Gregory S. Butler (born August 18, 1971,

Suffield, Connecticut Suffield is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It was once within the boundaries of Massachusetts. The town is located in the Connecticut River Valley with the town of Enfield neighboring to the east. As of the 2020 census, ...

) is an Academy Award-winning American

visual effects Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action foota ...

supervisor. He graduated from Suffield High School in 1989 and afterwards entered

Hampshire College Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mo ...

. Despite his initial plans to study history, a work-study job with the audiovisual equipment in the library made him interested in film production. Butler graduated in 1993 with a major in film, television and theater design. Afterwards he moved to California to work for

Industrial Light and Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American motion picture visual effects company that was founded on May 26, 1975 by George Lucas. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lucas founded, and was created when he began pro ...

for 9 months, where after intern work he managed to become an assistant in the effects department, starting with assistant credits in '' The Mask'' and '' Forrest Gump''. Following a job at

Rocket Science Games Rocket Science Games was a video game developer and publisher that created games for consoles and personal computers from 1993 to 1997. The company released '' Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine'', '' Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cata ...

until the company's bankruptcy in 1996, Butler went to

Tippett Studio Tippett Studio is an American visual effects company specializing in computer-generated imagery (CGI) for films and television commercials. The studio has created visual effects and animations on over fifty feature films and commercials, garnerin ...

and did effects work in '' Starship Troopers'' and ''

My Favorite Martian ''My Favorite Martian'' is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from September 29, 1963, to May 1, 1966, for 107 episodes. The show stars Ray Walston as "Uncle Martin" (the Martian) and Bill Bixby as Tim O'Hara. The first two seasons, totalin ...

'', rising up to a

technical director A technical director (TD) is usually a senior technical person within e.g. a software company, engineering firm, film studio, theatre company or television studio. This person usually has the highest level of skill within a specific technical f ...

job, and

Cinesite Cinesite Studios (also known as Cinesite VFX or simply Cinesite) is an independent, multinational business which provides services to the media and entertainment industries. Its head office in London opened for business in 1994, initially offe ...

for ''

Practical Magic ''Practical Magic'' is a 1998 American fantasy romantic drama film based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Alice Hoffman. The film was directed by Griffin Dunne and stars Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Stockard Channing, Dianne Wiest, Aid ...

''. While reluctant at the requirement of moving to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, Butler was convinced by his writer-actor brother to jump at the opportunity of working for Weta Digital in ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...

''. Among his achievements was working on the creation of

Gollum Gollum is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He was introduced in the 1937 fantasy novel '' The Hobbit'', and became important in its sequel, '' The Lord of the Rings''. Gollum was a Stoor Hobbit of the R ...

. for which he was awarded a Visual Effects Society Award. Butler also worked as a computer graphics supervisor on ''

I, Robot ''I, Robot'' is a fixup (compilation) novel of science fiction short stories or essays by American writer Isaac Asimov. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines ''Super Science Stories'' and '' Astounding Science Fiction'' be ...

'' before an invitation to work as an effects supervisor for the

Moving Picture Company The Moving Picture Company (MPC) is a multinational company providing visual effects, CGI, animation, motion design and other services for the film, TV, brand experience and advertising industries. Their artists have produced Academy Award W ...

, in London. He later moved to MPC's,

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

office. On January 24, 2012, he won a BAFTA and was nominated for an

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology) ...

for ''

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2'' is a 2011 fantasy film directed by David Yates from a screenplay by Steve Kloves. The film is the second of two cinematic parts based on the 2007 novel ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow ...

''. He became a member of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2012. In 2020, he received his second BAFTA win and Academy Award nomination, and first win, for Best Visual Effects, for the 2019 film, ''

1917 Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 9 – WWI – Battle of Rafa: The last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Fo ...

'', at the

92nd Academy Awards The 92nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released in 2019 and took place on February 9, 2020, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, beginning at 5:00 p ...

. After leaving MPC, he spent time working for Method Studios, where he worked as a VFX supervisor on feature, episodic, and advertising projects, including The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for Amazon. In June of 2022 he began working for VFX and animation studio

DNEG DNEG (formerly known as Double Negative) is a British visual effects, computer animation, and stereo conversion studio that was founded in 1998 in London, and rebranded as DNEG in 2014 after a merger with Indian VFX company Prime Focus. The ...

References

External links

* Visual effects supervisors Special effects people Living people People from Suffield, Connecticut 1971 births Hampshire College alumni American expatriates in Canada Best Visual Effects Academy Award winners Best Visual Effects BAFTA Award winners {{US-film-bio-stub