Biography for
Dennis Muren More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

1 November 1946, Glendale, California, USA

Birth Name

Dennis Elmer Muren

Spouse

Zara Pinfold

(29 July 1981 - present) 2 children

Trade Mark

State-of-the-Art Oscar-winning special visual effects work combining motion-controlled live-action footage with CGI (Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), & Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)).

Trivia

Is the only special effects artist with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Stars

Muren handled the flying-bicycle effects in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

Muren worked early on as a camera operator and effects supervisor for educational films and Pillsbury and Green Giant commercials.

His parents advised him to major in business at Pasadena City College and California State University at Los Angeles, where he received an A.A. degree. But in his first year in college, Muren created a 16-millimeter science fiction film, "The Equinox." The movie was picked up by a distributor, who added 40 minutes to it, blew it up to 35-millimeter, and released it; Muren made back his $8,000 investment, and the movie is now known as Equinox (1970).

His parents, Elmer Ernest Muren and Charline Louise Muren, gave him his first camera, a $10 Keystone eight-millimeter, when he was 10. He practiced making movies with his friend Rick Baker.

Personal Quotes

Most breakthroughs don't just happen by evolution. They are driven either by an individual or the demands of a project.

[on getting started with the cameras his parents bought him:] "My parents didn't know what I was doing; I didn't know what I was doing. This was in Los Angeles. There was no community, just three or four kids going to each other's houses and shooting film -- not trying to tell a story or anything, just these screwy effects. I didn't think it would amount to anything."

[on negative reaction of preliminary effects in The Hulk commercials, having worked so hard, and the movie not even completed] "Yeah, you try to not even pay attention to it, because you can't let it stop you or anything like that. What can you do? It's already what it is."

[next big challenge for computers] "Well, a lot of people are going for digital humans, which I don't care about, but a lot of people are interested in that, and I think that's the next step. I'm hoping that we can get 3-D into movie theaters, and then we can start designing scenes with depth perception. And that's on its way. As soon as all the digital projectors get in there, then that's going to happen and that's going to be great. It's a post process in which they can add 3-D to 2-D movies, and I've seen some tests with 'Casablanca' and 'Roger Rabbit' and the 'Star Wars' and 'Matrix' films. The stuff looks amazing, and it's better than the two cameras, because you're making an artistic choice, but it just brings you into the movie. Especially, seeing the end of 'Casablanca'. You wouldn't think it, but you have close-ups of the two actors, but they're in depth and you're looking at them, so it's just a better experience. That's what I'm hoping happens, and then we can start designing sequences with that in mind."

I have no hobbies, per se. I spend all my spare time playing with my computer. My work is my hobby. It has never been: "Oh God, I have to get up and go earn a paycheck." This profession has always been something I've wanted or I was driven to do.