Dean Gates

Dean Gates grew up in Roanoke and Alexandria, Virginia. As a college student, he started working in production management and editing in 1979. During an internship on Eyes of a Stranger (1981), he assisted makeup effects guru Tom Savini. Over the next fifteen years, Gates became an award-winning makeup effect and creature designer. He transitioned into writing, directing, and producing feature films and TV commercials in 1995. He has an engineering degree from Ferrum College, Virginia and a film production degree from the University of Miami, Florida. Gates won a Primetime Emmy Award for his work on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993). He worked on the effects team that won an Academy Award for The Abyss (1989). Gates has worked with Brian De Palma, George A. Romero, Dino De Laurentiis, Stephen King, David Lynch, James Cameron, Roger Corman, and Steven Spielberg.