- George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is a four-time Academy Award nominated American film director, producer, and screenwriter famous for his epic "Star Wars" saga and Indiana Jones films — the latter a collaboration with his friend Steven Spielberg. He is one of American film industry's most financially successful independent directors and producers, with an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion. - Stan Winston
Stan Winston (born April 7, 1946, in Richmond, Virginia), is an Academy Award winning special effects and makeup artist, and film director. He is best known for his work in the "Terminator" series, the "Jurassic Park" series, "Aliens", the "Predator" series, and "Edward Scissorhands". Winston, a frequent collaborator with James Cameron, owns more than one effects studio, including Stan Winston Digital. - James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian director, producer and screenwriter. He is noted for his action/science fiction films, which are often highly successful financially and innovatively. Thematically, James Cameron's films generally explore the relationship between man and technology. Cameron also directed the film "Titanic", which went on to become the top-grossing film of all time, with a worldwide gross of over US$1.8 billion. - Ray Harryhausen
Ray Harryhausen (born Raymond Frederick Harryhausen, June 29, 1920 in Los Angeles, California), is an American Film producer and, most notably, a special effects creator most famous for his brand of stop-motion model animation. Some of his most notable works have included his animation of "Mighty Joe Young" (1949) and his collaboration with Don Chaffey on "Jason and the Argonauts". - Robert Zemeckis
Robert Zemeckis (born May 14, 1952) is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning American movie director, producer and writer. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the eighties as the director of "intricate cinematic jungle gyms" like "Back to the Future" and "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", though he has since diversified into more dramatic fare, including "Forrest Gump", for which he won an Oscar. - Tom Savini
Thomas Vincent Savini (born November 3, 1946) is an American actor, stunt man, director and award-winning special effects and makeup artist. He is known for his work on the "Living Dead" films directed by George A. Romero, as well as Evil Dead, "Friday the 13th", "Creepshow", "The Burning" and "Maniac". He directed the 1990 remake of "Night of the Living Dead". - Richard Taylor
Richard Taylor is the creator and head of New Zealand film prop and special effects company Weta Workshop. A close friend of Peter Jackson, he and his company created all of the props, costumes, prosthetics, miniatures and weaponry for Jackson's epic "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy. For his work on the three films, he shared in winning four Academy Awards. This included two for "The Fellowship of the Ring" in Make Up and Visual Effects, … - Dennis Muren
The only living human being to have won 8 Oscars, Dennis Muren is an innovator in the visual effects industry, responsible for overseeing work on hits such as Jurassic Park, Star Wars, War of the Worlds and The Hulk. In this interview, Dennis talks about breaking into Hollywood as an artist, and how to reach the pinnacle of success as he has. - Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Trumbull (born April 8, 1942) is a film director and special effects supervisor. He was responsible for the special effects of "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Blade Runner". - John Dykstra
John Charles Dykstra (born June 3 1947 in Long Beach, California, United States) is a two-time Academy Award-winning special effects supervisor and pioneer in the development of the use of computers in film making. After studying industrial design, Dykstra landed a job working with Douglas Trumbull on "Silent Running" filming model effects. When George Lucas was recruiting people for the special effects work on "Star Wars", … - Willis O'Brien
Willis H. "O'Bie" O'Brien (March 2, 1886 - November 8, 1962) was a pioneering motion picture special effects artist who perfected and specialized in stop-motion animation. O'Brien was born in Oakland, California. He was a cartoonist for the "San Francisco Daily News", and a professional marble sculptor before he began working in film. - John Knoll
John Knoll is an Academy-award winning motion picture visual effects specialist at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). One of the original creators of Adobe Photoshop (along with his brother, Thomas), he is recently best known for his work as Visual Effects Supervisor on the "Star Wars" prequels and the 1997 special editions of the original trilogy. - Adam Savage
Adam John Savage (born July 15, 1967) is an American television co-host on the program "MythBusters" on the Discovery Channel. - Rob Bottin
