Wednesday, December 3, 2025, 5pm – 6:30pm PST
Location: Online
Wētā FX VFX Supervisors Guy Williams and Jo Davison will discuss the VFX for Pocket Universe, battling a Kaiju and re-creating Metropolis.
Superman: Harnessing Numeric Power for Cinematic Magic
Superman marks the third feature film, and fifth project on which Wētā FX has partnered with James Gunn, and in this talk you will hear how their latest collaboration came to life: being sucked into a pocket universe, battling a Kaiju and re-creating Metropolis.
Four-time Academy Award nominee and Senior VFX Supervisor Guy Williams has captained Wētā FX’s work on all of Gunn’s projects, and and also contributed to VFX tent poles such as Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, Steven Spielberg’s The BFG and Ang Lee’s Gemini Man.
Joining him will be Sequence VFX Supervisor Jo Davison, who was CG Supervisor on Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 which earned her a Visual Effects Society Award, and during her 15 years at Wētā FX has worked on a swathe of high-profile projects including Avatar, The Adventures of Tintin and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
These two experienced supervisors will showcase Wētā FX’s work on the project, with particular focus on two key sequences. Guy will discuss the creation of the Pocket Universe and the River Pi, and Jo will explore the process of bringing a colossal monster to life, sharing how the team tackled textures at immense scales to enable maximum visual impact across a close-up creature interactions and wider shots.
Speaker Bios
GUY WILLIAMS
VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR
Now four-time Academy Award® nominee Guy Williams has supervised some of Wētā FX’s most challenging and ground-breaking projects.
With over twenty years’ experience in visual effects, Guy collaborates with filmmakers to realise their storytelling vision at every stage of the VFX process.
He led Wētā’s work on Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3, which recently received a BAFTA nomination for Best Special Effects and an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. He previously supervised two other James Gunn projects – the HBO/Max series Peacemaker and The Suicide Squad. Guy supervised Wētā’s VFX on Gemini Man, creating a young digital Will Smith who shares the screen with the real Will Smith throughout the 3D, 120fps, 4K-resolution film. He also supervised Wētā’s work on the live-action remake of Disney’s classic, Lady and the Tramp.
Guy also received an Academy Award® nomination for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, having led the team that created the massive Planet Ego and the fast-paced action that constantly moves around it. He was also nominated for both Academy Awards® and BAFTAs for the complex digital environments and wild third-act battles in Iron Man 3 and The Avengers.
For Steven Spielberg’s The BFG, Guy supervised on set alongside Wētā’s Joe Letteri as they mastered simultaneous performance capture on the live-action and virtual stages.
Guy joined Wētā FX in 1999 to work on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. His work as CG Supervisor on King Kong won him a VES Award and he was a VFX Supervisor on James Cameron’s game-changing Avatar. He is an active member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
JOANNA DAVISON
SEQUENCE VFX SUPERVISOR
Joanna joined Wētā FX in 2009 to work on Avatar as a Lighting TD. Since then, Joanna has worked on some of Weta’s key projects including The Hobbit trilogy, where she became a Lighting Lead, managing the lighting design for a number of sequences. She was also a Lighting Artist for The Adventures of Tintin and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Joanna has recently wrapped on Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 and before that, on Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder.
As CG Supervisor on Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3, Joanna was responsible for delivering 3D content for the film, collaborating with supervisors and colleagues across the VFX pipeline to ensure the work is delivered to the highest quality. For Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Joanna worked on a proprietary caching pipeline that enabled the rendering of a huge amount of geo in extreme detail.
Prior to joining Wētā FX, Joanna worked at Framestore in the UK and Animal Logic in Australia.