Painting Middle Earth | MAGICCON 6

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MagicCon 6 | Vortrag | Painting Middle Earth | Jeremy Bennett

Jeremy Bennett, the Visual Effects Art Director on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy will give a slide presentation of his artwork describing its function as Visual Effects Art. This will involve the initial briefs from Peter explaining the problems the paintings needed to resolve (specific questions that needed answering) to help with miniature lighting set-ups, digital augmentation of live action set pieces, design of deep distance matte paintings and as a guide for ‘digital composition’ of the final shots.

‘The overall goal of the artwork was to help produce a consistent look/feel that bridged the live action and digital effects helping to create a seamless blend between the two’.

Lecturer: Jeremy Bennett

Duration: 60 min - The Lecture will be held in: english

Jeremy Bennett/Art Director

With a background in illustration and design, Jeremy became the Visual Effects Art Director on Lord of the Rings from 2000 until 2004. "In a nutshell, Alan took Rivendell and I had Mordor and we politely battled over all realms in between removing green screens to further develope the artistic look of Middle Earth for Peter.”

As the Visual Effects Art Director, Jeremy contributed to Weta Digital winning three Academy Awards (and BAFTAs) for Best Visual Effects on the Trilogy and also personally accepted the VES award for Best Visual Effects Art Direction (along with Alan Lee, Christian Rivers and Gino Acevedo) in a motion picture for The Two Towers. Jeremy then became the Senior Conceptual Designer on King Kong (with Gus Hunter) and Visual Effects Art Director again winning Oscars and Baftas for best Visual Effects.

This then led to ten years in Seattle US, at Valve Software as a senior Art Director designing environments\characters for titles such as Half Life, Left for Dead, Portal and DOTA2.

Jeremy now lives back in New Zealand with his family, surfing, cooking, creating art while still engaged with Valve in Seattle.