Career
Stokes majored in Cinema Production at the University of Southern California. After working as a puppeteer for several years, he was hired as the head puppeteer on the 1988 remake of The Blob. This led to many other film puppeteering jobs, including Species, RoboCop 2, and eventually head puppeteer on The Abyss.
In 1990, he designed the motion simulation and supervised the ride film for The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera at Universal Studios Florida.
In 1995, Stokes was hired as the animation department supervisor for Tippett Studio, and worked on the films Starship Troopers and My Favorite Martian. Stokes gained some notoriety for helping debunk Fox Network"s Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction? as a hoax with his article "How to Build an Alien".
Stokes published the opinions of 15 of his movie industry colleagues about the claimed alien autopsy footage, and all 15 felt the film was a fake. Many, according to Stokes, found the footage so laughable that they couldn"t believe that anyone in the business would take it seriously enough to even do a survey about lieutenant
After meeting and teaming up with actress Amy Earhart in 2000 for the now-defunct Aliendog web series, Stokes began directing short films of his own, often in 48-hour film competitions.
His 48-hour films, all featuring Earhart, include The Untitled Russian Film, Land of Many Uses, Fish Guys, and Double Shot. One of the many shorts Stokes and Earhart collaborated on was a 2002 Star Wars spoof entitled Pink Five. Originally intended as a bluescreen test project, the film became an internet hit beyond their expectations.
The film was featured on Cable News Network, and became one of the most popular downloads on Ifilm and TheForce.net.
As part of the prize, Stokes travelled to Skywalker Ranch, where the film was remixed at Skywalker Sound. Podcasting.
