tan Winston is a self-described failed actor who began doing makeup effects and creature design 30 years ago as a way to pay the bills. After winning back-to-back Emmys for his first two productions, Winston decided that perhaps acting should take the back seat. Thirty years and four Academy Awards later, Winston is at the top of his game as the foremost creator of creatures in the world, a co-founder of Digital Domain, one of the leading companies in CGI special effects, and the go-to guy for a couple of filmmakers you may have heard of: Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. Unless you are a Luddite, or someone who doesn't see films, or perhaps someone who sees only films with foreign titles, then you have seen Winston's work.
The creatures created by Stan Winston Studio include some of the most memorable silver-screen monsters of the last 20 years, including the queen mother alien Sigourney Weaver has a madre-a-madre catfight with at the end of Aliens, the T-800 assassin robot hiding in Arnold Schwarzenegger skin in Terminator, T2's mean liquid metal T-1000, the boy too sharp to shake hands with Edward Scissorhands, Danny DeVito's grotesquely bloated Penguin in Batman Returns and let us not forget the dinosaurs which inhabit Jurassic Park and its sequel, The Lost World, including a 40-foot long animatronic T. Rex which in Winston's words "could really kill you."
A lifelong aficionado of fantastical films, movie monsters, comic books and toys, Winston credits Michelangelo as his single greatest influence. "People forget that back in the Renaissance, when Renaissance artists were doing art for the churches, they were also painting and sculpting gargoyles and creatures." He has matured from a boy who instead of playing sports would stay in and draw, into a kind of artist-philosopher-creator not unlike one of those visionary genius scientists one sees in films who are always trying to bring humanity into the future.
The summer movie season of 2001 brings us not one but two blockbusters in which Winston had a hand, Jurassic Park III and Steven Spielberg's much-anticipated A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a kind of Pinocchio in the 21st century about a robot boy who wants to be loved, a project bequeathed to Spielberg by the late Stanley Kubrick and which has been hailed as an E.T. for the new millennium. Winston took time out of his busy edit schedule to discuss some of the larger philosophical issues centered around technology and art.
You have worked on some of the most popular film fantasies of the the last 20 years. What do you see as the role of fantasy or science fiction stories in our society? Why are people drawn to them?
Winston: If you look deeply into any good fantastic story, the story is grounded in something substantial and has at its core something important to say. So telling a story through fantastic characters is just a way of getting your attention. It doesn't change the essence of the story. For me, it's just deciding what is the best way to tell a particular story, to communicate a particular essence of life, a particular drama of life, something about growth, something about man's journey through life. And all of the great stories have those basic premises at their core, and the great fantasy stories have the same premises at their core. They just get your attention in a different way.
You have said that "what we are imagining today is the truth of tomorrow." What do you mean by that?
Winston: Everything that we have in the world today that has to do with science or technology at some point in time didn't exist, was only in the imagination of a creative being, a human being, so when you look at ... We're talking on the phone, thousands of miles apart, as if you were next door. Whoever heard of something like that? At one point in time this would have been a fantasy. And at some point in time, it was in the imagination of a human being to make that fantasy, to create that unique fantastic image and make it real. That's what human beings do. That is what sets us apart from every other animal. We are creative by our essence. We are imaginative by our essence. Historically, I believe that my future is based on my history. Our future is based on our history. I believe that my knowledge of what happens tomorrow is based on what consistently has happened in the past. Look at Jules Verne ... Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath the Sea. There were no submarines then. It was only in the man's imagination. The fact that he imagined it allowed it to become a reality because it was the imagination that sprung the creative mind to figuring out how to make that imagined fantasy real. The same thing with From the Earth to the Moon. What a fantastic thought. We've done it.
Can you talk about how you see aspects of certain films you've worked on, i.e., Terminator, Jurassic Park, A.I., becoming the truth of tomorrow?
Winston: You look at the concept of the Terminator, which is the possibility--of course, without it being a reality--that if we're not careful the machines could take over. It has to do with the creation of artificial intelligence and where you draw the line. Now, we have that same idea which is coming out with A.I. this year, but the fact of the matter is that that is what we are doing and what you see being imagined in these films is happening today, is going to happen. Why will it happen? Because human beings have imagined that it will happen and when human beings imagine something happening, humanity by its very essence creates it. By the very essence of what we are as human beings, all of these things have now become goals, they have now become the problems to solve.
Someone has now with their imagination said, "Boy, wouldn't it be cool if you could take the DNA of something as historic as the dinosaur and bring it to life based on DNA that has been fossilized over years?" Well, guess what? Something like that is going to happen. Why is it going to happen? Because Michael Crichton imagined that it could happen, and there is a science that is at the base of that imagination. And now with the combination of science and this man's imagination, there are going to be some human beings out there that will crack this problem, and using DNA are going to create life. It's happening now. It's science and the imagination that fuels the creative mind of mankind, and there is nothing that will stop it from happening until mankind doesn't exist anymore, and I don't see that happening anytime in the near future. As long as we exist, we will continue to create, and we will create a reality that we have imagined.
