Gilles Penso Author

Gilles Penso has worked on more than a dozen film and television projects in English as well as his native French, including Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan (2011); Creature Designers: The Frankenstein Complex (2015); and Phil Tippett: Mad Dreams and Monsters (2019), created with coauthor Alexandre Poncet. Alexandre Poncet is a composer, producer, and director based in France. He has created the music for six films and worked with Penso on the special-effects documentaries Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan; Creature Designers: The Frankenstein Complex; and Phil Tippett: Mad Dreams and Monsters. Paul Verhoeven is a noted director of films such as RoboCop, Starship Troopers, Basic Instinct, and Total Recall, among others, and credits Tippett with an invaluable on-the-fly education in practical effects on the set of RoboCop. Dennis Muren is a nine-time Academy Award–winning visual effects artist. He has worked on blockbusters such as the Star Wars saga, E.T., Indiana Jones, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.