Festivals & Events

ILM’s Knoll, Producer Hurd Join Academy Sci-Tech Council

Published on September 30, 2014

ILM chief creative officer John Knoll and producer Gale Anne Hurd have joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s Science and Technology Council.

Also accepting invitations to join the panel are cinematographer John Bailey and editor Michael Tronick.

Knoll started out as a technical assistant at ILM in 1986. In 1988, he joined forces with his brother Thomas to create Photoshop. Knoll went on to supervise the visual effects on more than 20 feature films, earning Oscars nominations for his work on Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones and the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films. He took home an Oscar for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. An academy member since 1997, Knoll is a governor representing the visual-effects branch.

Hurd is a producer and CEO of Valhalla Motion Pictures. Her credits include Aliens, The Terminator trilogy, The Abyss, Armageddon and The Incredible Hulk, as well as the hit TV series The Walking Dead. A former academy governor, Hurd has presided over the academy’s Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting committee, investment committee, producers branch executive committee and festival grants committee. She has been a member of the producers’ branch since 1987.

Bailey is a cinematographer with more than four-and-a-half decades of experience behind the camera, with credits including American Gigolo and the best picture Oscar winner Ordinary People.

Tronick is a film editor who began his career as a music editor in the late 1970s. His feature credits include Midnight Run, Days of Thunder, Scent of a Woman, True Romance, Remember the Titans, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Hairspray and 2 Guns.

Established in 2003 by the academy’s board of governors, the science and technology council provides a forum for the exchange of information, promotes cooperation among diverse technological interests within the industry, sponsors publications, fosters educational activities and preserves the history of science and technology of motion pictures.