The Visual Effects Society (VES) hosted its annual VES Honors Celebration earlier this month (11/7) in Los Angeles. Attended by visual effects industry leaders, this annual event recognizes the service of VES members and VFX industry practitioners who advance the industry and the Society, and welcomes new Honorary VES Members and VES Hall of Fame inductees. The honorees are nominated by VES members and ultimately selected by the VES Board of Directors, and are chosen for their significant impacts on the visual effects industry worldwide.
The VES Honors Celebration was hosted by Sony Pictures Imageworks at their Miracle Mile campus, and emceed by VES Board chair Kim Davidson. The organization welcomed two new Honorary VES Members: Jon Favreau, the award-winning filmmaker behind Iron Man (2008), The Lion King (2019) and television series including The Mandalorian (2019-2023); and Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Epic Games and creator of Unreal Engine. Additionally, the VES posthumously inducted three industry icons into the VES Hall of Fame: Glenn Campbell (1956-2024), Mabel Normand (1893-1930), and Eiji Tsuburaya (1901-1970).
Favreau honored visual effects practitioners in his speech at the event, saying, “Cinema comes from the tradition of marrying storytelling with technology, and the people in this room are torchbearers for this tradition.”
Sweeney also accepted his award with remarks that spoke to Epic Games’ longstanding role in bolstering creativity. “There is nothing more fun than programming tools that enable creatives to express their vision,” he said upon receiving his VES Honorary Membership.
Special honorees included Bob Coleman, VES (Founders Award honoree); Dennis Hoffman (VES Lifetime Membership); 2025 Fellows Colin Campbell, VES; Darin Grant, VES; and Gayle Munro, VES; and global Section Honorees Rachel Copp (New Zealand), Eric Greenlief (Washington State), Anthony Tan (Montreal), Agon Ushaku (Germany) and Philipp Wolf (Montreal).
“We belong to an exceptional global industry, offering enormous opportunities to the best and brightest in our ranks around the world. Never underestimate the talent and experience that got you here and how it can be applied in unimagined endeavors,” said VES Founders Award recipient Coleman, VES.
Accepting the Hall of Fame induction on Eiji Tsuburaya’s behalf was Masayuki Nagatake, the current president of Tsuburaya Productions, which the artist founded in 1963 following his groundbreaking visual effects work on the film Godzilla. Traveling all the way from Japan, Nagatake’s appearance made for a memorable evening as he was joined onstage by performers dressed as Tsuburaya’s iconic Ultraman and Alien Baltan characters. In their surprise appearance, Ultraman successfully defeated his nemesis, Baltan, in a fight in front of the audience–before joining the afterparty for photo ops with honorees and attendees.
