Legato will receive the HPA Lifetime Achievement Award

The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) has announced that VFX master and renowned creative Robert Legato will receive the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the HPA Awards at the gala to be held at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles on November 21.

In this fourteenth edition of the HPA Awards there will be a recognition of creative artistry, innovation and engineering excellence in the media content industry. The Lifetime Achievement Award will honor the recipients’ dedication to the betterment of the industry.

Legato is a legendary figure in the visual effects industry. He counts multiple Oscar, BAFTA and VES nominations and awards on his resume. He is a clear recognition of many of his projects, and in which he performs tasks such as Visual Effects Supervisor, VFX Director of Photography and Second Unit Director.

As a result of his work with studios, directors, and in his roles at Sony Imageworks and Digital Domain, he is a major innovator in developing much more agile digital workflows. His extensive film credits include some of the most creative and important visual effects-driven projects of the last twenty years. Many are the result of long collaborations with leading directors such as James Cameron, Jon Favreau, Martin Scorsese and Robert Zemeckis.

Robert Legato on television and film

Legato’s VFX career began in television at Paramount Pictures, where he oversaw visual effects on two series of star trek , winning two Emmy Awards. He left Paramount to join the newly formed Digital Domain, where he worked with founders James Cameron, Stan Winston and Scott Ross to forge the studio into a visual effects powerhouse. He remained at Digital Domain until he moved to Sony Imageworks.

Beginning his visual effects career at interview with the vampire (Neil Jordan), Legato later worked as a visual effects supervisor and director of photography for the visual effects unit of Apollo 13 (Ron Howard), which earned him his first Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA. She worked with James Cameron on titanica , earning his first Academy Award. Legato continued to work with Cameron, conceiving and creating the virtual universe for Avatar (Cameron).

Legato has also collaborated with Martin Scorsese which began with Kundun and continued with the multi-award winning film The Aviator, in which he worked as Co-second directing unit / Cameraman and Visual Effects Supervisor. This work was recognized with three VES Awards and the International Press Academy’s Satellite Award for Best Visual Effects. She worked with this same director again on The Departed, as Second Unit Director/Cameraman and Visual Effects Supervisor.

Legato and Scorsese collaborated on The sinister island, where he was Visual Effects Supervisor and Second Unit Director/Cameraman. He continued with Scorsese’s epic 3D film, Hugo’s invention. This film was nominated for 11 Oscars and 11 BAFTAs, including Best Picture and Best Visual Effects. Legato won his second Oscar for this work, as well as three VES Society Awards and an International Satellite Award. His collaboration with Scorsese continued with The Wolf of Wall Street, as well as other projects.

Other works for which he has also been recognized were with the new adaptation of the Jungle Book from Disney. With it, Legato earned her third Academy Award, a BAFTA, five VES Awards, an HPA Award, and the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Visual Effects for 2016. Her last film with Favreau is The Lion King also from Disney.

Now the HPA Award honors his entire career, which has played an important role in advancing visual storytelling. It is certainly an inspiration for future special effects supervisors.