Howard Berger

Howard Berger was born in Los Angeles, CA. Howard was raised on monster films and knew at an early age someone made those monster for the movies and began figuring it out at age 8 when he was introduced to Famous Monster of Filmland Magazine. His parents were very supportive and indulged his obsession of makeup and monster. When Howard went to a sci-fi convention in LA, he saw his idol Rick Baker speak and that was it! Howard was hooked and with the inspiration from Rick, Stan Winston, Dick Smith, Rob Bottin and others, he forged a path towards his career in film and TV as a special makeup effects artist. Once out of high school he began working at Stan Winston Studios on PREDATOR, ALIENS, PUMPKINHEAD and then moved on to work for Rick Baker on the Oscar winning HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS. Howard ended up meeting fellow monster makers Greg Nicotero and Robert Kurtzman and the 3 became fast friends, room mates and eventually co-owners of KNB EFX GROUP, which was founded in 1988. In the decades to come Howard and Greg would gather a cache of great directors, actors and films to work with and in 2006, Howard won an Oscar for the makeup work in THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. Howard would then be nominated again for his work on Sir Anthony Hopkins for the film HITCHCOCK. Howard continues to be a guiding force at KNB, along with Greg Nicotero, and has added being a Makeup Dept. Head to his list of achievements, starting with Peter Berg's film LONE SURVIVOR. In the past decade he has Dept. Headed over a dozen films and TV series. Howard is a Governor of there Makeup Artists and Hair Stylist Branch at the AMPAS. He lives in Sherman Oaks with artist wife Mirjam and he has 3 grown children, none of which followed in his foot steps, and followed their own dreams as he did.