Ken Ralston - Visual Effects Supervisor

07/24/23 • 18 min

Ken Ralston (born 1954) is an American visual effects artist, currently the Visual Effect Supervisor and Creative Head at Sony Pictures Imageworks. Ralston began his career at the commercial animation and visual effects company, Cascade Pictures in Hollywood, where he worked on over 150 advertising campaigns in the early 1970s. In 1976, he was hired at Industrial Light & Magic by Dennis Muren to help George Lucas create the effects for Star Wars. He remained at ILM for 20 years before joining Sony Pictures Imageworks as president. Ralston is best known for his work in the films of Robert Zemeckis.

Ralston has won five Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, including a Special Achievement Oscar for the visual effects in Return of the Jedi (1983), and regular awards for his work on Cocoon (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Death Becomes Her (1992) and Forrest Gump (1994). He was nominated three more times for Dragonslayer (1981), Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Alice in Wonderland (2010).

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Stephanie Phillips - Writer & Graphic Novelist

Stephanie Phillips is an American writer known for comics and graphic novels such as HARLEY QUINN, BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT, SENSATIONAL WONDER WOMAN, SUPERMAN, TAARNA, and THE BUTCHER OF PARIS. Her stories and comics have appeared with DC Comics, AfterShock Comics, Dark Horse, Oni Press, Top Cow/Image Comics, Heavy Metal, Black Mask Studios, A Wave Blue World, and more. Stephanie is currently the writer for the ongoing Harley Quinn series at DC Comics with artist Riley Rossmo.
Stephanie also holds a PhD in rhetoric and composition and an MA in English from the University of South Florida. She has taught writing and communication courses at the University at Buffalo, the University of South Florida, and the University of Tampa.

Links:

Stephanie Phillips Official Website - https://www.stephaniecomics.com/

Episode Sponsors:

Zeppelin Comics - https://zeppelincomics.com/

Strange Media - http://www.strangemedia.com

About the host:

Steffan Schulz is a producer/director located in the San Francisco Bay Area. His professional career as a filmmaker spans 30 years. His work has been honored with over 100 awards including a spot in A/V Magazine's Top 100 Producers. Steffan is an Adobe Premiere Certified Expert, FAA licensed commercial drone pilot, underwater cinematographer, as well as a published author, presenter, instructor and university lecturer. He is the owner of Strange Media, a full service media production company located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Hoyt Yeatman - Visual Effects Artist and Supervisor

Hoyt Yeatman (born January 23, 1955, in San Francisco, California) is an American visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked with Jerry Bruckheimer on a number of films, including Armageddon, Con Air, and The Rock. He made his directorial debut with the film G-Force.

Yeatman is an alumnus of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.

In 1979 Yeatman, Scott Squires, Rocco Gioffre, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and Bob Hollister co-founded Dream Quest Images, a groundbreaking visual effects house, winning the Academy Award for Visual Effects in 1989 for the motion control and underwater effects in James Cameron's The Abyss. In 1996 Dream Quest was purchased by The Walt Disney Company, which became Disney's "The Secret Lab" in 1999.

He received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 1999.