Congratulations to John Dykstra for Lifetime Achievement Award from VES
I had the pleasure of working with John twice. The first time was in the early 90's when he came to the ACCLAIM corporate headquarters in Long Island, New York where we built the advanced $USD10 million dollar motion capture studio, the first worldwide dedicated to entertainment. John captured realistic human motion for the BATMAN FOREVER film, which is known as the first realistic digital double in a feature film. The second time, years later, John recruited me to help build and animate the realistic digital humans for SPIDER-MAN 2 for which he won his second ACADEMY AWARD.
In one of my early dailies submissions to SPIDER-MAN 2, I presented a work-in-progress of digital Doc Ock side-by-side with performer Alfred Molina. When John saw the digital face emoting in sync with the actor he said "That is fucking scary." Best dailies comment ever!
The VES Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed by the VES Board of Directors, recognizes an outstanding body of work that has significantly contributed to the art and/or science of the visual effects industry. VES will honor Dykstra for his vision and dedication to the craft of visual effects and storytelling while leading the forefront of groundbreaking visual effects and technology. He was hugely successful in cultivating talent as one of the creators of Industrial Light and Magic and in assembling key “Star Wars” crewmembers, which developed benchmark motion control and blue screen technologies under his guidance. Dykstra received Academy Awards for his stunning work on “Star Wars” and later for “Spiderman II.”
