Don Bies

This week on 8111, Don Bies! Don grew up in Chicago and discovered a love for movies at an early age when he first saw Frankenstein. He became fascinated with movie monsters, monster make up, special effects, and filmmaking. He loved pouring over the latest issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland.  After high school, Don considered college but eventually decided against it and worked in the local community theater doing set design, prop design, directing and even some acting. A family connection led to a friendship with another Chicagoan, Keith Edmier, who was making his own monster makeup and film likeness make-ups. They both corresponded with Dick Smith (the Godfather of modern makeup effects) and drew inspiration and encouragement from him to pursue working in film. Don soon moved out to California where he landed his first job working on David Cronenberg's remake of "The Fly" with Keith Edmier for Chris Walas.  While there he became good friends with Jon Berg, John Gazdik, Michael Owens, and Howie Weed. Through Jon Berg he met several people at ILM. In 1987 Don was hired to operate R2D2 for Lucasfilm publicity events. Don later headed up the Lucasfilm archives for seven years working alongside Nelson Hall and Grant Imahara. When George began making the prequels, Don went to work on set for all three films and even did a stint in the ILM model shop. Today Don works for KGS making highly realistic  trauma training manakins for military and first responders.  Don Bies is incredibly creative and a truly autodidactic problem solver. He's had an amazing career and it was an absolute blast to talk with him.