Pixar’s Pete Docter Granted Honorary Membership As Visual Effects Society Unveils 2022 Honorees

The Visual Effects Society (VES) has announced its newest lifetime and honorary members as well as this year’s recipient of the VES Founders Award. Honorees will be recognized at a special event in October.

This year’s honorees:

Founders Award and Lifetime VES Membership:

• Pam Hogart: Educator and industry leader Pam Hogarth is the 2022 VES Founders Award recipient. Hogarth was selected for her sustained contributions to the art, science, and business of visual effects as well as meritorious service to VES. With more than 35 years of industry experience, she has a diverse resume which includes roles from marketing to industry relations. Most of her career, however, was spent incubating and educating up-and-coming talent. She has consulted for several organizations and schools, and coached young professionals.
  She co-founded Eido, a training company for IATSE creative guilds; served as publicist for LOOK Effects; was an industry liaison who helped build Gnomon School of Visual Effects; ran Digital Media Institute; and helped grow the digital program at the American Film Institute. She’s been on the VES board of directors for eight years and was the first female vice chair and chair of the Education Committee.

Lifetime VES Memberships:

• Jeff Barnes: Barnes is an entertainment and technology creative executive who currently serves as executive VP of creative development at Light Field Lab. Before that, he was executive director of studio productions at Lytro. Barnes is a long-serving leader at VES, having put in stints as chair and vice chair of the global board of directors and co-chair of the VES Summit.
• Patricia “Rose” Duignan: Duignan’s vfx resume goes all the way back to Star Wars, and in the years since she worked her way up the production ladder from PA to production supervisor on Return of the Jedi. She was ILM’s first marketing director, where she worked for more than 12 years. She has also worked at Tippett Studio, ABC TV, Rhythm & Hues, and Kerner Optical. She is also co-author of Ballentine’s coffee table book ILM: Into the Digital Realm. She continues to champion women, people of color, and veterans in the vfx industry through her work with VES’ Education Committee.
• Toni Pace Carstensen: 2017’s recipient of the VES Founders Award, Carstensen is a VES founding member, joining the organization as member 0004 and serving as the first VES treasurer. She was also a founding member of the Executive Committee and served on the VES board of directors for years and co-chaired the global Education Committee. She co-edited the first edition of the VES Handbook of Visual Effects. She is currently chair of the Vision Committee and serves as treasurer of the Los Angeles Section. Her feature work includes vfx producer/digital production manager credits on films including Avatar, Minority Report, and Fantasia.
• David Tanaka: Tanaka is an editor, producer, and creative director who works in both vfx and animation, as well as live action fiction and documentary films. He was with ILM for 15 years in vfx production and vfx editorial, and worked on films including Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, and Star Wars. After ILM he went to Pixar as a special projects editor for 10 years. He is currently a staff vfx editor at Tippett Studio and serves as adjunct professor for the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

Honorary Member

• Pete Docter: The Oscar-winning director of Monsters, Inc., Up, Inside Out, and Soul is currently chief creative officer at Pixar Animation Studios. Having been with the company since 1990, Docter was a key figure in the studio’s earliest productions, including working as supervising animator on Toy Story, the company’s first full-length animated feature. He was a storyboard artist on A Bug’s Life and worked on initial treatments for Toy Story 2 and Wall-E. Included among his plethora of awards are two VES Awards for Outstanding Animation in an Animated Picture for Up and for Outstanding Visual Effects in an Animated Feature for Soul.