Sara Bennett | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Occupation | Visual effects artist |
| Years active | 1998–present |
Sara Bennett is a British visual effects artist who won a 2016 Academy Award for the best visual effects in the film Ex-Machina. She is a co-founder of Milk, a visual effects studio headquartered in London.
Bennett was born in Worcestershire [1] in the West of England.
From a young age, Sara has been fascinated by the visual effects industry and was particularly inspired by Horror Movies. [2] In a recent Women in VFX interview, [3] she reflects on her journey; from Runner, progressing up the ranks via the compositing route to leadership roles and is now Chief Creative Officer/VFX Supervisor at Milk, a VFX studio she co-founded in 2013 [4] based in London.
Bennett's first film credit [5] was on the 1998 film Babe: Pig in the City where she worked in digital preparation at Mill Film.
Sara is best known for her work on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Doctor Who (2005), Merlin (2008), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2009), Skellig (2009), The Martian (2015) and Ex Machina (2015).
She became the second ever female VFX Oscar winner [6] when she received a 2016 Academy Award for the best visual effects in Alex Garland’s feature Ex-Machina, along with Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington. Sara also received a 2016 BAFTA Film Award nomination for Ex-Machina. [7]
Sara has also collaborated with Bythewood on her previous project for Netflix’s The Old Guard, delivering the entire project during lockdown in 2020. [8]
Sara’s TV credits include supervising Merlin (BBC), [9] which won the 2011 BAFTA Television Craft Award for visual effects amongst other awards, and she also was involved in award-winning Doctor Who (BBC), Primeval (ITV). Sara is a member of The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, BAFTA and the Visual Effects Society.
Framestore is a British visual effects and computer animation studio based on Chancery Lane in London, England. The company was founded in 1986. Framestore specializes in visual effects for film and prestige TV, advertising, rides, and immersive experiences. It is the largest production house in Europe, employing roughly 3,000 staff, including 1,000 in London, and 1,500 across studios in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Montreal, Melbourne and Mumbai.
Animal Logic is an Australian animation and visual effects digital studio based at Disney Studios in Sydney, New South Wales in Australia, Vancouver in Canada, and Rideback Ranch in Los Angeles, California. Established in 1991, Animal Logic has produced visual effects and animation for feature films such as the Academy Award-winning Happy Feet, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, Walking with Dinosaurs 3D,The Lego Movie andPeter Rabbit. The company was also recognised for its work as lead visual effects vendor on Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, which won Outstanding Achievement in Visual Effects at the 3rd AACTA Awards ceremony. In 2018, Peter Rabbit was presented with a range of accolades, including the AACTA Award for Best Visual Effects or Animation, and Australian Production Design Guild Awards (APDG) in Visual Effects Design and Drawing, Concept Illustration & Concept Models for Screen. Most recently, the company has produced work for the Warner Animation Group's The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part and Marvel Studios' Captain Marvel. It is a subsidiary of Netflix.
Technicolor Creative Studios UK Limited, doing business as The Mill, is a British VFX production company and creative studio headquartered in London, England, with three offices in the United States, three others in Europe and three in Asia. It is owned by Technicolor Group. The Mill produces real-time visual effects, animation, moving images, design, experiential, and digital projects for the advertising, games, and music industries.
DNEG is a British-Indian visual effects, computer animation and 3-D conversion studio that was founded in 1998 in London, and rebranded as DNEG in 2014 after a merger with Indian VFX company Prime Focus; it was named after the letters "D" and "Neg" from their former name.
Scanline VFX is a global visual effects and animation company founded 1989 in Munich. The studio was led by VFX Supervisor Stephan Trojansky. The company has 7 locations including Munich, Stuttgart, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal, London, and Seoul.
Dean Wright is a film director and visual effects supervisor, best known for his work on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Joseph Bruce Letteri is a senior visual effects artist, winner of five Academy Awards, four BAFTA awards and four VES awards. He is the current Senior Visual Effects Supervisor of the Academy Award-winning Wētā FX having joined the company in 2001. He has received several awards and nominations as visual effects supervisor, the latest being Avatar: The Way of Water, and previously for War for the Planet of the Apes. He attended Center High School (Pennsylvania) in 1975 and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1981. He gave the keynote address at UC Berkeley's December Convocation on 19 December 2010.
