William Munns has been fascinated all his life with the subject called cryptozoology (the study of possible animals not yet proven to exist, but suspected to exist) and in particular, Bigfoot, because of his work in films and with real apes. The most famous single piece of filmed material purported to be a Bigfoot is the Patterson-Gimlin film taken in 1967, and in the last 40 years, there has been an ongoing and still unresolved debate about whether the female figure seen in the film is a real primate of unknown species, or an ordinary human being wearing a fur suit.He started as a movie makeup artist when he was 20, and quickly gravitated toward the "creature" side of the field, doing prosthetics, masks, and makeup effects. He perfected doing film makeup and creatures were exacting in their nature, the kind of skills necessary for very realistic figures. He chose to expand his artistic range by applying the ultra-realistic techniques of film prosthetic work to the scientific discipline of reconstructing prehistoric creatures from fossil records, as well as exploring a new form of wildlife art, whereby living creatures were recreated with the highest museum taxidermy quality appearance, but without having to rely upon the skin, hide, fur or other remains of a dead animal to make the figure.
Munns decided to take his sculpting, painting and figure finishing skills and apply them to the forensic reconstruction of human ancestral figures based on known fossil hominids. That led him to undertake the single most well known reconstruction of his career, and something that can be seen across the internet, the full scale model of Gigantopithecus. Part of its popularity derived from the connection to Bigfoot , because proponents of the existence of Bigfoot often speculated that the explanation for Bigfoot was a relic group of Gigantopithecus creatures who had not gone extinct as is generally presumed by science.
He says that it seemed reasonable that having spent nearly 40 years in the film business of making such suits and costumes, he might be able to offer some insight into the ongoing debate about the reality of Sasquatch.
William put his research into a 2014 book called "When Roger Met Patty," which details his analysis of the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film, addressing the question of hoax or fraud from the perspective of a professional makeup and creature effects designer, as well as the perspective of a vintage filmmaker.
His other books include: Hopeless, The Therapeutic Zoo, and When a Lawyer Betrays and Abandons his Client!: Theory and Reality.
Websites:
http://www.billmunnscreaturegallery.com
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Wednesday, October 2nd at 2:00 Pacific (5:00 PM Eastern)
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Broadcast and Streaming Date:
October 6, 2024