Rob Bottin (born 1959) is an American special makeup effects artist. He was born in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte. From an early age he enjoyed a steady stream of old horror films, as well as magazines like "Famous Monsters of Filmland". At age 14, he submitted a series of illustrations to makeup artist Rick Baker, who promptly hired him. He worked with Baker on various films but his first big solo break was "The Howling", … - Richard Edlund
Richard Edlund (born December 6 1940, Fargo, North Dakota) is a multi-Academy Award-winning US special effects photographer. After first joining the Navy, he developed an interest in experimental film and enrolled in film school in California in the late 60s. - Jamie Hyneman
James Earl Hyneman (born September 25, 1956), known as Jamie Hyneman, is an American visual effects expert, best known for being the co-host of the television series "MythBusters" on the Discovery Channel. He is also the founder of M5 Industries, a special effects workshop where "MythBusters" is filmed. He, along with M5 Industries, is also known in the "BattleBots" circles for his robot entry, Blendo, which was, for a time, … - Georges Méliès
Georges Méliès, full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest cinema. He was born in Paris, where his family manufactured shoes. He was very innovative in the use of special effects. He accidentally discovered the stop trick, or substitution, in 1896, and was one of the first filmmakers to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, … - Eiji Tsuburaya
(born Eiichi Tsuburaya on July 7, 1901 - January 25, 1970, in Sukagawa, Fukushima) was the Japanese special effects director responsible for many Japanese science-fiction movies, including the "Godzilla" series. - Brian Johnson
Brian Johnson is a specialist for television and movie special effects. He is best known for his special effects work on "Thunderbirds", "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Space: 1999", "Alien", and "Aliens". He has won Academy Award for Visual Effects for "Alien" and "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back". He was nominated for an Academy award for Dragonslayer. - John Gaeta
John Gaeta (born "c." 1965) is a visual effects designer best known for his work on the "Matrix" film trilogy, where he advanced and popularized the effects known as "Bullet Time" and Virtual Cinematography as well as pushing the boundaries of computer generated visualization for film. - Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings (15 January 1931-10 September 1995) was a British television and cinema special effects expert, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" television puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson. His first work with Anderson was as the uncredited art assistant on Anderson's first puppet series, "Torchy the Battery Boy", produced in 1957. - Dean Cundey
Dean Cundey is a celebrated cinematographer born 12 March 1946 in Alhambra, California, USA. He has worked on some of the most influential special effects films in history and has collaborated extensively with directors John Carpenter and Robert Zemeckis. - Kevin Yagher
Kevin Troy Yagher (born June 23, 1962 in Illinois, USA) is a special effects technician, known for Freddy Krueger's makeup. His company, Kevin Yagher Productions, has created effects for "Face/Off", "Enemy of the State", "Volcano", "Starship Troopers", "Conspiracy Theory", "Radio Flyer", "Mission: Impossible II", and "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid". Yagher's other credits include "Tales from the Crypt", … - Carlo Rambaldi
Carlo Rambaldi (born 1925 in Vigarano Mainarda, Italy) is an Italian-born special effects artist who is most famous for designing the title character of the 1982 super-smash hit "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and the mechanical head-effects for the creature in "Alien". Rambaldi has also worked on "Profondo Rosso (Deep Red)" (1975), "King Kong" (1976), "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), "Dune" (1984), … - Chris Corbould
Chris Corbould is a four time BAFTA nominated British special effects coordinator best known for his work on major blockbuster films and the action scenes on some 11 James Bond films since the early 1980s. He has also worked extensively on the Superman and Batman film series on digital effects and stunts. His last film was Casino Royale (2006 film). He is currently planning Bond 22 for 2008. - L. B. Abbott
Lenwood Ballard "Bill" Abbott, also known as L.B.Abbott (13 June 1908, Pasadena, California - 28 September 1985, Los Angeles) was a special effects expert, cinematographer and cameraman. He became the head of the Special Effects Department at 20th Century Fox in 1957, a post he held until retirement in 1970. He was called out of retirement, however, to work on the TV series M*A*S*H in 1972 (Abbott had worked on the film on which the series was based). - John P. Fulton
John P. Fulton (born 1902 in Nebraska and died October 1, 1965 in London, England) was an American special effects supervisor and cinematographer. Though Fulton began his adult life as a surveyor, he became involved in the movie industry after accepting a job as an assistant cameraman. In time he became a camera operator and acted as cinematographer in his first official credit in 1929 with the early sound drama "She Goes to War". - Jim Danforth
