+1 Gravity has appointed globally renowned VFX Supervisor Alex Lemke as its new Senior VFX Supervisor/Compositing Supervisor for films and commercials. Gravity's CEO/Chief Creative Officer Zviah Eldar made the announcement.
While at Weta, Lemke worked on all three installments of The Lord of the Rings franchise, and won a Visual Effects Society Award for Best Compositing on The Two Towers. More recently, Lemka contributed to the visual effects on Peter Jackson's latest epic film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
In 2012, Lemke served as the VFX Supervisor on the Coen Brothers' upcoming feature film Inside Llewyn Davis, and worked as the Compositing Supervisor on David Chase's film, Not Fade Away. In his new position, Lemke will work in tandem with Karin Levinson, Gravity's EVP of Features and Television, and with Bob Samuel, Gravity's CMO/Executive Producer for Commercials.
We are thrilled to have Alex join our team, said Levinson. He possesses a high level of expertise that is rare to find, especially with respect to Compositing and Visual Effects Supervision. His talent and demeanor are recognized industry wide, and we are excited that he will play an integral part in the company's growth.
Adds Samuel, Talent at Alex Lemke's level isn't often made available to commercial producers and brand marketers. He has worked with many of the most successful directors in the entertainment business, among them Peter Jackson, Tim Burton, the Coen Brothers, Roland Emmerich, Wolfgang Petersen and David Chase. We are already seeing how well he applies his talent to the advertising industry.
ABOUT ALEX LEMKE:
Alex Lemke is currently marking his 20th anniversary year working within the Visual Effects Industry. Prior to joining Gravity, he was the Senior Compositor for Peter Jackson's latest epic visual effects masterpiece, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Earlier, Lemke was based in-house at Framestore, where he worked closely with Academy Award winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen as the VFX Supervisor for their upcoming film, Inside Llewyn Davis. He was also the Compositing Supervisor for David Chase's current film Not Fade Away.
Lemke began his career as an optical cameraman, later moving into digital effects at ARRI Munich, and moved on to compositing on Flame and Cineon. His technical background in both optical and digital workflows, coupled with a deep and integral understanding of color pipelines and an artistic eye, is readily apparent.
Spending three years at Weta Digital in New Zealand, Lemke worked on all three films comprising The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a 2D Sequence Supervisor. This work resulted in Lemke winning a 2002 Visual Effects Society (VES) Award for Best Compositing for his work on The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Upon returning to his native Germany, Lemke founded his own small VFX studio in Munich. There, he worked as VFX Supervisor and Lead Compositor, while also providing on-set supervising and managing, while producing world-class visual effects on many German feature films. These included Krabat, We are the Night, and the German film prize winner, John Rabe. Lemke also worked with Velvet, a leading German Commercial Design house, as a Senior Flame Artist. There, he was involved with a variety of cutting edge commercials for such high profile clients as Mercedes Benz, Hyundai, Haagen Dazs and Visa.
He also produced full and highly complex VFX sequences for Dreamworks' Sweeney Todd and Sony Pictures' 2012. Other notable films Lemke provided visual effects for include Paramount Pictures' Captain America: The First Avenger, Warner Bros.' Troy, and New Line Cinema's Dark City.
In 2004, Lemke began sharing his knowledge with the next generation of visual effects artists. First as a lecturer and then evolving into a full professor in 2009, Lemke established the first Masters Program in Digital Compositing in Europe at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. His teaching style was heralded for combining theory and practice with enthusiasm and technological expertise today, many of his students are currently employed at visual effects studios around the world.
Lemke is a member of the Visual Effects Society and the German Filmakedemie (German Film Academy.)
ABOUT GRAVITY:
Gravity is one of the new breed special effects and creative companies specializing in digital production. Its clients are Ad Agencies, Brand Marketers, TV Producers, Broadcasters, and Hollywood Filmmakers, who contract for its abilities in design, creative, 3D animation, and photo-real visual effects.
Gravity's clients include Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., DreamWorks, Sony Pictures Entertainment, HBO, Paramount Pictures, Virgin Produced, The Weinstein Company, Dimension Films, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Mercedes Benz, Verizon, Pantene, MGA Entertainment, Carlsberg, Kmart, and Braun. The company's recent feature film credits include Tower Heist, Crazy, Stupid, Love, The Adjustment Bureau, Arthur, The Other Guys, Salt, The Reader, and Ghost Town. The company's television credits include HBO's Bored to Death, The Sopranos, and Sex and The City.
Gravity's New York office is located at 315 Madison Avenue, 3rd Floor, New York, NY, 10017. The phone is 212/986-1584. The company's West Coast office is located in the Lantana Building, 3000 West Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA, 90404. The phone is 310/264-3909.