Gregory S. Butler is an Academy Award-winning American visual effects supervisor. He graduated from Suffield High School in 1989 and afterwards entered Hampshire College. Despite his initial plans to study history, a work-study job with the audiovisual equipment in the library made him interested in film production. Butler graduated in 1993 with a major in film, television and theater design. Afterwards he moved to California to work for Industrial Light and Magic for 9 months, where after intern work he managed to become an assistant in the effects department, starting with assistant credits in The Mask and Forrest Gump. Following a job at Rocket Science Games until the company's bankruptcy in 1996, Butler went to Tippett Studio and did effects work in Starship Troopers and My Favorite Martian, rising up to a technical director job, and Cinesite for Practical Magic. While reluctant at the requirement of moving to New Zealand, Butler was convinced by his writer-actor brother to jump at the opportunity of working for Weta Digital in The Lord of the Rings. Among his achievements was working on the creation of Gollum. for which he was awarded a Visual Effects Society Award.
John Nelson is an American visual effects supervisor. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects for his work on the film Gladiator (2000) and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). He has also been nominated for I, Robot (2004) and Iron Man (2008).
Paul J. Franklin is an English visual effects supervisor who has worked with visual effects since the 1990s. Franklin won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and the BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects for Inception (2010), and won a second Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for Interstellar (2014). He shared the wins with Andrew Lockley, Peter Bebb, and Chris Corbould. Franklin has also been nominated for an Academy Award for The Dark Knight (2008). He was nominated for BAFTA Awards for Batman Begins, The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
Tim Webber is a Welsh visual effects supervisor and is chief creative officer at visual effects studio Framestore. He is known for his work on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), Children of Men (2006), and Gravity (2013), for which he received an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 86th Academy Awards.
Christopher Townsend is a Visual Effects Supervisor. He has worked in the visual effects industry for nearly 30 years. For over a decade, he was an artist and supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic, and in 2007 became a freelance visual effects supervisor. He worked on Journey to the Center of the Earth, the first ever stereoscopic motion picture shot and released digitally, The Wolverine, Ninja Assassin, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and Captain America: The First Avenger. He was nominated for a BAFTA and an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on Iron Man 3, oversaw nearly 3000 shots on Avengers: Age of Ultron and was the overall supervisor for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, for which he received his second nomination for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. He was the overall Production VFX Supervisor on Captain Marvel, and following that, for his work on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, was once again nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. For his first foray into television and streaming, in 2024 he was nominated for an Emmy, for his overall VFX Supervising on the second season of the Disney+ show Loki.
Paul Kavanagh is a British visual effects artist who was nominated at the 82nd Academy Awards in the category of Best Visual Effects for his work on Star Trek. His nomination was shared with Burt Dalton, Russell Earl and Roger Guyett. In 2016, he and his colleagues Chris Corbould, Roger Guyett and Neal Scanlan received the BAFTA-Award in the category of Best Special Visual Effects for their work on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. They were also nominated for an Academy Award, but lost to Ex Machina.
Ex Machina is a 2014 science fiction thriller film written and directed by Alex Garland in his directorial debut. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Oscar Isaac. It follows a programmer who is invited by his CEO to administer the Turing test to an intelligent humanoid robot.
Ian Hunter is a visual effects artist. He won two Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects for the 2014 film, Interstellar, at the 87th Academy Awards in 2015 and for the 2018 film, First Man, at the 91st Academy Awards in 2019.
Tom Wood is an English visual effects supervisor.
Andrew Whitehurst is a British visual effects artist. Best known for his works in Troy (2004), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) and Ex Machina (2015).
Paul Norris is a British visual effects supervisor best known for his work on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and Ex Machina (2015).
Milk VFX is a British independent visual effects studio. It was founded in London in 2013 and is known for creating complex and innovative sequences for high-end television and feature films.
Christian Manz is a British visual effects artist. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Visual Effects for the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1. He has also been nominated for three British Academy Film Awards. He is represented by the visual effects studio, Framestore, where he also serves as a creative director in the film division.
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