io9: stan winston

Career in Creatures: A Stan Winston Art Retrospective

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:00:00 PDT

With the sad news earlier this week that special effects master Stan Winston had died, Hollywood lost one of its master creature-makers. Though Winston's studio did do some digital effects, Winston may have been one of the last great artists of the animatronic. With the help of a huge group of artists, sculptors, mechanical engineers, and even (at one point) the Sociable Robotics Lab at MIT, Winston built everything from a life-sized dinosaur for Jurassic Park to the uncannily realistic teddy bear bot for the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence. He also had a hand in some productions you might not have guessed, like 1970s Wizard of Oz remake The Wiz with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson (holy crap I loved that movie when I was a kid). At the time of his death, he was working on James Cameron's upcoming Avatar, and Martin Scorcese's Shutter Island — but despite his association with primo directors, his amazing creations have appeared in more than one cheesy-but-awesome movie, too. Below, we take you on a photographic tour of Winson's career in creatures.

Follow the links to awesome galleries.

Stan Winston, Special Effects Master, RIP

Graeme McMillan — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:00:00 PDT

Ain't It Cool is reporting that Stan Winston, the Academy Award winning special effects artist who worked on the Terminator, Predator and Aliens movies, has died. According to the site, Winston, who had won Oscars for his work on Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park, passed away early last night from cancer. [Ain't It Cool]

Stan Winston Studio

Annalee Newitz — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 19:08:59 PDT

Here you can see the massive operation that constitutes the Stan Winston Studio. There are entire warehouse-sized areas devoted to sculpture, molding, even creating hair. Plus there is a massive department for working on the controls for animatronic creatures like robots or Teddy from A.I. CGI creatures just don't have the heft and visual sheen of tangible models. I think Teddy and the Jurassic Park dinosaurs are particularly good examples of that. Though both movies used CGI, it was also intercut with a healthy dose of models from Winston Studios. What you also see, flipping through these pictures, is that a lot of artistry goes into conceiving of the creatures you'll be seeing in upcoming movies like Avatar and Terminator 4. Every hair on the body of an animatronic beast has to be perfectly combed onto a sculpted skeleton. If you want to see even more amazing pictures from the Stan Winston Studios, go on the "studio tour" at Stan Winston Studios' website.

Stan Winston's Friendly Creatures

Annalee Newitz — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 18:23:04 PDT

Though mostly Winston specialized in scary monsters, his friendly robots from Heartbeeps and A.I. made it clear that he could also create creatures who were heartbreakingly cute. One of his most famous creations was the pointy-fingered, gentle Goth heartthrob Edward Scissorhands, played by Johnny Depp in the eponymous film. Winston designed Edward's entire look, and you can see wisps of his evil monsters in this lonely boy who slices up everyone he gets close to. Somehow Depp manages to make that leather outfit, Robert Smith hair, and razor fingers into a figure of enduring pathos. Other friendly creatures Winston designed include the half-human, half-animal experiments in Island of Doctor Moreau, as well as the mutant kangaroos in Tank Girl.

Winston Being Gooftastic

Annalee Newitz — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 18:09:59 PDT

Here's the thing that's really weird about Stan Winston's involvement in the Star Wars Holiday Special, a show so bad that George Lucas has said he wishes he could personally smash every copy. You'd think Winston would have been primarily interested in the creatures, or maybe the costumes. But no. He was helping out with the crazy music stuff too. He'd worked on The Wiz (below, showing off his makeup effects), and on a Diana Ross special for TV. So the guy was pretty much into the whole thing: furry-ass creatures, and shiny weird music. Here's a great scene from the show, where Darth's pals come to search Chewie's house and somehow we manage to transition into this song. What band is this??? I have no idea. All I can say is that if you need to see the whole special, complete with television commercials from when if first aired, you can check it out on Google video while supplies last.