Dennis Muren,A.S.C.
Muren at the International Press Academy’s 12th AnnualSatellite Awards, December 16, 2007
Born	(1946-11-01)November 1, 1946 (age 78) Glendale, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Visual effects artist and supervisor

Dennis Muren,A.S.C (born November 1, 1946) is an American filmvisual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked on the films ofGeorge Lucas,Steven Spielberg, andJames Cameron, among others, and has won nineOscars in total: eight forBest Visual Effects and aTechnical Achievement Academy Award.^[1] The Visual Effects Society has called him "a perpetual student, teacher, innovator, and mentor."^[2]

He has been identified as "a pioneer in bringing a new wave of visual effects films to the public, opening the doors for screenwriters and directors to tell stories never before possible with a new realism through the use of his skills in cinematic arts and advanced technologies."^[3]

According to Spielberg, Muren "set the example atIndustrial Light & Magic for visual effects excellence with effects that add strong, appropriate emotion to a shot and fit seamlessly into a movie."^[4]

Muren was born in 1946 inGlendale, California, the son of Charline Louise (née Clayton) and Elmer Ernest Muren.^[5] His interest in photography began at eight years old while shooting model spaceships and dinosaurs. Muren quickly deepened his interest in effects by studying the films ofJohn Fulton,Ray Harryhausen, andHoward Lydecker. He was fascinated by what he observed around him, in appearance and purpose, which led him to study the artwork ofJohn Singer Sargent andFrank Frazetta.^[6] He never attended film school but was self-taught, and also learned through friendships with other young Los Angeles effects enthusiasts, includingJim Danforth andDavid Allen.^[7]

In 1965, after graduating fromJohn Muir High School in Pasadena, California,^[8] and during a summer vacation atPasadena City College as a business major, Muren raised $6,500 to makeThe Equinox, a 71-minute supernatural film incorporating the visual effects techniques he had grown up admiring. He sold it to producer Jack Harris who hired film editor Jack Woods to write and direct additional footage that added a demonic villain and made the film 82 minutes long. WhenEquinox was released in May 1970, Muren was credited as a producer despite having directed much of the film and created the special effects. Despite its mixed to weak reviews, the movie made enough money for Muren to recoup his investment, and in the years since, it has become a minor cult classic.^[9]

After earning hisassociate's degree, Muren struggled for years to find steady work as a visual effects cameraman in Hollywood. In 1976, Muren was hired as 2nd cameraman atIndustrial Light & Magic (ILM), then an upstart visual effects studio founded byGeorge Lucas,^[10] to work onStar Wars. The film was released in 1977 to wide critical and public acclaim and was for years the highest-grossing film of all time. With a weekend off, he immediately went to work on Spielberg’sClose Encounters of the Third Kind, photographing the Mothership for Douglas Trumbull.^[6]

After working a few months on a new television series,Battlestar Galactica, forJohn Dykstra, Muren moved toMarin County, California, to help build a new ILM. He was hired as effects director of photography with a focus on the techniques and photography of miniatures onStar Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. After that, Muren worked primarily as a Visual Effects Supervisor on all of his films.^[11] Former ILM president Jim Morris said Muren "could always find a way to look at a problem from a different angle and come up with a shot or scene that would be wondrous to watch". Over the next seven years, he would win five Oscars.^[12][13]

When Lucas started the Lucasfilm Computer Graphic Group in 1979, Muren hoped to use their technology to make better, original movie images.^[14] In a collaboration, he directed the group in the making of the CGI stained glass swordsman forYoung Sherlock Holmes, earning an Oscar nomination.^[15]

The Graphics Group was sold in 1986, and Lucas started the ILM Computer Graphics Division with Muren helping voice ILM's needs for the digital image to mimic film qualities from lenses to film stocks, with user-friendly tools to mirror what humans see.^[14][16] He has said that his years spent observing and building an understanding of the physical world were invaluable to making virtual realities.^[6]

In their first big project, Muren directed the Division in creating shape-shifting animals using in-house custom software for "morphing" (blending) footage of animatronic models inWillow (1988).^[17]The Abyss (1989),Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), andJurassic Park (1993) followed.^[13]Steven Spielberg had intended to use go-motion for theJurassic Park dinosaurs, but a CG test of a walking skeleton T-Rex made by ILM'sSteve Williams and Mark Dippe (with Marin County as the backdrop) convinced Universal to fund a proof-of-concept, photo-real, no-excuse shot.^[4] In three months, following Muren's cinematic goals, the ILM CG department broke new ground, adding organically moving flesh and muscle to the creature's skeleton, covering it with animal-like skin texture and exterior sun and bounce lighting to make a photorealistic walking T-Rex.^[18][19] "It's going to be amazing. People are really going to believe that dinosaurs are walking this earth today," said Steven Spielberg.^[20] It was "the shock of the new,"^[21] earning Muren an Oscar for Best Visual Effects (shared withStan Winston,Phil Tippett, andMichael Lantieri).^[22]

Jurassic Park was the breakthrough that convinced Lucas that technology had advanced enough to make theStar Wars prequels.^[23] DirectorPeter Jackson was similarly inspired by the technical breakthrough inJurassic Park to begin planning theLord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) andKing Kong (2005).

