--
Today, the Visual Effects Society (VES), the industry's professional global honorary society, named multiple Academy Award -winning visual effects pioneer Ken Ralston as the recipient of the VES Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his enormous contributions to filmed entertainment. The award will be presented at the 15th Annual VES Awards on February 7, 2017 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
Ken Ralston
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 Ralston for his intuitive vision and unparalleled mastery of visual effects. Ralston's creative vision and fierce technical expertise have earned him an impressive five Academy Awards . His groundbreaking work has built a rich legacy, one that has profoundly impacted future generations of artists and innovators.
Ken Ralston is an amazing force and a defining voice of the visual effects community, said Mike Chambers, VES Board Chair. His creativity, leadership, and ability to use technologies to enhance the art of storytelling have brought us some of the most memorable films of all time. His pioneering work has truly raised the bar and helped redefine entertainment and our industry on a global level. For this, and more, we are honored to award him with the prestigious Visual Effects Society Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ralston is Senior Visual Effect Supervisor and Creative Head at the Academy Award winning visual effects studio, Sony Pictures Imageworks. He has earned five Academy Awards including a Special Achievement Oscar for the visual effects in the 1984 phenomenon, Star Wars: Episode VI - The Return of the Jedi. In addition to this, he received Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects for his work as visual effects supervisor on Forrest Gump (which was also awarded the Oscar for Best Picture), Death Becomes Her, the revolutionary Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Cocoon. Ralston followed his Academy Award-nominated work as senior visual effects supervisor on Disney's Alice in Wonderland (3D), with Columbia Pictures Men in Black III and most recently Disney's Alice Through the Looking Glass.
Many groundbreaking projects at Sony Pictures Imageworks have benefited from Ralstons artistic acumen including his many collaborations with Academy Award winning director Robert Zemeckis on the epic Beowulf (3D), The Polar Express (3D) and Cast Away. Prior to joining Imageworks, Ralston placed his artistic and technical stamp on the films at Industrial Light & Magic. Breaking technological ground, Ralston played a pivotal role in advancing the companys renown.
Ralstons other notable film credits include visual effects supervisor on The Rocketeer, Jumanji, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Dragonslayer, for which he was also nominated for an Oscar, and all three films from the Back to the Future trilogy, earning an Academy Award nomination for best visual effects on Back to the Future II.
Ralstons career began at the seminal commercial animation and visual effects company, Cascade Pictures in Hollywood, where he worked on more than 150 memorable advertising campaigns in the early 1970s. He built sets, sculpted models, animated puppets, created optical effects and stop motion animation for such iconic commercial characters as Poppin Fresh, the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and The Jolly Green Giant.
Previous winners of the VES Lifetime Achievement Award have included James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Ray Harryhausen, George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis, John Dykstra, Frank Marshall & Kathleen Kennedy and Sir Ridley Scott.
# # #
About the Visual Effects Society
The Visual Effects Society is a professional global honorary society dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences and applications of visual effects and to upholding the highest standards and procedures for the visual effects profession. It is the entertainment industrys only official organization representing the extended global community of visual effects practitioners, including supervisors, artists, producers, technology developers, educators and studio executives. VES' 3000+ members in more than 30 countries worldwide contribute to all areas of entertainment - film, television, commercials, animation, music videos, games and new media.
To learn more about the VES, visit www.visualeffectssociety.com and follow us on Twitter: @VFXSociety. Academy Award and Oscar are registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
###
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
-- 
