The Visual Effects Society has pulled back the curtain on it 2026 VES Honors recipients, who the group says have profoundly impacted the craft and technology of visual effects and continue to inspire future generations of artists and practitioners.

The group will be feted during the annual VES Honors Celebration, set for September 4 at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Read bios of all the honorees below.

Susan Zwerman will receive the VES Founders Award for her sustained contributions to the art, science and business of VFX and distinguished service to the Visual Effects Society. She also will receive a Lifetime VES Membership, along with Jeff Kleiser, who was selected for furthering the interests and values of VFX artists worldwide.

Sir William Sargent and Scott Stokdyk will be named as Honorary Members, and the 2026 VES Fellows — recognized for outstanding contributions to VFX and dedicated service over 10 of the past 20 years — are Neishaw Ali, Rita Cahill, Barbara Ford Grant, and Susan Thurmond O’Neal.

Named posthumously to the VES Hall of Fame are Jon Landau, Gerry Anderson, Ishiro Honda and Tomoyuki Tanaka. All were chosen for their pioneering contributions that advanced the art, science, and technology of VFX.

“The VES Honors Celebration is a highlight for us every year, as our community gathers to recognize these incredible pioneers and the range of impacts they’ve had on the visual effects industry,” said VES Board Chair, Kim Davidson. “It makes it all the more special that these honorees were submitted for consideration by VES members themselves. We look forward to honoring them in person in September.”

Here are bios of all the 2026 VES honorees, supplied by the group:

VES Founders AwardAwarded to any individual member of the VES who has significantly contributed to the organization’s success. Susan Zwerman stands at the forefront of innovative filmmaking, with an unwavering commitment to excellence and specialized expertise in visual effects and virtual production. Her unique blend of talents not only showcases a profound understanding of the technical facets of film production but also reflects a visionary approach to the cinematic arts. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Directors Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America, and the Visual Effects Society. She is a proud recipient of the Frank Capra Achievement Award, the VES Fellows Award, and a Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video for Weird Al’s “I’m Fat.” She also taught visual effects at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. As a Freelance Budgeting Consultant at Sony Innovation Studios, she championed virtual production budgeting and asset management, significantly impacting test projects for film and television. In her tenure as a Studio Executive Producer at Exceptional Minds, she founded a VFX and 2D Animation studio tailored for artists on the autism spectrum, overseeing the studio’s ascent and involvement in major feature films and television shows including titles like Black Widow, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and Avengers: Endgame. During her long tenure with the VES, Zwerman has co-authored five books on visual effects and virtual production including most recently The VES Handbook of Visual Effects, Fourth Edition. She served 18 total years on the global Board of Directors and additionally served on the VES Education Committee and the VES Technology Committee. In 2019, she was named a VES Fellow. VES Lifetime MemberAwarded for meritorious service to the VES, the industry, and for furthering the interests and values of visual effects artists around the world. Jeff Kleiser is a Visual Effects Supervisor and CEO/Co-Founder of Synthespian Studios. His pioneering work in computer animation has spanned the history of the medium and many of his projects have involved the creation of computer generated humans and creatures in a wide variety of formats. His feature film credits include TRON,Stargate, Fantastic Four, Robocop, and multiple films across the X-Men franchise, and his location-based projects include creating stereoscopic superheroes for the Spider-Man Ride, stereoscopic 70mm film for Santa Lights Up New York at Radio City Music Hall, and the stereoscopic virtual reality series Defrost: The Virtual Series. Kleiser has presented papers at international events including the London Effects and Animation Festival, SIGGRAPH, INA Imagina, NAB, Opera Totale, and the Virtual Humans Conference. He has served as an industry expert in interviews with the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and ABC Evening News. He also served on the global Board of Directors of the Visual Effects Society, the Board of Trustees of the Norman Rockwell Museum, and the Board of Advisors to the Center for Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts. In addition, he is a member of the CG Society Advisory Board, a Fellow of the Grid Institute, and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Honorary VES MembersAwarded for exemplary contributions to the entertainment industry at large, and for furthering the interests and values of visual effects practitioners around the world. Sir William Sargent co-founded Framestore in 1986 and led its rise over 40 years as CEO and now Chairman. Equally at home in Hollywood and government, Sargent was Permanent Secretary, Regulatory Reform, at the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office, Board Director of HM Treasury, governor at the Southbank Centre, on UKRI’s Innovate Council, and is a member of Trinity College Dublin’s Provost Council and the Mayor of London’s Business Council. He is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, a member of BAFTA, and a member of the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He received a CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in 2004, and was knighted by the Queen in 2008. S​cott Stokdyk is an Academy Award winner and three-time Oscar nominee for Visual Effects. He has also been nominated for multiple British Academy (BAFTA) Awards and Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards. Most recently, Stokdyk served as the production VFX Supervisor for Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four: First Steps. His extensive career as a VFX Supervisor also includes major feature films such as Finch and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, alongside consulting roles on numerous high-profile projects. Stokdyk collaborated with director Sam Raimi on the original Spider-Man trilogy, winning the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for Spider-Man 2. His other notable supervising credits include Disney’s G-Force and Oz the Great and Powerful. Earlier in his career, Stokdyk worked as a Digital Effects Supervisor on Hollow Man and as a CG Supervisor on both Godzilla and Stuart Little. He began his journey in the industry as a digital artist on groundbreaking films including Contact, Starship Troopers, Titanic, The Fifth Element, and Universal Studios’ Terminator 2: 3D attraction. VES 2026 FellowsThis title signifies that the individual is recognized for earning an outstanding reputation through sustained contributions to the art, science, or business of visual effects, as well as through meritorious service to the VES and the entertainment industry at large, for a period of not less than 10 years, within the past 20 years. Neishaw Ali is the founding Partner, CEO, and Executive Producer of SPINVFX, and a prominent figure in the film and television industry for 30 years. Her innovative approach led to the creation of BRIO, a cloud and licensed subscription-based AR, VR, and 3D platform acquired by Adobe in 2022. In recognition of her impact, The Hollywood Reporter named her one of the ‘Most Powerful Women in Canadian Entertainment’ for three consecutive years (2024–2026). Under Ali’s leadership, SPINVFX has produced work on more than 150 feature films and 40 television series. Her television career includes the Emmy Award-winning Game of Thrones, the Emmy-nominated The Umbrella Academy, The Boys, Beast Games, and The Miniature Wife. Her film credits include the Academy Award-winning Spotlight, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, Big George Foreman, Dora and the Search For Sol Dorado, and The Devil’s Mouth (releasing in July 2026). Ali is deeply committed to advancing the film and television industry as Chair of the Canadian Film Centre (CFC), while also serving on its Programming and Innovation Committee, Fundraising+ Committee, and Diversity and Governance Committee. She previously co-chaired the Toronto Film, Television & Digital Media Panel and currently serves on the Board of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the Academy Futures Committee. Internationally, she serves the Visual Effects Society as a founding member and Chair of the VES Women Who Lead Committee, dedicated to ensuring women in VFX have the support, mentorship, visibility, and resources to advance. She also serves on the VES Education and Outreach Committee, where she launched a peer-to-peer mentoring program in 2021 that has impacted more than 450 visual effects artists to date. Rita Cahill is an international business and marketing/PR consultant who has worked with a number of US, Canadian, UK, EU and Asian companies for visual effects and animation. Current and former clients include companies in the feature film, television, VR and game industries, as well as government and educational entities. She is also a partner in MakeBelieve Entertainment, a film development company, and serves as Executive Producer on several animation and live-action projects. Previously, Cahill was the VP Marketing for Cinesite where she oversaw the marketing of four divisions of the pioneering digital studio’s services. Prior to Cinesite, Cahill was a founding Board member of the Mill Valley Film Festival/California Film Institute and remains on the Institute’s Emeritus Board of Directors. Cahill was also the Founding Consultant on the formation and establishment of the Singapore International Film Festival. Cahill is a longtime member of the VES (since 2002) and has served 10 years on the global Board of Directors (2015-2020 and 2022-2025), and as Secretary of the Board for all those years. She also served as a Committee member of the first VES Summit in 2009 and then went onto being the Chair or Co-Chair of the VES Summit for eight years (2010-2017) until it morphed into the