Interview: Stan Winston Interview by Clint Morris
Interview with Stan Winston
Special Effects and Makeup Wizard on the movie Zathura. The
last time we talked to Stan Winston he was selling us a frightening
cannibal caper about a young woman that’s terrorised by
flesh-eaters out in the boondocks. The Wrong Turn helmer’s
latest film, for which he did the amazing special effects, is the polar
opposite: a squeaky-clean family film with not one decapitation.
Winston tells CLINT MORRIS what appealed to him about Zathura. How did you get involved in Zathura?
Jon
Favreau, the director, was recommended by Sony – who we have a
working relationship with – to look us up. I read the script, and
I totally flipped. I also loved his (Favreau’s) vision and what
he wanted to do with it. What did you create for the film? He
(Favreau) wanted to do as much live as he could; he wasn’t a huge
fan of total CGI characters. We did a wonderful retro robot and also,
the characters called the Zorgons, and Jon didn’t want them to be
digital effects but to be there, on the set, so the young actors would
have something there to act with. 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. So, they’re actually hybrids
of technologies – the characters are actually there, acting and
reacting…but I won’t get into the details. At no point
will you look at these characters and go “Oh, that’s a
digital character, or, Oh, that’s a man in a suit!”. How did Jon Favreau do directing this, a family film? He
has a wonderful sense of humour, a wonderful sense of storytelling.
He’s looking to do things that haven’t been done
before….so it was the perfect marriage for us. You’ve done a lot of films – The Terminator, Jurassic Park, Wrong Turn – so where’s this rank in terms of your achievements? It
is one of my funnest experiences, I’m very, very proud of
it. It’s been one of the favourite jobs we’ve had
here at Stan Winston Studios for all the right reasons. You created the Alien and the Predator, but weren’t asked back to do Alien Vs.Predator. Would you like to work on those series again, though? I
take great pride in ownership of the Alien and the Predator, but these
days, I like doing stuff that people haven’t seen before. What did you think of AVP? I saw it. What’s that mean? I saw it. [Laughs] Moving right along then, let’s talk about some of your future projects. Didn’t you plan on doing a Wrong Turn 2 at one stage? Wrong Turn 2 isn’t on the burner right now. We’ve just finished shooting a movie we produced in Toronto called Skinwalkers,
which is a wonderful werewolf movie. We have a great script and we have
created some of the coolest werewolves you’ll ever see.
They’re not digital werewolves – we’ve given it back
to the actors. It will be released next Halloween. And we’re always hearing rumours about a Jurassic Park 4 and Terminator 4, what’s the latest? The
scripts don’t exist right now. They’re always talking about
them, but until we’ve got scripts, they’re not happening.
Though I’m more interested in coming up with original stuff these
days, I’d still love the chance to return to both of those
franchises though…we’ll see. You were rather excited about a movie you were going to do called Me and My Monster at one stage too. What happened to it? We’re still working on the script. Nothing is solid, but it’s still very alive. Brought to you by MovieHole
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