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Visual Effects Society Announces 2015 Board of Directors Officers

Award-winning independent visual effects producer and freelance VFX consultant Mike Chambers is elected Board Chair.

Los Angeles -- The Visual Effects Society, the industry’s global professional honorary society, announced today its 2015 Board of Directors officers. The officers, who comprise the VES Board Executive Committee, were elected at the January 2015 Board meeting. The officers include Mike Chambers, who was elected as Board Chair.

“We are fortunate to have such esteemed leadership represented on the Executive Committee,” said Eric Roth, VES Executive Director. “Collectively, these talented professionals bring passion, diverse experience and enormous commitment to our organization. We look forward to Mike Chambers' vision and enthusiastic leadership in taking the organization and our global membership to new heights.”

The 2015 Officers of the VES Board of Directors are:

Chair:                          Mike Chambers
1st Vice Chair:          Nancy St. John
2nd Vice Chair:        Richard Winn Taylor II
Treasurer:                 Bob Coleman
Secretary:                 Rita Cahill

Mike Chambers, Chair

Mike Chambers is an independent Visual Effects Producer and freelance VFX Consultant, specializing in large-scale feature film productions. He is currently in post-production on Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass. He most recently completed work on Transcendence, the directorial debut of award-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister following their collaborations on both The Dark Knight Rises and Inception for esteemed director Christopher Nolan & Warner Bros. Studios. Chambers has contributed to the visual effects efforts on many Academy & BAFTA award-winning films, and he has personally won 2 VES Awards for Best Visual Effects, for The Day After Tomorrow and Inception, and has been nominated for his work on I Am Legend.

As a VFX Producer, Chambers has worked with many A-list producers and directors on numerous VFX-heavy feature films. His production credits include I Am Legend, Surrogates, 10,000BC, The Day After Tomorrow, Babe: Pig in The City, Strange Days and True Lies. His consulting service clients include Paramount, Warner Bros, Disney/Touchstone, DreamWorks, Alcon Entertainment and Summit Entertainment. Earlier in his career, Chambers gained invaluable traditional filmmaking experience working for many seminal Hollywood figures and production companies. Roger Corman's New World Pictures, Doug Trumbull's Showscan and Richard Edlund's Boss Films were among his first training grounds. He then moved on to freelance visual effects coordination, most notably on James Cameron's The Abyss. While working for Apogee Productions, Chambers began producing effects for feature films and special venue projects. Later, while serving as VFX Producer on True Lies, he was also a member of the team that created the then-new start-up VFX studio, Digital Domain. Some of his other early credits include Die Hard, Big Top Pee Wee, Heart & Souls, Broken Arrow, Galaxy of Terror and Slumber Party Massacre.

Chambers is a former VES Vice Chair and is a member of the Producers Guild of America.

Nancy St. John, 1st Vice Chair

Nancy St. John has managed, produced, executive produced and consulted at many VFX and CGI facilities over the last 30 years. The list includes Robert Abel & Associates, Digital Productions, Pacific Data Images (PDI), Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Rhythm & Hues, MillFilm London and Prime Focus Vancouver. She has also served as a visual effects consultant to various Studios including Disney, DreamWorks, Fox, HBO, Paramount, Walden Media, Warner Bros., Relativity Media, Oddlot Entertainment and Lionsgate.

St. John was the production side visual effects producer for Academy Award-winning films Babe and Gladiator and co-vfx produced the Academy Award nominee I-Robot.

Her filmography also includes James & the Giant Peach, Evolution, Life Aquatic, Charlotte’s Web, The Spirit, The Immortals, Limitless, Season of the Witch, Men in Black 3, Total Recall, Resident Evil and Ender’s Game.

St. John most recently served as VES 2nd Vice Chair. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America.

Richard Winn Taylor II, 2nd Vice Chair

Richard Winn Taylor II has an extensive background in live action direction, production design, special effects, and computer generated images for theatrical films, television commercials, computer games, special venues and new media. He has won 15 Clio Awards for Commercials as well as a multiple of Hugo, Mobius and New York Film Festival Awards.

