Virgil Ross began his animation career in 1920 with Winkler Studios in the late 1920s, then went on to Ub Iwerks, where he rose from the rank of in-betweener to animator and worked with Tex Avery. In 1935, Ross and Avery left Ub Iwerks and joined Warner Bros. Ross and Avery created the first Bugs Bunny animated short, "A Wild Hare" in 1940, which brought Bugs his first Oscar nomination. After stints with other Warner Bros. directors such as Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett, Ross, in 1942, began a long career with Friz Freleng s unit, where he animated over 230 cartoons, many of which were nominated for Oscars. In fact, four Ross-animated cartoons won Oscars - "Tweety Pie" (1947), "Speedy Gonzales" (1955), "Birds Anonymous" (1957), and "Knighty Knight Bugs" (1958). "Knighty Knight Bugs" was Bugs Bunny s only Oscar-winning performance. Known for bringing personality into the characters he animated, Ross style is said to be one of the finest examples of personality animation in the world. Ross, who died in 1996, had said his favorite animation effort was "Rhapsody Rabbit," in which he played some of the cartoon s classical music and honky-tonk tunes.Read More
Norman Stuart Craig OBE (born 14 April 1942) is a noted British production designer. He has also designed the sets, together with his frequent collaborator set decorator, the late Stephenie McMillan, on all of the Harry Potter films to date. At Potter author J. K. Rowling's request, he worked with Universal Creative team to design the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park. Rowling said in a December 2007 interview on the Potter podcast PotterCast, "The key thing for me was that, if there was to be a theme park, that Stuart Craig … would be involved. … More than involved, that he would pretty much design it. Because I love the look of the films; they really mirror what s been in my imagination for all these years". He has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, and has won three: in 1982 for Gandhi, in 1988 for Dangerous Liaisons, and in 1996 for The English Patient. He has been nominated for a BAFTA award fourteen times, including for first six and last Potter film, and has won twice: in 1980 for The Elephant Man and in 2005 for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Stuart Craig has been nominated for a BAFTA Award for consecutive six films in a row, viz. for consecutive first six Harry Potter films. For his work on The English Patient, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2, Craig was nominated for an Art Directors Guild award and won the same for The English Patient and Harry Potter...Read More
Glen Orbik (1963 – May 11, 2015) was an American illustrator known for his fully painted paperback and comic covers, often executed in a noir style. In the 1970s, Orbik and his mother moved to Douglas County, Nevada. He is a 1981 graduate of Douglas High School in Minden, Nevada. He studied art at the California Art Institute then located in Encino, later Calabasas, California, and now located in Westlake Village. He studied under the school's founder, retired movie and advertisement illustrator Fred Fixler. Orbik eventually took over the classes when Fixler retired from teaching and taught figure drawing after returning from an extended hiatus.[citation needed] His work has been compared to Alex Ross and Robert McGinnis,[citation needed] and he was a popular teacher among fine art, comic, and video game artists.[citation needed] He most recently worked on a series of paperback covers for the Hard Case Crime series of novels. Orbik resided in Van Nuys, California.[1] He died on May 11, 2015 of cancer.Read More