Visual effects studio Luma, with bases of operation in Santa Monica and Melbourne, has hired digital production manager Ashley Bettini and promoted Justin Porter and Michael Perdew.
Bettini will act as boots on the ground at the Santa Monica office, working directly with VFX supervisor Vince Cirelli and Luma’s artists and coordinators. Bettini brings an abundance of experience from the client side, most recently at Lionsgate. Having started her career as a production assistant at ILM, Bettini worked her way up the ranks to become VFX production manager and data wrangler for the past five years. During that time, she worked on such films as The Last Witch Hunter, Lucy, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s 2015 Best Picture winner Birdman.
Bettini first worked with Luma as a vendor on The Last Witch Hunter, and was favorably impressed. “The quality of work was the main appeal, but I also immediately wanted to be part of the team of people with whom I had such an amazing experience working with,” she said. “The community of artists and supervisors here are so knowledgeable and everyone truly works together to reach the level of effects needed for each feature.”
In Melbourne, Porter has been promoted to digital production manager. Formerly lead digital coordinator, Porter has been instrumental in managing Luma’s global creative teams to build sequences for blockbusters such as Deadpool, Ant-Man, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Porter first expanded into his new role on Allegiant, for which Luma created the entire integrated world of the “Factionless” environment.
Continuing Luma’s track record for hiring from within is the advancement of Perdew to the role of production supervisor in Santa Monica. Perdew joined Luma in 2009 as an assistant technical coordinator and quickly worked his way up to VFX producer. The promotion to production supervisor puts him in charge of overseeing interdepartmental projects across both facilities. Perdew also works closely with Luma’s systems and development teams to generate new production tools in order to enhance efficiency and methods.
During his time at Luma, Perdew has worked on over 25 film projects in varying capacities including major titles like Deadpool, Ant-Man, True Grit and Guardians of the Galaxy, working alongside Cirelli to manage all aspects of the show and VFX team.
Recently, Luma expanded its presence to the tech sphere with the launch of Luma Labs, a venture capital arm geared at incubating and accelerating notable startups.
