
Visual Effects Society Announces its 2021 Board of Directors Officers
data-src=https://creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/avatars/263018/5fa08c562aaf4-bpthumb.jpg data-srcset=https://creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/avatars/263018/5fa08c561c0e7-bpfull.jpg 2x class=lazyload avatar avatar-80 photo height=80 width=80 />
Brie Clayton January 21, 2021
0 Comments
Lisa Cooke has been elected Board Chair, and is the first woman to lead the global organization.
data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/21225547/Lisa-Cooke600.jpg alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2401617/>Today, the Visual Effects Society (VES), the industry's global professional honorary society, announced its 2021 Board of Directors officers. The officers, who comprise the VES Board Executive Committee, were elected at the January 2021 Board meeting. The officers include Lisa Cooke, who was elected Board Chair, and is the first woman to hold this role in the Society's history. The five officers embody the global makeup up the Society, coming from Sections in the United States, New Zealand and London.
The Society is proud to have exceptional leadership represented on our Executive Committee, said Eric Roth, VES Executive Director. This is a group of impassioned and venerated professionals with a vision for the Society's future, especially amidst this time of dynamic change. We appreciate their commitment to serve our organization and our members worldwide.
It is my great honor and privilege to Chair this society of exceptional artists and innovators, said Lisa Cooke, VES Chair. I'm proud to be the first woman in this role, and I'm committed to lifting up our future leaders, so that I'm not the last. I look forward to working with the Executive Committee and Board of Directors to support our members during these challenging times and advance the work to propel the Society and the industry forward.
The 2021 Officers of the VES Board of Directors are:
Chair: Lisa Cooke
1st Vice Chair: Emma Clifton Perry
2nd Vice Chair: David H. Tanaka
Treasurer: Jeffrey A. Okun, VES
Secretary: Gavin Graham
Lisa Cooke, Chair
Lisa Cooke has spent several decades in the entertainment industry as an animation/FX industry producer, story consultant, screenwriter and actor. Firmly believing that effective science communication is vital to our world, she founded Green Ray Media, and for the last ten-plus years, has been producing animation and VFX to create scientific, medical and environmental media for a broad audience.
Cooke has worked for entertainment clients including Lucasfilm, Fox, Nickelodeon Films, ABC, CBS, Paramount and Universal and in the VFX and animation industry for companies including Pixar, Glasgow-based Digital Animations Group and Tippett Studio. As Senior Producer at Reardon Studios, she helped bring MOVA Contour Reality Capture to the film industry.
Cooke has also taught story structure at the SF Academy of Art, JFK University and Ex'pression College, and is a member of the Screen Actors Guild. She served six years on the VES Bay Area Board of Managers Executive Committee and as Chair, before joining the VES Board of Directors, where she serves as Chair of the Archive Committee. In 2019 she held the position of 2nd Vice Chair and served as 1st Vice Chair in 2020. She is honored to Chair the Visual Effects Society in 2021.
Emma Clifton Perry, 1st Vice Chair
Emma Clifton Perry has more than 15 years experience across feature films, longform/TV series, commercials and advertising.
Clifton Perry offers a truly global perspective, having lived everywhere from Saudi Arabia to Canada. She has worked both in-house with FOX and at VFX facilities worldwide including WETA Digital, Framestore, MPC, Rising Sun Pictures, DrD, Method Studios and The Mill, amongst others, working both as an artist and in leadership roles. She is currently based in Wellington, New Zealand, providing remote compositing and VFX consulting/lecturing services worldwide. She studied at the NCCA, Bournemouth University, UK.
This is Clifton Perry's second consecutive term on the Executive Committee, serving as 2nd Vice Chair in 2020. Clifton Perry has served for four consecutive years on the Board of Directors and eight cumulative years on the New Zealand Board of Managers. She was the 2nd ever New Zealand Section Chair, serving as Chair for three years and a year as secretary/treasurer.
David H. Tanaka, 2nd Vice Chair
David H. Tanaka has worked in visual effects and animation for over 25 years. For 15 years he served at Industrial Light & Magic in VFX Editorial on such films as Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, and Star Wars. He went on to work on Cars, Ratatouille, WALL E, UP, and Toy Story 3 as a Special Projects Editor at Pixar Animation Studios over the next 10 years.
In 2015, in addition to his freelance editing for studios, corporations and private clientele, Tanaka served as Editor, VFX Supervisor, Post-Production Supervisor and Co-Executive Producer on the independent feature film Guitar Man (currently in festival run and garnering awards for Best Editing and Best Picture). Tanaka is also an Adjunct Professor for the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, specializing in Editing, Producing and Cinema History.
