Stan Winston

Stan Winston has left this world. he isn't somebody that most people knew something about. the news of the day wasn't replaced by stories about him on 24 hour news networks. thousands of people didn't do TV interviews about him that day. the president didn't mention him. many people have no idea who he is.

some do though. some might have caught a little about his death in the news. hollywood mentioned it. many there knew him.

he was the kind of person the geeky types might have known. he did things we respect.

what did he do? he brought aliens to life. he gave rise to the terminator. he helped dinosaurs walk the land. he gave vampires the power to frighten us.

Stan was a makeup/special effects/CGI wizard.

when i was still pretty young, i recall watching "Aliens" and "Terminator" and being scared outta my wits by the incredible effects. that was Stan.

Predators? he brought those to life too. Dinosaurs? them too.

T3, Ironman, Bigfish, Pearl Harbor. what he did best was mix together makeup work, animatronics, models, and CGI. he did a little of it all. that is why the stuff he did looked so good. it never depended on a single method, but used every possible tool in the box to make the effect look as real as possible.

he won an entire closet full of awards, including 4 oscars, by making things that couldn't possibly be real, exist on the screen.

i am geek, i admit it. when i heard that he had died, i actually knew the name without hearing the rest of the news blurb. my first thought was that without him, some of the scenes that snuck into my nightmares would never have happened.......

damn he was good. i am gonna miss his work.