Honors event. She has also served on various other Board Committees and in 2013 she represented the VES at Tokyo’s DigiCon6 event which was part of Japan’s InterBEE professional trade show. In 2021, Cahill was honored with a VES Lifetime Membership and the VES Founders Award. Barbara Ford Grant is an artist, engineer, and executive whose career spans the evolution of modern visual effects, from the inception of digital animation to the rise of virtual production and AI-assisted pipelines. With over 30 years of experience bridging creative artistry and advanced technology, she has engineered highly scalable creative tools and infrastructure for film and series productions, streaming giants, and location-based entertainment. Currently, she advises major studios, including Paramount Pictures and Marvel Studios, on AI production strategy while developing proprietary tools and original IP through BFG Productions, which she founded in 2024 to produce the short film Unhoused. In 2018, Grant pivoted from her position leading multi-divisional creative and technical production operations at HBO to pursue entrepreneurial ventures that allowed her to define new methods of storytelling. She subsequently served as Chief Technology Officer at Meow Wolf, architecting mixed-reality platforms and experience design systems for landmark immersive installations Convergence Station and The Real Unreal, which collectively attract millions of visitors. Later, as President of Prysm Stages at NEP, she launched and oversaw the Lumière Award-winning LED volume stage at Trilith Studios in Atlanta, used for Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis and James Gunn’s Superman. Grant’s earlier career established her core expertise in creative-technology integration. At Digital Domain, she advanced digital human animation and rendering for blockbuster films, including Maleficent. During her tenure at Sony Pictures Imageworks, she oversaw the development and deployment of Academy Award-winning technologies, including Katana, Arnold, and OSL, used on Alice in Wonderland and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. At DreamWorks Animation, where she began as a traditionally trained artist and self-taught color science engineer, she pioneered the color pipeline, digital dailies infrastructure, and co-designed the 3D projection system for Shrek 4D at Universal Studios locations worldwide. Notably, Grant was the first female Chair of the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Committee. She is a member of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy, serves on the VES Technology Committee, and sits on the editorial advisory board of VFX Voice magazine. Susan Thurmond O’Neal has been a dedicated volunteer with the Visual Effects Society for more than two decades and has served on the global Board of Directors since 2010, including multiple terms on the Executive Committee. She has also chaired the Membership Committee for more than a decade, helping guide the Society’s global membership process and uphold its professional standards. Earlier in her VES service, she served on the Education Committee for five years. In recognition of her longstanding commitment to the Society, O’Neal was given the VES Founders Award in 2019. She has also contributed to several editions of the Society’s flagship publications, serving as one of the co-editors of both The VES Handbook of Visual Effects, Fourth Edition, and the forthcoming second edition of The VES Handbook of Virtual Production. Through these publications, she has helped preserve and share the visual effects industry’s collective knowledge for future generations. A frequent moderator and speaker on emerging technologies, career development, and the future of visual effects, O’Neal is passionate about mentoring, connecting people, sharing knowledge, and strengthening the visual effects community. She began her visual effects career at Digital Domain in 1993, contributing to T2:3D – Battle Across Time and Titanic before moving on to various Los Angeles-based studios producing visual effects for commercials, music videos, and feature films. She held production operations and leadership roles at several studios including The Mill, Radium FX, and CREO Collective, served in account management at SideFX, and today is an independent creative recruiter partnering with studios, agencies, and technology companies across visual effects, animation, virtual production, and emerging technologies through her longtime collaboration with BLT Recruiting. VES 2026 Hall of Fame InducteesThis distinction is bestowed upon a select group of professionals and pioneers who have played a significant role in advancing the field of visual effects by invention, science, contribution, or avocation of the art, science, technology, and/or communications. Jon Landau (1960-2024) was an acclaimed American film producer, best known for his collaborations with filmmaker James Cameron. He co-produced Cameron’s Titanic – for which he won the Academy Award for Best Picture – as well as Cameron’s Avatar film series through 2025’s Avatar: Fire and Ash. Titanic, Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Avatar: Fire and Ash are four of the highest-grossing films of all time. Landau’s other notable credits include Solarisand Alita: Battle Angel, both of which he produced alongside Cameron, as well as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Dick Tracy. Born in New York, Landau graduated from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and rose to become the executive vice president of feature film production at Twentieth Century Fox, before joining Cameron’s company Lightstorm Entertainment, Inc. Gerry Anderson (1929-2012) was a British pioneer in the field of puppetry who changed the trajectory of sci-fi storytelling with his innovative “supermarionation” technique. He created his first puppet show, The Adventures of Twizzle, in 1957, and in the 1960s went on to create and launch numerous hit shows including Supercar, Fireball XL5, Thunderbirds, Stingray, and Captain Scarlet, all under Anderson’s AP Films banner. The 1960 series Supercar marked the debut of supermarionation, an electronic system that makes marionettes more lifelike and convincing on screen. Anderson’s expertise in blending special effects with live action continued throughout his career, including work on the 1969 film Doppelgänger, which was nominated for an Academy Award for special effects. Other notable projects include the live action television series UFO and Space: 1999 and special television program The Day After Tomorrow. His legacy as a pioneer in sci-fi television continues to inspire new generations through his imaginative worlds and unforgettable characters.  Ishiro Honda (1911-1993) was an iconic Japanese filmmaker and one of the pioneers of modern disaster films, in particular as a co-creator of the kaiju genre with special effects artist Eiji Tsuburaya. His first feature film was The Blue Pearl (1952), a critical success in Japan and the first Japanese film to utilize underwater sequences. He followed that with directing and co-writing 1954’s blockbuster Godzilla, which has since spawned one of the longest-running film franchises in history, and is widely considered one of the best monster movies of all time. Honda would go on to direct a total of eight films in the Godzilla franchise over the next twenty years, including Mothra (1961), King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), and Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964). Over the course of his career, Honda worked extensively within Japan’s legendary Toho Studios, ultimately directing over 40 feature films plus many shorts, documentary projects, and television projects. At Toho, he also met filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, who would go on to become a friend and collaborator over many years. Honda served as the assistant director for Kurosawa’s Stray Dog (1949), and would later work on Kurosawa’s last five films from the late 1970s to early 1990s. Tomoyuki Tanaka (1910-1997) was a prolific Japanese film producer with over 200 credits to his name, most notably in the long-running Godzilla franchise starting with the original 1954 film directed by Ishirō Honda. Tanaka also produced several films by Akira Kurosawa in the 1960s including The Bad Sleep Well, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, High and Low, and Red Beard. Tanaka would later reunite with Kurosawa to produce Kagemusha (1980), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Most of Tanaka’s career, spanning six decades, was spent working at Japan’s renowned Toho Studios, and he ultimately worked his way up to become Chairman and CEO of the company in 1989. 

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