Mario Bava was an Italian director, screenwriter, special effects artist, and cinematographer from the "golden age" of Italian horror films. His work kick-started the giallo film genre and the modern "slasher film". His son Lamberto Bava later went on to become a noted horror film director in his own right.
John Charles Dykstra, A.S.C. is an American special effects artist, pioneer in the development of the use of computers in filmmaking and recipient of three Academy Awards, among many other awards and prizes. He was one of the original founders of Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects and computer graphics division of Lucasfilm. He is well known as the special effects lead on the original Star Wars, helping bring the original visuals for lightsabers, space battles between X-wings and TIE fighters, and Force powers to the screen. He also led special effects on many other movies, including Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Stuart Little, X-Men: First Class, Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2.
Mark L. Dindal is an American effects animator, film director, and screenwriter who is famous to having directed popular films like Cats Don't Dance (1997), The Emperor's New Groove (2000), and Chicken Little (2005). He worked in many Disney projects as an effects animator, and also led the special effects for several classic films, such as The Little Mermaid (1989) and The Rescuers Down Under (1990).
Alan Melikdjanian, known by the alias Captain Disillusion, is a Latvian-American independent filmmaker and YouTuber. Melikdjanian has been active in the founding of video-sharing sites Openfilm and Filmnet.com, and is the creator of the webseries Captain Disillusion, which focuses on critical analysis of visual effects and video editing while promoting critical thinking and skepticism.
Robin R. Bottin is a retired American special make-up effects creator. Known for his collaborations with directors John Carpenter, Paul Verhoeven and David Fincher, Bottin worked with Carpenter on both The Fog and The Thing, with Verhoeven on RoboCop, Total Recall and Basic Instinct, and with Fincher on Se7en and Fight Club. His other film credits include Legend, Innerspace and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Sir Richard Leslie Taylor is the founder, Creative Director and head of New Zealand film prop and special effects company Weta Workshop.
Yarrow Cheney is an American production designer, visual effects artist, director and animator. He is best known for his works as a production designer in Despicable Me 2 (2013), The Lorax (2012) and Despicable Me (2010) for which he received Primetime Emmy and Annie Awards nominations.
Tony M. DiTerlizzi is an American fantasy artist, children's book creator, and motion picture producer.
John Stears was a British two-time Academy Award-winning special effects expert. Affectionately known as 'The Real Q' he created James Bond's lethal Aston Martin DB5, Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder, the Jedi Knights' lightsabers, the endearing robots R2-D2 and C-3PO as well as a host of other movie gadgets and special effects. He also loves to play cricket.
Farciot Edouart, ASC was a motion picture special effects artist and innovator, a recognized specialist and innovator in the area of "process photography", also known as rear projection.
John Richardson is a British special effects supervisor. He is best known for his work on the James Bond film series, all the Harry Potter film series (2001-2011), A Bridge Too Far (1977) and Aliens (1986). For the latter, he won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 1987 ceremony. He won the BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects for his work on the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), for which he was also nominated for an Academy Award at the 2012 ceremony.
William Samuel Cook "Peter" Ellenshaw was an English matte designer and special effects creator who worked on many Disney features. Born in London, he moved to America in 1953.
John Nelson is a Visual effects supervisor and a 1976 graduate of the University of Michigan. He won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 73rd Academy Awards, for his work on the film Gladiator. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for supervising the visual effects in the films I, Robot, Iron Man, and for the special effects in Blade Runner 2049 for which he won his second Academy Award.
Christopher Jenkins is a Welsh effects animator and animation producer who is known for creating the 2007 feature, Surf's Up.