Recently, special effects guru Stan Winston passed away. He worked on so many of the films I loved, creating the creatures and animatronics and effects that could make or break a movie, that his absence will be sorely missed.


I grew up wanting to work in special effects and spent many, many hours reading Cinefex and Fangoria and making models and filming them blowing up and all manner of things that would prepare me for my future. But along with other legends such as Ray Harryhausen, Phil Tippet, Dennis Muren and more, Stan Winston held a special place in my heart.

Stan's special skill, beyond his amazing technical capabilities, was the heart and soul he brought to his creations. Character was always paramount in his work, and not in the design element, but in the emotional impact of the character. Whether it was the terrifying T-Rex in Jurassic Park or the nightmare horror of The Thing, to more heartwarming characters such as the mouse in Mousehunt or the robots in A.I.

Stan had said of movie characters "Special effects, by themselves, don't mean diddly squat in a movie. If the characters I created can't perform, can't act and aren't interesting, it just isn't going to work. It doesn't matter how good the technique is if you have not created interesting characters."

Most recently he had worked on Iron Man, and to the surprise of many people, actually built a functional, wearable Iron Man suit. Where as most directors would have just utilized CGI, Stan and his studio took it to the next level to make a wearable suit that would blend seamlessly with the CGI sequences.

Another great quote I found in an interview had Stan saying "I love digital, I'm one of the biggest supporters of it out there and I founded one of the biggest digital companies out there, but I'm a starch believer in that if you can do it live, you do it live."

This really strikes a chord with me since over the years I have come to the same conclusion and even wrote about this exact thing in two of my early blog posts.

Stan Winston was a personal hero of mine for his creativity and dedication to character and story. Even though I didn't become the special effects creator I wanted to when I was little, his work inspired my imagination and provided me with creative fodder to sustain me though life and in my other creative outlets.

Thank you Stan. I'll miss you.