Muren is married to British documentary filmmaker and landscape architect Zara Muren, who produced and directedDream of The Sea Ranch andThe Landscape Architecture of Roberto Burle Marx.^[24][25] They have two children and live in California.

In June 1999, Muren was honored with a star on theHollywood Walk of Fame, the first visual effects artist to be so recognized.^[11] He is also a recipient of nineOscars for Best Visual Effects and a Technical Achievement Academy Award, the most of any living person.

He has a small, non-speaking role inRaiders of the Lost Ark; he appears as a trench-coat-wearing Nazi spy who boards the Pan Am Flying Boat just beforeIndiana Jones (Harrison Ford) does, sits to the rear of the aircraft and peers over the edge of a magazine at Jones. Due to their similarity in facial appearance (despite great variation in height), this character is often mistaken for MajorToht (Ronald Lacey), the film's primary antagonist, but it has been confirmed that they are not the same. Muren also had a cameo in the theme-park attractionStar Tours.

• 1980-1983: Used an animation camera stand as a 4-axis optical printer to make dozens of dramatic shots inThe Empire Strikes Back andReturn of the Jedi. They referred to it as “pin blocking."^[26]
• 1983: In three days, Muren pre-visualized more than 100 shots for theReturn of the Jedi speeder bike chase by hand-holding the first tiny video camera and taping aBarbie andKen doll as well as cardboard tubes on a shag carpet.^[27]
• 1984: Used aNikon F3 camera as a go-motion movie camera to photograph much of theIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom mine car chase, saving construction and shooting time.^[28]
• 1985: Directed the Lucasfilm Graphics Group to make the first photo-real CGI character, the "Stained Glass Knight" forYoung Sherlock Holmes, and the first theatrical-quality digital film composite.^[15]
• 1987: With ILM’s new CGI department, Muren pre-visualized the originalStar Tours ride-film forDisneyland in early CGI to work out the story, moves, and timings for a four-minute continuous view out the shuttle’s front window.
• 1988: Directed the first digital 2D morphing effect for George Lucas andRon Howard'sWillow.^[29]
• 1990: AfterThe Abyss, Muren took a one-year sabbatical to study CGI software and hardware theory, to which he credits much of the success of theTerminator 2: Judgment Day digital effects.^[30]
• 1991: During his sabbatical, he assembled the first robust film scanning, manipulating, recording system for flawless, photo-real 2D and 3D image manipulation. It was used forTerminator 2: Judgment Day, thenDeath Becomes Her, andJurassic Park, among other films.^[30]
• 1993: Directed the CGI dinosaurs to their photo-real conclusions forJurassic Park.^[4]
• 1992-1995: Directed proof-of-concept CG tests forDeath Becomes Her andTwister.^[31]
• 2001: Used a real-time, on-set rendering and compositing preview viewing with a 6-axis camera movement forA.I. Artificial Intelligence.^[31]
• 2003: Made a live on-set portable previz using theUnreal Tournament game engine on a laptop PC to display the film camera's live view under a live render of Hulk's 12-foot-tall shape, in real time, as a live on-set previz.
• 2012: Supervised unreleased 3D conversions ofAttack of the Clones andRevenge of the Sith with exaggerated depths that he called Extreme 3D.^[32]

• American Society Of Cinematography
• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
• Visual Effects Society

• Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences
• American Film Institute
• American Society of Cinematographers
• Smithsonian Institution
• Supercomputing Conference
• BFI
• Berlin Film Festival
• California Film Institute
• Dallas Film Festival
• UCLA Film Department
• UC Berkeley Film Series
• Liverpool University Film
• MARS 2019
• Mill Valley Film Festival
• New Yorker Conference
• Paris Images Digital Conference
• San Francisco Art Institute
• SIGGRAPH
• ShowBiz Expo
• Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
• USA Film Festival
• USC Film Department
• VIEW Conference - Torino

Academy, BAFTA, Emmy, and VES Awards

• Dennis Muren atIMDb
• Starwars.com (2005).Dennis Muren. Retrieved 3 July 2005.
• Hollywood.com (2005).Dennis Muren. Retrieved 3 July 2005.
• Tome, Chris for 3dvfx.net (2000).The Dennis Muren Interview. Retrieved 3 July 2005.
• Erickson, Hal for Allmovie (2004).Equinox entry at Allmovie. Retrieved 3 July 2005.

• 1946 births
• Living people
• American special effects people
• Visual effects supervisors
• Pasadena City College alumni
• People from Glendale, California
• Best Visual Effects Academy Award winners
• Best Visual Effects BAFTA Award winners
• Special Achievement Academy Award winners
• Industrial Light & Magic people
• Primetime Emmy Award winners
• Academy Award for Technical Achievement winners

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