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Nov 15, 2016 · Creature designers and visual effects legends Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. have filled our collective conscience with some of the most indelible movie monsters ever.
- Contributing Writer
SUBSCRIBE to SWSCA on YouTube: http://bit.ly/Zp70T4Monster Maker #Interview with Alec GillisFULL STORY here: https://bit.ly/AGillisIntYTStan Winston School "...
- 50 min
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- Stan Winston School
Nov 15, 2016 · A24 recently released Bryan Bertino’s The Monster, and to celebrate the film’s opening, Daily Dead had the chance to speak with one half of the legendary team that brought the titular monstrosity to life, Alec Gillis of Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. During our interview, Gillis discussed how he and creative partner Tom Woodruff Jr. approached ...
- First Monster Memories
- Discovering That People Make Monsters
- Breaking in – James Cameron & Roger Corman
- Focusing on Makeup FX – Greg Cannom
- Working For Stan Winston – Almost
- Lessons from Tom Savini
- The Stan Winston Studio Years
- Making Monsters at A Break Neck Pace
- Stan’s Greatest Lesson
- The Founding of Adi
Growing up with a father who was into monsters and pop culture ignited Alec Gillis’ passion for fantasy characters at a young age. The film that "flipped the switch" for him was JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. “The skeletons themselves were clearly not guys wearing suits. There was something else in play there that I didn’t quite understand, but that real...
But it wasn’t until Gillis discovered that many of his favorite monsters were actually made by a single artist, Ray Harryhausen, that he realized that “people do this for a living. People make monsters. All my favorite stuff.” From that point he began to watch movies differently, not just as a fan, but as an aspiring monster maker. Pictured above: ...
Alec made his first meaningful “connection” in Hollywood when he met another aspiring filmmaker, a twenty-something artist named James Cameron. “He was about 25. I was 19 or so… he said, 'Come see this film that I made.'" Although Cameron's short film, Xenogenesis, was made for next to nothing, it was clear to Gillis right away that Cameron was a f...
With all that he’d learned at Roger Corman’s, Gillis still felt he was lacking experience as a makeup fx artist and began looking for a job that would give him his start. He was eventually hired by future 3-time Academy Award winning makeup artist, Greg Cannom, to work on FRIDAY THE 13th: THE FINAL CHAPTER. Gillis found himself surrounded by young,...
It was while working for Cannom that he got his first call from Stan Winston. James Cameron’s film, THE TERMINATOR, had been greenlit and Gillis’ old friend had asked Stan to consider including him on the Terminator FX crew. But Gillis felt it would be unprofessional to walk away from Cannom in the middle of a job. Working with James Cameron and St...
Gillis couldn’t have foreseen that it was Cannom himself who would leave the movie over creative differences with the filmmakers. While disappointed at first, it gave Gillis the opportunity to work with yet another name in the makeup fx industry, the reigning king of zombie and gore fx, Tom Savini. Gillis found himself impressed with Savini’s unort...
When the opportunity came to finally work with Stan Winston again, on the pilot for a T.V. show called STEEL COLLAR MAN, Alec felt he was much better prepared, having spent time with both Cannom and Savini. At Stan Winston Studio, Gillis “was in heaven. That’s where I met Tom Woodruff Jr., Shane Mahan, John Rosengrant, Richard Landon… It was a fun ...
Gillis’ tenure at SWS saw a flurry of activity, from INVADERS FROM MARS, ALIENS, PREDATOR, ALIEN NATION, LEVIATHAN, and including Stan’s directorial debut, PUMPKINHEAD. “I was only there for two and a half years. People are always like, ‘What? Only two and a half years?’ And I’m like ‘Yeah but, two and a half Stan Winston years was like seven years...
But perhaps the most important lesson Gillis learned during his time with Stan was how to keep it fun, even under pressure. “One of the best experiences I had was PUMPKINHEAD, seeing him get to direct his first feature, and how happy he was, what a goofball he was on set. Again, that opened my eyes because, you know, you have preconceptions of what...
The late 80s saw Gillis was eager to take the leap into filmmaking himself. When a script co-written with fellow SWS artist Tom Woodruff Jr. began to garner some buzz around Hollywood, the two young men left the studio to pursue their new writing careers. But as happens more than not, the project fell through and Gillis and Woodruff Jr. found thems...
Nov 25, 2016 · The Oscar-winning practical effects wizards discuss building an original and terrifying beast for Bryan Bertino's The Monster.
Aug 12, 2022 · Creature designer Alec Gillis on how the "Prey" creature outfit was designed and went through 20 different concepts.
Nov 17, 2016 · For the release of A24’s latest film, THE MONSTER, James got to speak with one of the masterminds behind the creature’s design, Alec Gillis of Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated.
