Animation Magazine is pleased to announce the first of its 2013 award recipients, which will be presented at The World Animation & VFX Summit, Opening Night Party, on November 3 at the Marina del Rey Yacht Club.
John Knoll, Oscar-winning visual-effects veteran and Chief Creative Officer at Industrial Light & Magic, will receive the Lifetime Achievement-Hall of Fame Award for his creative and technical innovations in the field.
“John Knoll is a true visionary and guiding light in the field of visual effects, technology and popular entertainment,” said Jean Thoren, president of Animation Magazine and founder of the World Animation and VFX Summit. “We are thrilled to honor John’s visionary leadership and multi-faceted talents at our event this year. His contributions and achievements have truly changed the entertainment landscape for the better throughout the past few decades. It’s been an honor to cover his career highlights in our magazine and an even bigger honor to have his participation at the Summit in November.”
“I am thrilled to accept this award from Animation Magazine,” stated Knoll. “I’ve been fortunate in my career to work with some of the most creative filmmakers in the industry, as well as many of the most talented and innovative artists in the field here at ILM, and I share this award with all of them. I am truly humbled to receive this honor.”
Acclaimed for co-creating Photoshop with his brother Thomas, Knoll has been a driving force of innovation at ILM for years. In 1996, Knoll founded their Rebel (Mac) Unit; a creative incubator for fine artists and software developers to define working methodologies and advance the state of the art. This lead to the development of a variety of breakthrough techniques including some of the earliest examples of digital compositing for The Abyss, and many cutting-edge digital camera projection techniques used on such films as Mission: Impossible, Star Trek: First Contact and Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.
He was also a key contributor of the development of ILM’s pioneering on set performance capture technology, Imocap, which saw its first use on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. More recently, he was visual effects supervisor at ILM for the Oscar-winning films Hugo, Rango, Avatar and this year’s science fiction epic Pacific Rim.
In 2012, Knoll was elected to the Academy’s Board of Governors representing the visual effects branch and is a four-time Academy Award nominee. In 2007 he won both the Oscar and the BAFTA for Best Visual Effects for his work on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
This year’s Breakout Studio Award will be presented to Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, founded by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, and Buddy Systems’ John Harvatine IV and Eric Towner.
“Since the launch of the studio in 2012, the talented team at Stoopid Buddy has put their special creative stamp on several, dynamic and highly original series, produced for TV and various other platforms,” said Ramin Zahed, Editor-in-Chief of Animation Magazine. “We’re very excited to celebrate their vision and energy with our Inaugural Breakout Studio Award this November. We know that we will all be enjoying their terrific work for many years in the future.”
“Stoopid Buddy Stoodios is a dream to have built and we’re overly humbled to get recognized for building our dream,” stated John Harvatine IV. “We’re lucky to be in a position to be working with our friends who are the talented folks working with us to make this studio a reality.”
Based in Burbank, Stoopid Buddy Stoodios is the largest shop in California specializing in stop-motion animation. Well known for the upcoming seventh season of the Emmy and Annie Award-winning Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network, they have pushed traditional forms of animation to their greatest potential and beyond. Their patented “Stop-Live Animation” technique has allowed them to combine stop-motion animated characters and documentary style live-action footage.
Other acclaimed projects include College Humor’s Dinosaur Office, stop-motion animated segments of “Spy vs. Spy” for MAD from Warner Bros. Animation for Cartoon Network, YouTube’s Stoopid Monkey channel, a feature project at Sony Pictures Animation, and a second Robot Chicken/DC Comics Special.
More award recipients and keynote speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.
The World Animation & VFX Summit takes place Nov. 3-6 at the California Yacht Club, Marina del Rey, Calif. The event will feature panels, discussion and networking with a global array of high-level animation and visual effects professionals, who are creating new business models in animation, VFX, distribution and financing.
You can learn more about the event at www.animationmagazine.net/summit