David H. Tanaka has been a proud member of the Visual Effects Society for close to two decades. He served three terms as the VES Bay Area Section Chair, and one term as Co-Chair. Now in his third term on the VES Board of Directors, he has collaborated on projects ranging from educational outreach and VFX workplace code of conduct standards, to special VFX artist tributes and establishing best editorial practices for the VES Archives Committee.
Jeffrey A. Okun, VES Treasurer
Jeffrey A. Okun, VES, is known for creating organic' and invisible effects, as well as spect
North America Stories
02/12/2025
Hiltron Communications reports a well attended and successful Space Tech Expo exhibition, held at the Messe Bremen from Tuesday November 18 through Thursday Nov...
02/12/2025
The beginning of September saw Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust, in association with Channel 9 and Triple M, kick off the 2025 Brisbane Festival in spec...
02/12/2025
SGM Lighting is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with ACT Entertainment, under which ACT will serve as the exclusive distributor for SGM's ne...
02/12/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Telia, the second largest telecom operator in Norway, is modernizing its broadband network with the company's i...
02/12/2025
European cloud data protection specialist Keepit is expanding its sales network in the DACH region and has gained TIM AG, one of the leading value-added distrib...
02/12/2025
Featured products at ISE 2026
This year s ISE 2026 theme "Push Beyond" reflects Calrec s direction of travel. The company is dedicated to supporting the AV an...
02/12/2025
Czech Television, the national public broadcaster, has deployed one of the largest LiveU live production projects in the region for live sports and news coverag...
02/12/2025
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics, has announced the release of v8.2 software for its ZEN and ZEN-W Series, bringing advanced cinematic camera se...
02/12/2025
Global provider of video streaming software and services, Accedo, and OTT platform provider, Magine Pro, have signed a binding agreement to carve out and merge ...
02/12/2025
With proven success in broadcast, OTT, and content supply chains, K.S Avinash set to scale Skandha's service-first approach across APAC
Skandha Media Servi...
02/12/2025
AJA Video Systems has joined the RAVENNA community, a network of partners devoted to advancing the RAVENNA standard for distributing real-time audio over intern...
02/12/2025
HUNT VALLEY, Md. Sinclair and its wholly-owned subsidiary One Media Technologies have released a new report focused on how ATSC 3.0, the IP-based NextGen TV sta...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee have elected four industry veterans to three-year terms on the organization's board of direc...
02/12/2025
A new survey from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan highlights how important social media is for younger consumers, with Gen Z spending 5.1 hours a day in Q3...
02/12/2025
Faculty Notes: Fall/Winter 2025 Recent accomplishments, releases, and events by Berklee faculty.
December 1, 2025
By
Editorial Staff
The cast of Kind of M...
01/12/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
01/12/2025
Artemis II is NASA's first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The crew, from left: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Vic...
01/12/2025
IRVINE, Calif. Wooden Camera has introduced its new Accessory Collection for the Canon EOS C50. The new lineup includes a low-profile, gimbal-ready cage, expand...
01/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for its Dec. 18 Open Commission Meeting that will include a vote on a report an...
01/12/2025
In most years, a graph of annual local TV ad spending is about as predictable as an electrocardiogram of a reasonably healthy patient in a doctor's office. ...
01/12/2025
Many industries have seen big-ticket hardware turn into software. Switchers, though, demand a combination of real-time performance and sheer bandwidth that has ...
01/12/2025
GENEVA Shanghai will host the next quadrennial Radiocommunication Assembly (RA-27) and World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-27), Oct. 11-Nov. 12, 2027. This...
01/12/2025
NEW YORK Just in time for Giving Tuesday tomorrow (Dec. 2), the Broadcasters Foundation of America is seeking out donations to help television and radio industr...
01/12/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Net Insight CEO Crister Fritzson has informed the company's board that he will retire from the video transport and media cloud technology ...
01/12/2025
Back to All News
A Down to Earth, All Too Relatable Hero: Cashero' Teaser ...
01/12/2025
In the rush to deliver content to every screen, many broadcasters overlook one of the most crucial steps in the workflow: format and frame rate conversion. Get ...
01/12/2025
Researchers worldwide rely on open-source technologies as the foundation of their work. To equip the community with the latest advancements in digital and physi...
28/11/2025
Nadia Fall attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Brides at the Egyptian Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Donyale West/...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders Marks a Grand...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
26/11/2025
A cinematic snow sculpture at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Randall Michelson...
26/11/2025
Mumbai, November 24, 2025: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in collab...
26/11/2025
LONDON Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins....
26/11/2025
MIAMI TelevisaUnivision said it struck a new multiyear distribution agreement with YouTube TV that includes distribution of TelevisaUnivision's U.S. network...
26/11/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leader in software-defined data storage and data services, today announced the launch of the Atlas Corporate Creative Solution. This new Atl...
26/11/2025
Disguise, the industry-leading company powering the world's biggest live performances, is partnering with pioneering LED wall manufacturer DVS to give atten...