In Memoriam: Stan Winston, creature creator and master of animatronics/SFX

[labricoleuse]

I came home from an exciting first day on Shrek to the sad news that legendary SFX artist Stan Winston has lost his battle with cancer.

Mr. Winston's LA studio created ingenious effects work, creatures, and animatronics, everything from the titular apparati of Edward Scissorhands to the Alien Queen to his most recent, the Iron Man armor. His workshop produced mindblowing stuff of unparalleled quality, and Mr. Winston was the recipient of four Oscars. I don't know anyone who works in entertainment production who wasn't completely floored by Winston's creativity, skill, artisanship, and artistry.

The LA Times has a slide show of images of his best-known work.

We've truly lost a master of his art.

Comments

[letsstealatank.livejournal.com]

Hi Rachel,
I was doing a google search on costumes for the nurse in romeo and juliet and I came across your post about them. I'm really intrigued and would be interested to know more about the concept if you dont mind sharing with me. I added you as well. Thank you in advance.

-Alex

[labricoleuse.livejournal.com]

Alex-

My notes from that show are back in my studio in North Carolina, and i'm in NYC for the summer, so i'm going only on memory from a year ago, but i'll be glad to discuss what i can recall!

The costume designer for that production was Serbian-born NY-based designer Olivera Gajik.

Her overall concept was to blend together modern clothing and style trends with shapes reminiscent of Elizabethan garb. So, if you look quickly at, say, the young men onstage, they look like modern scene kids with skinny pants and rocker boots, but if you look closely, they are all wearing doublets over their t-shirts, worn open as jackets. The older characters--the parents of the couple for example--were in much more formal attire, with more antique style lines but still with modern elements.

I never talked with Ms. Gajik about the specifics of her concept of the Nurse, but my guess was that because the Nurse functions as a bridge between the world of the parents/church/establishment and the teenagers, and because she is seen as somewhat of a cartoon, that her costume was a literally cartoonish version of Elizabethan attire, with shapes like you see in Disney (the "Maleficent"-looking escoffion hat) and in anime (the double hair buns).

Lemme know if you have any more questions about the Nurse or any of the other costumes, i will be glad to answer to the best of my ability, and welcome!

[letsstealatank.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. I noticed the hoods on the younger character's costumes, and it really drew me in. I'm really digging on that.