Alkemy X has hired Rebecca Manning as compositing supervisor for its VFX division. Manning brings 16 years of experience and more than 40 major feature film and television credits, including Ghostbusters, The Jungle Book, X-Men: Days of Future Past and Avatar. Manning will be based out of Alkemy X’s New York studio and will lead its compositing team on projects including the television series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Fear of the Walking Dead, Mr. Mercedes and Blindspot.
Manning arrives from Weta Digital, where she served as sr. compositor on the films War for the Planet of the Apes and Mortal Engine. She previously served as sr. compositor at Digital Domain, Iloura and Rising Sun Pictures. She was sr. compositor for the team that won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for The Jungle Book in 2017. (The film also won a VES Award for Compositing.) Additionally, she was part of the team that won the Oscar for Visual Effects for Avatar in 2010. She has been a lead and look development artist at several companies and served as head of department at Framestore in London. Other notable credits include The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I. She served as chair of the Visual Effects Society’s UK board in 2011.
“I love art, I love movies and I love technology,” observed Manning. “Compositing combines all three. Some compositors tilt toward the artistic side; others are more technically-minded. I have a good combination of the two and have been interested in art and technology since I was very young. Compositing is a role I’m ideally suited to.”
Manning said she was drawn to Alkemy X by the plans of Mark Miller, EP/business development, to expand its visual effects division and compete for the largest and most challenging film, television and advertising projects.
Full Lineup Set For AFI Fest; Official Selections Span 44 Countries, Include 9 Best International Feature Oscar Submissions
The American Film Institute (AFI) has unveiled the full lineup for this year’s AFI Fest, taking place in Los Angeles from October 23-27. Rounding out the slate of already announced titles are such highlights as September 5 directed by Tim Fehlbaum, All We Imagine As Light directed by Payal Kapadia, The Luckiest Man in America directed by Samir Oliveros (AFI Class of 2019), Zurawski v. Texas from executive producers Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence and directors Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, and Oh, Canada directed by Paul Schrader (AFI Class of 1969). A total of 158 films are set to screen at the 38th edition of AFI Fest.
Of the official selections, 48% are directed by women and non-binary filmmakers and 26% are directed by BIPOC filmmakers.
Additional festival highlights include documentaries Architecton directed by Victor Kossakovsky; Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie directed by David Bushell; Devo directed by Chris Smith about the legendary new wave provocateurs; Gaucho Gaucho directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw; Group Therapy directed by Neil Berkeley with Emmy® winner Neil Patrick Harris and Tig Notaro; No Other Land directed by a Palestinian-Israeli team comprised of Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal; Pavements directed by Alex Ross Perry; and Separated directed by Errol Morris. Notable narrative titles include Black Dog (Gou Zen) directed by Guan Hu; Bonjour Tristesse directed by Durga Chew-Bose with Academy Award® nominee Chloë Sevigny; Caught By The Tides directed by Jia Zhangke; Hard Truths directed by Mike Leigh with... Read More