Born on Nov. 1, 1946 in Glendale, CA, Dennis Muren was reared in the suburban neighborhood of La Canada, not far from Los Angeles. During his childhood, he saw countless monster movies and science fiction flicks, which fueled his imagination and sparked his interest in visual effects. By the time he was eight years old, his parents gave him a still camera, which he used to take photographs of toy dinosaurs and spaceships in the backyard – though his desire to make them move remained unfulfilled. Eager to encourage their son, his parents gave him an 8mm film camera, which he later upgraded to 16mm.
Despite the rudimentary nature of his equipment, a determined Muren found a way to bring still images to life. Utilizing the camera’s single-frame advance feature, he animated clay figures one frame at a time, mimicking the stop-motion effects of such films as “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” (1958). He also cultivated the technique of forced perspective, where objects close to the camera are made to look huge – one homemade short showed an ordinary-sized person taunting a giant so large that only his sneakers are in frame; finally, the foot lifts up and appears to squash the man.
The enterprising teenager began enlisting friends to help him with his films – Muren and his pals obsessed over publications such as Famous Monster’s of Filmland, pouring over stills from their favorites films to study how they were done. When they discovered that the magazine’s publisher, Forest J. Ackerman, lived about an hour away, they arranged a meeting with him at his home, which by then, was already famous for its impressive collection of movie props, models and costumes. The result of the meeting was fortuitous – Ackerman established an ongoing amateur film festival, where Muren and other future filmmakers were given a venue to show off their experiments and give each other feedback.
After graduating high school, Muren enrolled at Pasadena City College, where he studied advertising and took business courses at his parents’ insistence, in case his film ambitions – then still a decidedly unusual career choice – failed to pan out. After his first year, Muren and his filmmaking friends put together a plan to film their first feature. In the summer of 1967, they made a sci-fi horror movie entitled “Equinox,” which featured an array of stop motion and photographic effects. Made for $8,000 and drawn mostly from Muren’s savings, the film drew the attention of a producer, Jack Harris, who bought the film, invested more money for new footage and improved sound before giving it limited release in B movie theaters.