Summary of
Background and Qualification
In terms of my qualification and professional background, I have a separate website of my career
achievements ( The Bill Munns Creature Gallery ) and invite the reader to visit it (link below). The following is more of a summary
that introduces me, for those of you who may not be familiar with my background.
I am generally described as a "movie makeup
effects man" and this description does certainly encompass a significant portion of my career and accomplishments, but far from the
totality of my professional accomplishments and capabilities. A resume of the various films and TV projects I've done is on the Creature
Gallery website, along with ample career work photographs. This work allows me to appraise issues of costume suits, masks and similar
movie effects with an experienced eye.
I am also a wildlife artist who pioneered a new form of wildlife sculpture, recreations
of endangered species depicted with all the realism of world class taxidermy, but without using any natural remains of the species
portrayed. This recreation work lead me to be awarded two "Best In World" Recreation awards at the World Taxidermy Championships (1988
and 1992), an event regarded by many as the "Olympics" of taxidermy and wildlife art. And at the next two events, I lectured and judged
in my specialty. This work allows me to appraise the anatomy of real living wildlife species with an expert's background.
I
am a 3D computer graphics professional who has pushed the envelope in 3D visualizations of ancient architecture, and my visualizations
of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World were named as a "Milestone" in computer graphics, in the 2002 Special Retrospective on major
milestones in the 25 years that computer graphics have been technically possible, featured in Computer Graphics World magazine. This
work prepared me well for the Digital Visualization of the Bluff Creek Site which I have reconstructed in a 3D visualization software,
and have described in this report.
I have designed exhibit models and animatronics for exhibits, for museums and theme parks
alike, and I developed a complete exhibit in joint collaboration with the San Diego Museum of Man, called "Faces on Fossils". This
exhibit presented an educational display of how human ancestral figures are visualized from the fossil remains, and it reflects my
strong (self-taught) academic background in paleoanthropology.
Finally, I am an inventor of a digital character lip sync animation
software, and hold the patent as sole inventor, which reflects my capacity to solve problems, because the very process of invention
is a classic problem-solving endeavor. We find solutions that elude other people who think only in terms of what has been done, or
what established paths one should take to reach a successful solution. This is applicable to my research in the Patterson-Gimlin film
because the film represents a classic problem in search of a solution, to resolve the question of what it is we see walking away from
camera in that film.
