California State University, Long Beach

John Charles Dykstra, A.S.C. is an Academy Award-winning special effects supervisor and pioneer in the development of the use of computers in... filmmaking. After studying industrial design at California State University, Long Beach , in 1971 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, he approached Trumbull , who pointed him towards Dykstra. Dykstra led the development at Industrial Light & Magic of the Dykstraflex motion-controlled camera, which was responsible for many of the film's groundbreaking effects. The system was made possible by the availability of off-the-shelf integrated-circuit RAMs at relatively low cost and secondhand VistaVision cameras.
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Stanley Winston was an American visual effects supervisor, makeup artist, and film director. He was best known for his work in the Terminator... series, the Jurassic Park series, Aliens, the Predator series, Iron Man, Edward Scissorhands, and Avatar. He won four Academy Awards for his work. Winston, a frequent collaborator with director James Cameron, owned several effects studios, including Stan Winston Digital. The established areas of expertise for Winston were in makeup, puppets and practical effects, but he had recently expanded his studio to encompass digital effects as well. Stan Winston was born on April 7, 1946, in Arlington, Virginia, where he graduated from Washington-Lee High School in 1964. He studied painting and sculpture at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville from which he graduated in 1968. In 1969, after attending California State University, Long Beach, Winston moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as an actor. Struggling to find an acting job, he began a makeup apprenticeship at Walt Disney Studios.
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Christopher Carl Carter is an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He is the creator of The X-Files and Millennium. Upon the creation... and production of The X-Files in 1993, Chris Carter started a production company called Ten Thirteen Productions. Since 1993 it has produced: During this time the Ten Thirteen offices were located in Century City, Los Angeles, California, with Frank Spotnitz serving as president, Mary Astadourian serving as vice president and Jana Fain serving as office manager. Spotnitz has gone on to start his own production company, Big Light Productions, with Fain as director of development.
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Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more... than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is also one of the co-founders of the DreamWorks movie studio. Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan . Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws , E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , and Jurassic Park —achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion. Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish family.
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