US born Joe Letteri one of the world’s leading visual effects artists, and is Visual Effects Supervisor at Weta Digital.
His pioneering work on digital visual effects has earned him four Academy Awards and four BAFTAs for best visual effects on THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (2002), THE LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING (2003), KING KONG (2005) and AVATAR (2009). He has also received the Academy’s Technical Achievement Award for co-developing the subsurface scattering technique that brought Gollum to life.
Over his career, Joe has developed many techniques that have become standards for bringing photographic quality to digital visual effects. He specializes in the creation of realistic creatures, from the dinosaurs of JURASSIC PARK (1993), to Gollum, King Kong, the Na’vi in AVATAR, and Caesar from THE PLANET OF THE APES movies.
After joining Weta Digital as Visual Effects Supervisor on THE TWO TOWERS in 2002, he has since led the company to become one of the world’s premiere visual effects studios.
As Senior Visual Effects Supervisor on AVATAR, Joe oversaw a programme of research and development over four years that produced shots larger and more complex than ever attempted before. This involved shooting on a virtual stage with a new camera system, along with the development of a full pipeline of tools that effectively launched a new approach to filmmaking called virtual production.
Under Joe’s leadership, Weta Digital has continued to expand and improve these techniques through films like THE ADVENTURE OF TINTIN (2011), THE HOBBIT trilogy and THE PLANET OF THE APES films. Joe has recently been focused on Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic THE BFG (2016) and Luc Besson’s sci-fi epic, VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS (2017).
See Joe Letteri in the following session:
Digital Effects Masterclass with Joe Letteri : Bringing the Virtual to Reality – Sat 24th September, 2:45 pm.
