Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis

Tom Woodruff (in Gorilla costume) and Alec Gillis have been making movie history for years! TOGETHER they have created and performed some of your FAVORITE characters including THE ALIEN WARRIOR from Alien 3, Alien Resurection and the upcoming ALIEN vs PREDATOR! PLUS other characters include PUMPKINHEAD, the ALIEN from X-FILES THE MOVIE and the Blue Gorilla Creature in EVOLUTION!

Tom Woodruff Jr. was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 1959. Tom's early interest in movies and monsters was a result of late-night broadcasts of the now classic Universal monster movies and the stop-motion effects of Ray Harryhausen. Finally, seeing one of the PLANET OF THE APES films in a theater focused his attention on the craft of make-up, while getting his hands on his father's 8mm home movie camera at 13 years old simultaneously encouraged his interest in filmmaking.
While living so far from Hollywood, Tom's only professional contact was through the mail, writing letters to the artists who's work he admired most, like John Chambers, who created the PLANET OF THE APES make-ups.
Tom finally made his move to Los Angeles in 1982. After a year of working with small make-up effects houses, Tom joined Stan Winston's team on TERMINATOR. That was the beginning of a five-year period which saw Tom become a key coordinator under Winston, with the opportunity to work on such features as ALIENS and PREDATOR as well as TV shows such as AMAZING STORIES. During this time, Tom began wearing the complicated make-ups and costumes of the creatures designed at the studio. His physical build and tolerance, as well as his ability to perform as an actor, led to his portraying the title characters in such movies as MONSTER SQUAD, PUMPKINHEAD, and LEVIATHAN.

During these years, Tom continued to write, ultimately teaming up with another of Stan's designer-technicians, Alec Gillis, to co-produce, write, and direct THE DEMON WITH THREE TALES, a promotional piece designed to sell a feature anthology project. Tom and Alec quickly grew to become two of the major character effects talents in the business today, with their work gathering numerous accolades and awards including an Academy Award for DEATH BECOMES HER and multiple Academy Award nominations for STARSHIP TROOPERS and ALIEN3.

Tom joined the Director's Guild in 1998, directing a number of segments for the Dick Clark series, BEYOND BELIEF. In between effect-oriented productions. Tom and Alec continue to write and develop their own personal projects; projects that will eventually see them not only as character effects and make-up artists, but also as filmmakers.

Alec Gillis was born in 1959 in Phoenix, Arizona, and a short time later moved to Orange County, California. By age ten, he was an avid fan of fantasy and science fiction movies. Influenced by films such as PLANET OF THE APES, KING KONG, and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, Alec began making his own amateur movies, and by age thirteen had decided that creating creatures for Hollywood was to be his career. Alec's first professional job was on Roger Corman's low budget space-epic, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980). There he worked with many other talented industry newcomers, most notably director James Cameron. The next eight
years were spent first attending UCLA's film school, then working for some of the industry's top names in make-up effects, most notably Stan Winston (ALIENS, LEVIATHAN, ALIEN NATION).

It was during his years with Winston that Alec met his future business partner, Tom Woodruff, Jr. In 1988 Alec and Tom left Stan Winston Studio and formed Amalgamated Dynamics, Incorporated. Dedicated to the highest standards of quality in Animatronics and Special Make-up, Alec and Tom have created effects in such films as TREMORS (Universal, 1990) and ALIEN3 (Fox, 1991), for which they were Oscar nominees. In 1993 the duo won the Best Visual Effects Oscar for their work on DEATH BECOMES HER. Other career highlights include animal characters for JUMANJI, Tim Allen's fat make-ups for THE SANTA CLAUSE, and another Visual Effects Oscar nomination for STARSHIP TROOPERS.

you can catch a glimps of TOM & ALEC

in AVP as themselves in this scene. It goes fast so get out your remotes!

TOM WOODRUFF in the costume of

PUMPKINHEAD (also starred Lance Henriksen)!