Among Stan Winston’s
contributions to movie
history are his creations
from Terminator 2
(above), Jurassic Park
(below).
 

 

Stan Winston: Larger Than Life by Scott Essman

While Rick Baker and his protégés were raising the stakes of makeup effects in the 1980s, another special makeup effects team gained equal status and respect for their efforts. Stan
Winston had apprenticed at Disney Studios under long-running makeup department head Bob Schiffer and broke through with such prosthetic projects as “The Autobiography of Jane Pittman,” which he co-created with Baker. Soon afterwards, Winston received one of the biggest prosthetics jobs of the period when his studio created the innovative makeups for “The Wiz.” However, it was a modestlybudgeted sci-fi action film co-written and directed by James Cameron, a virtual nonentity at the time, that put Stan Winston on the makeup map.

The Terminator” featured a range of special makeup effects, from metallic makeups and puppet
heads of Arnold Schwarzenegger to humanoid makeup gags to full mechanical puppets. Winston and his team stretched the boundaries of what makeup effects could accomplish, continuing the trend with their giant alien queen in Cameron’s “Aliens,” the title characters for “Predator” and “Edward Scissorhands,” and creating innovative makeup and effects for “Interview with the Vampire,” with the on-set makeup skills of Michele Burke. In the early 1990s, there was “Terminator 2: Judgement Day,” for which Winston created a variety of robotic effects and puppets.

Winston steadily diversified his shop so that Stan Winston Studio could handle any project in Hollywood, from makeups, to mechanical effects to full-scale creatures. His San Fernando Valley shop even has a complete machining department. Winston’s loyal team of designers, sculptors, and mechanical people often stay with the studio from project to project.

Of all the material to come out of Winston’s shop, the biggest project, in terms of sheer size and exposure was inarguably “Jurassic Park,” for which full-size dinosaurs were manufactured and operated on set. Among the most memorable were the velociraptors and the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Winston repeated his skills with both “Jurassic Park” sequels, each time going further with dinosaur realism and movement.

From the “Terminator” years through the 1990s, many top-notch effects artists have remained at
Stan Winston Studios, with notable exception being a pair of supervisors who left to form their own shop, Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. has featured Gillis and Woodruff ’s full-size mechanical abilities in projects ranging from “Tremors” and “Death Becomes Her” to “Starship Troopers.”

Into the 21st century, Stan Winston has expanded his monstrous empire to include toy design, new media and directing films. His first such effort, “Pumpkinhead” was a cult horror favorite, and Winston plans to continue his directing efforts. His most notable new project was Steven Spielberg’s “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” which found Winston and his extensive team constructing a team of futuristic robots. Over the same period of time in the year 2000, Stan Winston Studio was creating the robots and operating them on set while a separate team at the studio built the Spinosaurus and tyranodons for “Jurassic Park III.”

About the Author
Scott Essman has been writing about makeup and movie craftsmanship since 1995. As part of his company, Visionary Cinema, Essman has also created memorable tributes to makeup history, including special events to honor Dick Smith, John Chambers, and Jack Pierce. In 1998, his tribute to the makeup for “The Wizard of Oz” was celebrated on Hollywood Boulevard at the historic Mann’s Chinese Theater. In 2000, Essman published his first book, “Freelance Writing for Hollywood,” and that same year, he published a 48-page special magazine about the work of Universal Studios’ makeup legend, Jack Pierce. In 2001, he was joined with Universal to nominate Pierce for a star on Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame.

Back to the Essman Articles