PROFILE
“It was 1985 and I thought that computers were the future and that high resolution would be the area to have expertise in. Being liberated from shooting each frame on a rostrum camera was also massively appealing. I love to embrace new ideas and technologies. It’s invigorating to innovate and think ahead into the future. This medium made me happy as I could literally go where no man has gone before.” —Sheena Duggal, Visual Effects Supervisor
SHEENA DUGGAL: FROM ROCK-STAR ALBUM COVERS TO HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTERS By TREVOR HOGG
Images courtesy of Sheena Duggal. TOP LEFT: Sheena Duggal. TOP RIGHT: Duggal, left, and Producer Jacquie Barnbrook, right, with the Sex and the City 2 VFX plate crew in 2008. OPPOSITE TOP: Anger Management cast and crew. Left to right: Don McAlpine, Peter Segal, Jack Nicholson, Charles Newirth, Sheena Duggal, Barry Bernardi, Luis Guzmán, Daniel Kuehn, Michael Ewing, Adam Sandler, Nancy Karlin and Todd Garner in 2002. (Photo: Sidney Baldwin) OPPOSITE MIDDLE: With Computer Graphics Supervisor Jake Morrison and Visual Effects Set Producer Daniel Kuehn working on The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio in 2005. OPPOSITE BOTTOM: At Yankee Stadium with Executive VFX Producer Debbie Denise and First Assistant Director John Hockridge for Anger Management in 2002. (Photo courtesy of Rob Bredow)
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In recognition of a visual effects career that began as a pioneering Flame artist on Super Mario Bros. (1993) and currently has her overseeing the visual effects for Venom 2, Sheena Duggal received the 2020 VES Award for Creative Excellence, which honors individuals who have consistently produced compelling and creative imagery in service to the story. The daughter of an electrical engineer and a homemaker was born in Manchester, England and grew up in Stourport-on-Severn in Hereford and Worcestershire. “I left home at 17 to study an art foundation course at the Victoria Institute School of Art in Worcester,” recalls Duggal. “I then went on to study for a Bachelor of Arts specializing in animation and title design. Bob Godfrey was our animation lecturer and he was a real hoot. Everything we animated was very Roobarb and Custard [an early 1970s BBC animated children’s show that used a hand-sketched style animated on twos]. We had the opportunity to visit Bob at his studio in London and were delighted to handle the Oscar that he won for his best animated short, Great, which made him the first British animator to win an Academy Award.” An internship at Lodge-Cheeseman Production enabled the aspiring artist and fan of American graphic designer and filmmaker Saul Bass (Vertigo) to work with Bernard Lodge. “Besides being famous for the 1963-1973 Doctor Who title sequences, Bernard designed the brief screen display of the complex landscape on the barren asteroid in Alien. This was generated by Systems Simulation Ltd., one of the very few computer graphics facilities outside of the U.S. creating CG for motion pictures. Lodge also directed the Esper sequence in Blade Runner (1982). It was a thrill for me of course. I never imagined that I would go on to VFX supervise two films with an artist I admire as much as Sir Ridley Scott (Matchstick Men, Body of Lies).” Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Arts Honors degree in Graphic Design specializing in animation, Duggal decided to forgo traditional animation and create high-resolution computer designs for musicians and photographers. “It was 1985 and I thought that computers were the future and that high resolution would be the area to have expertise in. Being liberated from shooting each frame on a rostrum camera was also massively appealing. I love to embrace new ideas and technologies. It’s invigorating to innovate and think ahead into the
future. This medium made me happy as I could literally go where no man has gone before.” Duggal got the opportunity to conceptualize the album cover for Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 with George Harrison. “I was working with Art Director David Costa of Wherefore Art. It was a magical time. I remember how collaborative and down-to-earth George was. We spent many hours sitting in front of the computer together and even went out to dinner. George talked about being a Beatle, but mostly about his time in India and how profoundly affected he was by his yogi, and his devotion to yoga and transcendental meditation.” A chance to work on the first video game adaptation caused Duggal to shift her focus towards cinema. “My friend Philippe Panzini [he later won a sci-tech award for his work on Flame software] was working on Super Mario Bros. and showed my work to the producers. They hired me from London to come to Los Angeles as a digital matte painter. When I arrived, they discovered that I had studied animation, so I was animating and compositing shots in no time.” Around that time a revolutionary 2D compositing software was being developed. “The early days with alpha versions of Flame were fantastic,” Duggal recalls. “We pushed the tools to the limit. The developer who had written the code, Gary Tregaskis, was with us on Super Mario Bros. writing tools as needed. Every day brought something new that we didn’t know we could do. We were devising new methodologies, coming up with ideas and creating images that were literally bleeding edge at the time. “After Super Mario Bros. I went to work at Colossal Pictures where I animated and composited the Robocop theme park ride for Iwerks Entertainment and created the award-winning Coke Sun commercial,” remarks Duggal. “In 1994, I joined ILM to work with Bob Zemeckis (Back to the Future) on a Tales of the Crypt episode in which he was bringing Humphrey Bogart back to life. This is when I first met Ken Ralston (Forrest Gump) and Debbie Denise (Snow Falling on Cedars). I worked on some fun projects at ILM. Compositing the fight sequence on top of the train for the first Mission: Impossible was one of the bigger challenges, but considering this was done in 1995, it holds up really well today.” A large group of ILM employees led by Ralston left to establish Sony Pictures Imageworks. “I took on the role of Co-Director of High-Speed Compositing along with Mark Holmes. This meant setting up a Flame department. After being at ILM it was a shock to try to build a functioning facility mostly from scratch. I was managing and training artists, compositing shots and supervising multiple shows during this time. We were also writing tools and support systems to track and manage data. It was certainly a
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