The Visual Effects Society (VES) has named director John Dykstra as the recipient of the VES Lifetime Achievement Award. It will be presented at the 12th Annual VES Awards February 12 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
“John is an amazing creative force – talented, generous and visionary,” said Jeffrey Okun, VES board chairman. “He has the extraordinary ability to create or combine seemingly disparate technologies to brilliantly enhance the art of storytelling and this talent has brought us some of the most memorable tales of all time.”
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 cultivated 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, which he then continued at Apogee after leaving ILM. The impact of his work can be seen in his contributions to feature films, commercials, theme park entertainment and video games.
“I am greatly honored to join the prestigious company of artists and visionaries who have received this award from the VES,” Dykstra said. “I love my job and it is particularly gratifying to be recognized by my peers for contributing to the artistry and invention that is visual effects.”
Dykstra received Academy Awards for his work on Star Wars and later for Spider-Man 2. He was presented with an Academy Technical Achievement Award for the Industrial Light and Magic facility itself. Dykstra also received Academy Award nominations for his work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Stuart Little and Spider-Man and received an Emmy Award for Battlestar Galactica. Among his accomplishments, Dykstra also supervised visual effects for Firefox, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin and designed the visual effects for Hancock, Inglourious Basterds, X-Men First Class and Django Unchained.
Previous winners of the VES Lifetime Achievement Award have included James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Ray Harryhausen, George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis and Frank Marshall & Kathleen Kennedy.