He was Visual Effects Supervisor on Walt Disney’s original Tron. Other features include Star Trek the Motion Picture, Looker and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Taylor was formerly Cinematic Director at Electronic Arts Los Angeles where he directed the cinematics for Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth, Battle for Middle Earth II, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, Kane’s Wrath, Red Alert 3 and Red Alert 3 Uprising. He was nominated four times by the Academy of Interactive Media and by the VES for Best Pre-Rendered Visuals in a Video Game. Command & Conquer 3 won Strategy Game of the Year in 2008.

At YuCo, Taylor designed and directed multiple projects including trailers for the Ubisoft Games Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smashup and Call of Juarez, the Cartel. He designed and directed 3D projects including the end title sequence for Shrek 4 and a new 3D logo for 3ality. His Turner Classic Movie 31 Days of Oscars won a Gold and Two Silvers in the 2011 BDA Awards. His Showtime Energy Logo won a GOLD for Logo Design/Network at the 2011 BDA Awards.

Presently, Taylor is Media Director at RGH Entertainment where he is directing and designing media for a multiple of new entertainment formats. He also directs projects through his own company XLNT FX. He has been a member of the Directors Guild of America for 29 years and is on the Board of The Academy of Art University of San Francisco where he holds an honorary Doctorate.

 Treasurer, Bob Coleman

In 1998 Bob Coleman founded Digital Artists Agency (DAA) to represent an international and award-winning portfolio of artists for work in feature film, commercials, entertainment television and related fields. Prior to starting DAA, Coleman served as President of 525 Post Production, a division of Virgin Digital Studios while serving as Managing Director for Virgin Television de Mexico, whose projects included The Game, Flubber, Species 2 and Mousehunt. He previously served as Vice President and Executive Producer of Encore Video, where he launched the visual effects production division, which featured 3D animation production, 2D effects and compositing, servicing commercial, entertainment television and feature films.

Coleman served as President of Digital Magic and Transfer Company, which is best known for its Emmy Award-winning special effects work in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Prior to that, he was Vice President and General Manager of George Lucas' renowned audio post production facility Skywalker Sound South. Titles during his tenure included JFK, A Few Good Men, In the Line of Fire, The Player and The Simpsons.

Coleman is considered a pioneer in the application of digital technology in the post-production marketplace. During his tenure as President of Editel Chicago, then the largest video post-production facility in Chicago, the company introduced the first digital audio suite in 1987 and the first component digital editing suite in 1989, one of four in the country at that time.

Coleman is Chair of the VES Awards and Co-Chair of the Business Labor Law Committee. He was a founding member of the Chicago Chapter of the ITS and a founding board member of The Chicago Coalition.

Secretary, Rita Cahill

Rita Cahill is an international business and marketing/PR consultant for a number of US, Chinese and EU companies for animation and visual effects feature films. Current and former clients include VFX and animation companies Digital Domain, Look FX, Method Studios, Milk VFX, The Mill, The Orphanage, Rainmaker Animation, The Senate, Shade VFX, Shanghai Cartoon, Shanghai SFS Digital, Trixter Film, Vertigo Digital and Xing Xing Digital, along with industry related organizations Animation Mentor, Jiaflix Enterprises and Wuxi Studios. She is also a partner in MakeBelieve Entertainment, a film development company and serves as Executive Producer on a number of international projects.

Previously, Cahill was the VP Marketing for Cinesite where she oversaw the marketing of four divisions of the pioneering digital studio’s services. During her tenure, Cinesite completed work on over 200 feature films including the first DI in history, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Prior to Cinesite, Cahill co-founded the Mill Valley Film Festival/California Film Institute and remains on the Institute’s Emeritus Board of Directors. Cahill was also the Founding Consultant on the formation and establishment of the Singapore International Film Festival.

Cahill has served as Chair or Co-Chair of the VES Summit for the past five years.

Source: Visual Effects Society

Jennifer Wolfe's picture

Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.