‘Monsters in the Movies’ to be held at Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater on Thursday

Special effects makeup artist and animatronics effects supervisor Shane Mahan has had monsters on the brain since he was a youngster growing up in Michigan.

“My story is not dissimilar to most of my colleagues,” says Mahan, who earned an Oscar nomination for “Iron Man.” “We grew up in the 1960s and early ‘70s where the only way you could see monster movies was to stay up late. Today kids can just Netflix the movies. There’s no challenge of the quest anymore. It used to take real effort to stay up to 2 in the morning to watch ‘Creature From the Black Lagoon.’ I think that made us appreciate the movies more.”

Mahan will be talking about the classic 1954 3-D horror film, which introduced the underwater creature Gill Man, as well as many other creature features Thursday evening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Monsters in the Movies” event at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

The program will trace the evolution of creature technology from the stop-motion miniature puppet of 1933’s “King Kong” and the makeup for 1935’s “The Bride of Frankenstein” to the computer graphic high-tech effects of today. Mahan will show clips from such pivotal films as 1968’s “Planet of the Apes,” 1973’s”The Exorcist,” 1981’s “An American Werewolf in London,” 1986’s “Aliens,” 1993’s “Jurassic Park” and 2005’s “King Kong.” There’ll be a separate section just on the evolution of the dinosaur film.

Jon Favreau, director of both “Iron Man” blockbusters and the upcoming “Cowboys & Aliens,” visual effects supervisor Phil Tippett and producer Lou Arkoff will also be on the panel.

As a member of the legendary late Stan Winston Studio, Mahan worked on numerous landmark monster movies such as “Aliens,” “Predator” and “Jurassic Park.” After Winston’s death, Mahan and three of his partners are carrying on his memory with Legacy Effects. “I always consider myself the luckiest boy in town,” says Mahan.

susan.king@latimes.com