Visual effects shop CafeFX has appointed industry veteran Joni Jacobson exec producer and head of business development. Jacobson will oversee the company’s Los Angeles production operation at the facility it shares with sister company, commercial and design studio The Syndicate.
Jacobson will work with CafeFX CEO and executive producer Jeff Barnes and CafeFX’s longtime senior producer, Vicki Weimer, both of whom will continue to provide oversight of the company’s visual effects and animation projects at its facility in Santa Maria. Additionally, Barnes and Jacobson will spearhead new business development and cultivate working relationships with studio executives, visual effects supervisors and post-production supervisors.
Jacobson began her career in visual effects as a graphic designer and creative director before becoming a visual effects and compositing supervisor for feature films. She is also an accomplished compositing artist for film and television projects. Over the past two decades she has worked for such noted facilities as Digital Domain, CIS Hollywood, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Rhythm & Hues, ILM, Entity FX, Asylum and Dream Quest Images. In 2002, Jacobson opened her own boutique studio, Mar Vista Ventures, to produce high-quality, low-maintenance compositing with a small team of experienced digital artists.
Among her credits as a visual effects producer and compositing artist are The X Files: I Want To Believe, Get Smart, Rush Hour 3, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End, Zodiac, Ghost Rider, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Aviator, Armageddon, Titanic and the television mini-series Angels In America.
CafeFX is currently in production on visual effects for Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, and recently completed work for Rob Bowman’s The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, John Woo’s Red Cliff, Jon Favreau’s Iron Man, The Wachowski Bros.’ Speed Racer, Marc Forster’s The Kite Runner and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, among others. The studio’s team of artists recently won an Emmy Award for their visual effects for the HBO miniseries John Adams.
