As a visual effects supervisor at ILM, Jason Smith is responsible for overseeing digital effects for feature films, with an emphasis on digital creatures. Smith joined ILM in 2001 as a technical assistant, and became a Creature Technical Director in 2003. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University’s Computer Science Program, with a minor in Visual Arts. While earning his degree, he studied traditional sculpture and prosthetic makeup effects, and produced creature makeup effects for university productions.

Smith is also one of the creators of Block Party™, ILM’s proprietary creature rigging system, which automates the time-consuming process of character rigging. Smith also invented ILM’s Dynamic Rigging process used to accomplish the robot transformations in Transformers. Some of his notable projects include Rango, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and Transformers. He is also a member of ILM’s technology advisory group. In 2012, Smith was ILM’s Associate Visual Effects Supervisor on Marvel’s superhero blockbuster The Avengers. The film went on to gross over one billion dollars worldwide and his character work on The Hulk was nominated for a Visual Effects Society Award. Smith also served as an ILM Visual Effects Supervisor on the big screen adaptation of the popular videogame, Warcraft, set for release in 2016.