Chicago-based design studio Leviathan has added VFX producer Lauren Shawe to its full-time staff, effective immediately.
“Leviathan works in broadcast, experiential and online formats, and Lauren has experience handling postproduction for many legendary post houses, plus heavy VFX and interactive experience as well,” said Chad Hutson, Leviathan’s executive producer. “It’s really rare to see that combination in a producer. When we tried her out on her first project, we saw right away that we needed to have her on the team.”
For the past three and a half years, Shawe served as the senior VFX producer for New York City’s Smoke and Mirrors. Prior to that, she spent four years as a freelance producer for Final Cut New York, Cut + Run, Lost Planet and Transistor Studios. Shawe’s project credits include the American Express commercials directed by Wes Anderson and M. Night Shyamalan, the celebrated 2008 “You Are Powerful” spot from Mother London and Amnesty International, McGarryBowen‘s 2010 iPad launch spot for Verizon, last year’s stunning black-and-white spots for Delta from Wieden+Kennedy, music videos for The Dead Weather and La Roux, and numerous short- and long-form productions for director Spike Lee, among many others.
Before moving to New York in 2003, Shawe was the project manager for design studio twohundredtwelve, where she contributed to the front-end design for orbitz.com and several other high-profile web sites and launch events. Posts as a producer for Leapnet and Black Dog Interactive followed her earlier work as an assistant producer for Taproot Interactive Studio, where she contributed to many innovative consumer- and business-focused CD-ROM titles and websites.
“When I decided to move back to Chicago, I had to do a lot of research on the industry as I was unfamiliar with post/design/graphics world here,” said Shawe. “I went to a lot of informational meetings, talked to old friends and met some new ones, and Leviathan kept coming up. I was instantly impressed with the caliber and creativity of their work. It was exciting to think that I could be involved with an emerging company, which had developed such a great reputation in a short time. They are doing creative, innovative and technically challenging work, which is really exciting. Everyone here is really great at what they do and I feel like I learn something new every day.”