What need in humans causes them to want to create sentient beings, even if those sentient beings might be stronger and better than themselves, might even supersede humans?
Winston: We are always looking to create that which makes our lives easier, that which makes it easier to communicate, easier for us to live. We work very hard in order to allow ourselves to be lazy. The more something else is doing something the more time we have to create. Ultimately it goes back to that. The creative mind is sort of like the ongoing circle of life. You create so that you can continue to create.
As far as creating sentient beings or robots that are stronger than us or that can do more than we can ... Why would you create anything that can do less that what you could? If you reverse the question ... Why do you think I would want to create a robot that wasn't as strong as you? What would be the purpose? The purpose of creating is to create something stronger, faster, better, smarter. Why create a computer if it can't think as fast as we can? The reason to create a computer is to have something that can compute faster than our computer in certain things. The obvious reason behind the creation of computers, artificial intelligence, whatever the beings of the future are ... number one, let us not forget that at the base of it all we are kids, we are kids who just love to do cool things. We intellectualize the truth, which the base of the truth is, wouldn't it be sort of cool to do that, and wouldn't it be neat to do that. And in order to make excuses for our childlike thinking, we underlie it with its importance and its intellectual importance and why is it better for humanity, and better for society because we have to constantly rationalize being the creative children that we are. The only way to do that is find the essence of what we're doing and say I'm doing this [for] society. Ultimately we are doing this for ourselves, but we blame society.
Movies like Jurassic Park and Terminator are stories of people that push the envelope of science, but at the same time they are cautionary tales that say this technology has teeth, it can harm you. Just because something is possible to do technologically, does it mean we should do it?
Winston: I think that to stifle the creative energy of humanity is impossible. It takes humanity out of the loop. Ultimately what these stories tell are twofold. They are that this is what humanity does, and you also have to have to have caution. I think caution and not doing something are two different things. Ultimately everything that we create in society can be taken positively and used positively or used negatively. It's the way it will always be. That's the way it was when the caveman created the first weapon out of picking up a stick and saying well, I'll use this as a weapon. That weapon protected him if he was a good guy, and if he was a bad guy, it was a weapon used against someone. That is the nature of humanity. The fact of the matter is that the only way to stop something from being bad or having a negative effect on society or human beings is to not create it at all, [and] to not create it all takes the essence of humanity away. So, we have to know that we as human beings are going to create things that will be astounding, that will be wonderful, but you know what? In the hands of certain human beings or just by virtue of the risk factor that certain things go wrong people will end up getting hurt. They always have. They always will.
What can you tell me about A.I.? What are you at liberty to discuss?
Winston: I'm not at liberty to give any specific information other than that which is fairly well known from the trailers and what's on the one-sheets. The robotic characters are designed and created at the Stan Winston studio. The title of the film is A.I., which has to do with artificial intelligence. Everyone pretty much knows that Haley Joel Osment is an artificial intelligence, is a robot. Without letting the story go, what I can tell you with A.I. is that it has so much to do with what we're talking about. It does take us to the future ... to a possible future. And it makes us reflect on our own responsibility. What I think is important for people to understand, and it's the essence of A.I., is man's responsibility not just for what he creates but to what he creates. We are responsible for what we have created.
What separates human beings from the beings they create?
Winston: I'd say the essence of humanity is creativity. The human being is the only creature that has the ability to create. Well, if we create robots that have the ability to create, what else separates us from them? And I would say that what most people would say is that what separates us is our soul. The question is, what is the soul? And the question is, are we capable of instilling that, and can that in fact grow within an artificial intelligence? If you can create artificial intelligence that can in fact love and feel, then are you more responsible to it than you would be to another machine? Can you just turn it off or not? Are we creating in fact, although it is technology, are we creating in fact something beyond technology? Are we creating a type of life?
If we are creating a type of life there is a responsibility, and that's something that I do think that it is important for all of us to never turn our back on. As much as I say that you can never stop mankind from being creative, mankind also has the need to be responsible. Understand that there is an internal responsibility that you as a human being have once you have created something. Once you've given it any type of life, you can't turn your back on that which you have created. As much as I say to you out of one side of my mouth you will never stop mankind from being creative, I think it is also extremely important for each and every one of us who is creative to maintain and hold on to that responsibility that we have for that which we have created. If it in fact becomes a life form, it's not just being responsible for it, it is being responsible to it.
Do you think that it's possible to create a soul or to create a sentient being that has the capacity to create the way that human beings have the capacity to create?
Winston: I think it's possible to construct through what we have something along those lines. You are aware that every cell that we are made up of has always been there and will always be there. And scientifically the essence of who we are, including our body, our brain, etc., is a specific makeup of a bunch of cells that come together in one particular form and create who you are and who I am. When we're no longer here, everything we're made up of, every cell actually stays here. It changes form. That's what gives me the feeling of my soul and life forever, is that I know that everything that makes me up will not be destroyed. That is the essence of my soul and my spirit and that will go on forever. Nothing we are made up of disappears.
