With the recent passing of VFX legend Stan Winston, Sony Pictures Imageworks has decided to change its upcoming SIGGRAPH 2008 "Studio Events" program and instead pay tribute to Winston at the Nokia Theater on Aug. 13 (8:00 -11:00 p.m.). "Studio Events" is part of the newly expanded Computer Animation Festival under the guidance of SIGGRAPH Conference Entertainment Director Jill Smolin.
Winston, of course, altered the course of movies when he transformed makeup effects from latex to animatronics and provided the foundation for a veritable galaxy of interstellar aliens, menacing chrome robots and predatory dinosaurs. His work blurred the lines between makeup, puppetry and vfx.
Winston inspired legions of directors, visual effects supervisors and artists to stretch their abilities, and his insatiable curiosity even moved beyond the film world into robotics and artificial intelligence, in innovations that found their way from the labs at MIT to the workshop in Van Nuys. Sony Pictures Imageworks presents an evening of tributes, celebrations clips and memories. A screening of a classic Winston film follows the discussion.
Meanwhile, the first studio event planned will be a conversation Aug. 12 (8:00-9:00 p.m.) between John Lasseter and two-time Academy Award-winning animator Frederic Back following a screening of THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES. In conjunction, an exhibit of Back's works will be on display starting Aug. 10 at the Linwood Dunn Theater of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Mary Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study (1313 Vine Street, L.A.).
Following this will be a screening of THE PIXAR STORY (9:00-11:00 p.m.) with introduction and Q&A by director Leslie Iwerks and friends.
And on Aug. 14 (8:00-11:00 p.m.), Lucasfilm will present an advance screening of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (opening the following day). ILM VFX Supervisor John Knoll will host the evening, which will include a conversation with director Dave Filoni.