Jim Danforth is a master stop-motion animator, well-known for his model-animation work and matte painting skill. Danforth is known for his superb work on "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" (1971), a sequel of sorts to Ray Harryhausen's "One Million Years B.C." (1967). Danforth later went on to work with Harryhausen on the film "Clash of the Titans" (1981), in which he was mainly responsible for the animation of the winged-horse Pegasus. - Ruggero Deodato
Ruggero Deodato (born May 7 1939 in Potenza) is an Italian film director, actor and screen writer, best known for directing horror films, the most well known of which being "Cannibal Holocaust". Deodato caused massive controversy in Italy and the United Kingdom following the release of "Cannibal Holocaust", which was wrongly claimed by some to be a genuine snuff film. - Chris Walas
Chris Walas (born 1955) is an American special effects/make-up artist and director. His main body of work is with special effects in a wide variety of movies from science fiction to action-adventure. His work on "The Fly" led to his directorial debut on "The Fly II". He also won an Academy Award for Special Effects Make-up on "The Fly". - Peter Ellenshaw
William "Peter" Ellenshaw (May 24 1913 - February 12 2007) was an Anglo-American award-winning matte designer and special effects creator who worked on many Disney features. His first major project was the 1936 film "Things to Come". After World War II, he worked on films like "Quo Vadis" until he was recruited by Walt Disney Studios to work on their first live action film, "Treasure Island". - Ub Iwerks
Ub Iwerks (Ubbe Ert Iwwerks, was a two-time Academy Award winning American animator, cartoonist and special effects technician, who was famous for his work for Walt Disney. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri. His name is explained by his East Frisian roots — his father, Eert Ubbe Iwwerks, emigrated to the USA in 1869 from the village Uttum in East Frisia (northwest Germany). - John Carl Buechler
John Carl Buechler Born in Belleville, Illinois, USA is an American director, actor, and special effects and makeup artist. He is probably most famous for directing Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. - Grant Imahara
Grant Imahara (born October 23, 1970 in Los Angeles, California) is an American electronics and radio control expert known for his work as a Build Team member on the American television show "MythBusters". He is credited in many special effects works done by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), where he worked for nine years - in particular, … - Evan Jacobs
Evan Jacobs (born 1968 in Michigan) is a visual effects supervisor and director. Jacobs has overseen visual effects and served as miniatures supervisor on the feature films such as "Ed Wood", "The Hunt for Red October", "What the #$*! Do We Know?!", and "Resident Evil: Extinction". Jacobs was born in Michigan and moved to California in the early 1970s with his family. He made short films with a camera he received as a gift, … - Charles H. Schneer
Charles H. Schneer is a film producer most widely known for working with special effects pioneer, Ray Harryhausen. He was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1920. - Stu Maschwitz
Stuart T. Maschwitz, commonly known as Stu Maschwitz, is the co-founder and chief technology officer of The Orphanage, a visual effects company in California. He has worked as senior visual effects supervisor on several films. He previously worked at Industrial Light and Magic. Maschwitz was writer, director, cinematographer, and editor for the film "The Last Birthday Card" (2000). - Blanchard Ryan
Blanchard Ryan (born January 12, 1967) is an American actress. Her full name is "Susan Blanchard Ryan"; however, there was already a "Susan Ryan" registered with the Screen Actors Guild. Born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Andover, Massachusetts, Ryan graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Philosophy. After graduating from college, she worked at MTV in its special effects department. - Les Bowie
Les Bowie (1913 - 1979) was a Canadian-born special effects artist working mainly in Britain. He frequently worked freelance on projects for relatively low-budget studios such as Hammer Films. His films for Hammer included "The Quatermass Xperiment" (1955), "Dracula" (1958) and "The Kiss of the Vampire" (1963). Notable non-Hammer films included "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" (1961) and "Fahrenheit 451" (1966). - James Basevi
James Basevi (1890 - 1962) was a British born art director and special effects expert. He began his career in 1924 with MGM, designing sets for silent films. After the advent of talkies, Basevi became the head of MGM's special effects department, helping to create the earthquake scene in "San Francisco" (1936). He also worked on the storm sequence in John Ford's "The Hurricane" for 20th Century Fox.
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