Terminator 4 was completed before his death.

Academy Awards

Notable films

Trivia

  • He made a living as a stand-up comedian before moving into make-up effects.
  • Moved to Hollywood in 1968 to become an actor, but no jobs came his way and the following year he became an apprentice in the Makeup Department at Walt Disney Studios.
  • Has earned the reputation of being a "creature creator." His first such assignment was for the TV movie Gargoyles.
  • One of the founders of visual effects companies Digital Domain, Stan Winston Digital and Stan Winston studios.
  • Winston was the second special effects artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
  • In November 2006, Titan Books published The Winston Effect: The Art & History of Stan Winston Studio, a retrospective of Winston's career, including in-depth interviews and archival photography from every project in which the Studio participated.
  • His son, Matt, is an actor, possibly best known for his role as Temporal Agent Daniels on Star Trek: Enterprise.
  • Despite helping to design the original Terminator Endoskeleton, Stan Winston was not involved with the television series The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

References

  1. ^ a b Cohen, David S. (2008). "F/x master Stan Winston dies. Work included Jurassic Park, Terminator", Variety webpage retrieved 2008-06-16.
  2. ^ a b Crabtree, Sheigh (1008). "Stan Winston, dead at 62; Oscar-winning visual effects artist suffered from multiple myeloma", Los Angeles Times, Entertainment industry news blog, June 16, 2008; online version retrieved 2008-06-16.
  3. ^ a b Stan Winston Studios (2008). "Press Release" posted at Los Angeles Times Entertainment industry news blog, June 16, 2008; online version retrieved 2008-06-16.
  4. ^ "Center For Roboto Research And Preservation", webpage retrieved 2008-06-16.
  5. ^ Franklin, Garth (2005). "Winston Talks Jurassic Park IV", webpage from Dark Horizons website, retrieved 2008-06-16.
  6. ^ [1]
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