Visual Effects Society Recognizes Special 2023 Honorees

By NAOMI GOLDMAN

VES celebrated a distinguished group of VFX practitioners at its festive VES Honors event this past October, held at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. VFX Supervisor and founding VES member Tim McGovern was named recipient of the 2023 VES Founders Award. The Society designated Lifetime VES Memberships to Archivist and Curator Sandra Joy Aguilar and Producer and AMPAS Governor Brooke Breton, VES; VFX Artist Agent and Executive Bob Coleman and Tim McGovern with Lifetime VES memberships. This year’s venerated VES Fellows bestowed with the post-nominal letters “VES” were Jeff Barnes, Toni Pace Carstensen, Bob Coleman, Chuck Finance, Shannon Gans, Tim McGovern and Ray McMillan. The 2023 VES Hall of Fame inductees included Samuel Z. Arkoff, Lawrence W. Butler, Wah Chang, Norman Dawn, ASC, Walter Percy Day, OBE, Marcel Delgado, Farciot Edouart, ASC and Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Founders Award recipient, Lifetime Member and VES Fellow Tim McGovern, VES is an Oscar-winning VFX Supervisor and Creative Director known for groundbreaking work in VFX and Computer Animation. He has played key leadership roles with the VES over the last 20 years, including global Board of Directors Vice Chair, founding Co-Chair of the VES Awards Committee and founding Chair of the VES Committee for Outreach to Developing Regions, contributing greatly to the Society’s global expansion.

Lifetime Member Sandra Joy Aguilar is a renowned Archivist and Curator who oversees metadata and indexing at USC’s Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, an online resource on the Holocaust and other genocides. She has played a key role in developing the VES library, digital museum and archive projects for the past 20 years as Co-Chair of the VES Archives Committee and consultant on the VES Roth Museum of Visual Effects.

Lifetime Member Brooke Breton, VES has been involved in a wide variety of live-action films, animated films, TV series and theme park projects. She played an instrumental role in launching Digital Domain and was Senior Production Executive for Illumination Entertainment.

Breton was a producer for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, is an AMPAS governor representing the VFX Branch and a three-term member on the VES global Board of Directors.

Lifetime Member and VES Fellow Bob Coleman, VES is the President and Founder of Digital Artists Agency with a roster of VFX talent that includes Academy Award, VES Award and Emmy Award-winning artisans. He has a tenure working in film production, visual effects and post-production that spans over 40 years. Coleman has served on the VES Awards Committee for 23 years, including nine years as Chair, and a long tenure on the VES global Board of Directors.

VES Fellow Jeff Barnes, VES is an entertainment and technology creative executive who continues to make marked impacts across Silicon Valley and Hollywood and currently serves as the Executive Vice President of Creative Development at Light Field Lab. He has contributed to the development, support and advancement of the creative community, serving as Chair and Vice Chair of the VES global Board of Directors, and was previously honored as a VES Lifetime Member.

VES Fellow Toni Pace Carstensen, VES is a founding member of the VES and its Executive Committee and served on the global Board of Directors for many years, as well as Co-Chair of the Global Education Committee and Co-Editor of the first edition of the VES Handbook of Visual Effects. Carstensen serves as Chair of the Vision Committee and was previously honored as a VES Lifetime Member and recipient of the VES Founders Award.

VES Fellow Chuck Finance, VES has been a valuable longstanding member of the VES following a career in educational, information and theatrical filmmaking. Early in his career, he gained a reputation for producing and directing science films, then went on to co-found Perpetual Motion Pictures and work as a VFX Producer and VFX Consultant. Finance played an instrumental role on the VES Awards Committee for almost two decades, including service as the Chair and Co-Chair.

VES Fellow Shannon Gans, VES is a producer and builder of studios and teams at the intersection of creativity, technology and business. She is part of the Apple team on its mixed-reality headset and is best known as the CEO and Co-Founder of New Deal Studios, a 21st Century Creative Studio, a VFX, design and production studio known for award-winning film and commercial sequences. Gans has played a leadership role serving several terms on the global VES Board of Directors.

VES Fellow Ray McMillan, VES is a venerated VFX Supervisor/ Producer, Director and Director of Photography known for his work on films, including The Day After Tomorrow, The Incredible Hulk and X-Men. His career has been punctuated with more than 40 awards for his outstanding body of work. McMillan is deeply involved with the VES Toronto Section, serving multiple terms as the Section Treasurer and Secretary and chairing their studio screenings.

Hall of Fame inductee Samuel Z. Arkoff was an American producer of more than 200 low-budget exploitation films and is credited with starting the beach party and outlaw biker movie genres.

Hall of Fame inductee Lawrence Butler was an Academy Award-winning American special effects artist best known as the inventor of the bluescreening process.

Hall of Fame inductee Wah Chang was an American designer, sculptor, animator and artist who, in 1939, became the youngest member of Disney’s effects and model department.

Hall of Fame inductee Norman Dawn, ASC was an early American film director and artist. He was the first person to use the glass shot in a motion picture and the first director to use rear projection in film production.

Hall of Fame inductee Walter Percy Day, OBE was a British painter best remembered for his work as a matte artist, special effects technician and master of illusionist techniques.

Hall of Fame inductee Marcel Delgado was a Mexican-American sculptor and model-maker whose technique revolutionized stop-motion animation. His most famous work was the original King Kong, brought to life by sculpting one of the most iconic characters in cinematic history.

Hall of Fame inductee Farciot Edouart, ASC was a 10-time Academy Award-winning American motion picture special effects artist and innovator of French descent. He was a recognized specialist and innovator in process photography, also known as rear projection.

Hall of Fame inductee Edward D. Wood, Jr. was an American filmmaker, actor and pulp novel author. In the 1950s, he directed several low-budget science fiction, crime and horror films that later became cult classics.