Given that, you could say, well, if we're at a point where we're manipulating cells, we are manipulating DNA. We have already shown that we can transplant certain mechanical devices into certain organic devices where the mechanical device will keep the organic device alive. We already have in medical science certain biomechanical scenarios where nerve endings will allow someone to move an artificial hand. Where does it stop? How many organic cells combined with how much physical technology would it take to create a being that is totally concocted by a human being? Who is to say that that thing that is created by virtue of the fact that it is constructed of similar cells that you and I are wouldn't feel and wouldn't have a soul? I think we become very arrogant if we think otherwise.
You are in the business of creating the illusion of life. Sometimes these creatures you create, once you've built them and set them up in the studio, do they ever take on a life of their own?
Winston: No, they become an extension of the lifeblood of myself and the creative people of the studio, the technical geniuses, and the artistic geniuses, so when I look at them I never think that they have their own life, but that they are the extension of the creative power of many people that were a part of their creation. Do I ever look at them and think that that has its own thing? No. I'm thrilled by it. They're great works of art. They are wonderful storytelling devices. They are interesting characters, but they are strictly fantasies and strictly the concoction of fantastic creative minds, the imagination of people that have surrounded me for many years.
You have worked extensively with "analog" visual effects, i.e., make-up, puppets. At the same time you are a founder of Digital Domain, which specializes in digital and computer effects. What do you think will be the relationship between "real" and "computer" effects as film becomes more digitally oriented? What is going to be the long-term impact of digital?
Winston: The long-term impact of digital is basically the long-term impact of any other great tool or device or technology that's brought into the storytelling realm. Something to be embraced. It will continue to be used in storytelling to create certain realities or to create certain fantasies. It won't replace anything. Technology is like that. You have to remember that the essence of filmmaking is storytelling, and the essence of art is communication, and stories and films will always be told in as many different ways as possible.
You asked me the importance of fantasy stories ... basically to get your attention. The same stories will be told. The same stories continue to be told and people, audiences want to see them told in different ways, so you embrace the fact that we now have the ability to see a digitally animated film like Shrek or Toy Story. Ultimately, it was because it was a great movie with a great story that you enjoy it. It has great characters. The technology just allows us to see the movie in a different way.
You are not going to want to stop seeing movies that are actor-driven. An animated character is never going to replace Al Pacino. It will be another way of you looking at him. Digital animation will never replace cel animation. Cel animation will always be a form of storytelling that has its own life. Puppets have their own life. We do amazing animatronics and puppetry that are totally organic and real and we develop and create them with computers, we operate them with computers. The puppets that we've created, the animatronic characters that we have created at Stan Winston Studio, are superior to any animatronics that you have ever seen, but they are never going to replace the Muppets just because the technology is greater. There is an essence of character that you can get out of a sock puppet that you will get out of a sock puppet forever. In fact if you made the Muppets any more realistic, it would ruin the essence of what they are, and that won't be replaced, and beautiful animation doesn't mean that something like South Park which is the most crude animation of all time doesn't have it's place. It's different methods of storytelling.
When movies came out, theatre actors thought that would be the end of theatre, because of the movies. There is more theatre today than there ever was. When television came out, moviemakers thought that was going to be the end of movies, because now no one would leave their house to go see a movie. There are more movies today than there have ever have been. Every time there is a new technology, there is this instant paranoia from an artistic community saying that I'm going to be replaced by this technology. It is totally absurd. When you can do it live, you will do it live. You will always want to go and see a play. There is something that is so visceral about storytelling when you are there, one-to-one live theatre that has it its own essence. No movie, no film, can ever replace that essence of live theatre. On the same line there is an essence of life on film, live actors that will never be replaced and can never be replaced by artificial actors or artificial life forms. You will want to see it, you will want to see the digital life form. You will want to see the digital animation, but you also want to be able to see a movie that is about life that you know is reality that you are touching.
One of the reasons that people love Jurassic Park, and these movies that have been created by filmmakers like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg is that you do not know whether it is all digital or real. You would not enjoy the movie nearly as much if you thought, "Oh, the dinosaurs are animated." One of the things that you love about it is that people know that those dinosaurs are there. They are full size and they could eat you, and they could kill you. They are machines that are dangerous. You as an audience, you don't want us ever to stop improving the robotic and live aspect of it, because it entertains you. Just the fact that I can give you a dinosaur that really is there is something that you will not give up as an audience and you would rebel if it all became digital, but you still want to see as much as you can digitally, you will want to see as much as you can robotically. You will want to see as much animatronic as you can. You want to see stuff that you've never seen before. You don't care how you see it as long as it's something that's new, and there is a story to be told, and the story is told well. It's not about the technology. Embrace the technology. Use it when it is a good storytelling tool but don't think for a second that that's what it's about.
What's next for Stan Winston Studio?
Winston: The biggest thing that's new is that we are creating a new toy line of Stan Winston creatures. We have been creating characters and creatures in film for the last 30 plus years, and now we're also bringing new characters and creatures to the action-figure world. We're going to be developing video-games bringing things straight to the consumer market. When I was a young boy, I was a toy freak and a comic book freak, and monster movies, and so I'm just continuing to relive and keep alive all of my childhood loves.
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Also in this issue: Ken Johnson
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