LOS ANGELES — The Visual Effects Society (VES) has announced its newly-elected board of directors.
Jeffrey A. Okun (pictured), VFX supervisor, was re-elected for a third one-year term as board chairman. He has contributed visual effects and second unit direction to a wide-range of films, including Stargate (1994),
Deep Blue Sea (1999),
The Last Starfighter (1984),
Sphere (1998),
The Last Samurai (2003),
Blood Diamond (2006) and
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008).
Richard Winn Taylor II, creative director at yU+Co Inc., was elected first vice chair. He has an extensive background in live action direction, production design, special effects and computer graphics for films, television commercials and video games. Taylor began his career at Robert Abel & Associates and has been a member of the DGA for over 30 years. He was worked a features such as
Star Trek and
Looker, and in 1982 he was co-effects supervisor on
Tron. He spent seven years serving as cinematic director at Electronic Arts Los Angeles. He has served on the VES Board four terms.
Pam Hogarth, director of marketing for Look Effects, was elected second vice chair. Hogarth has spent over 26 years in the world of visual effects, 20 of which doing marketing and education. Before joining Look, she spent 12 years helping to build Gnomon School of Visual Effects. She has served multiple terms on the VES board of directors, including four years as executive secretary.
Bob Coleman, president of Digital Artists Agency, was elected treasurer. He founded Digital Artists Agency in LA to represent an international portfolio of artists for work in feature, commercial and related fields.
And VFX producer Kim Lavery was elected secretary. Lavery has experience in both the production and post production. Her 20-year career includes working for Universal Studios in film production and visual effects. She has been instrumental in building out visual effects boutiques while working on films such as Frida; Minority Report; Cats and Dogs; Charlie’s Angels; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Terminator 3; and Last Samurai. She has served on the VES Awards Committee since its inception in 2002, and was also a VES board member and secretary from 2004 to 2007.