Biography

Max Dennison, Visual Effects Supervisor

Max has spent 25 years in the visual effects industry, beginning his career as a commercial illustrator and matte painter. Having studied industrial design at university, Max’s background in art led to the development of his expertise in traditional matte painting. Max’ subsequent career equipped him with the wealth of skills needed to supervise the delivery of large scale, seamless VFX sequences.

Throughout his career, Max has been able to work with some of the brightest and the best artists, at the top of their game. The passion he has for his role is sustained by close, meaningful collaboration with those who share his same fervor for the artistry of visual effects. Max supervised Cinesite’s work on the Steve McQueen historical drama, Blitz, for Apple.

In early 2000, Max moved to New Zealand to embark on his role as Head of Matte Painting on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Since then, he has worked on and supervised teams for over 60 productions of all genres, both large and small, film and TV, five of which were Academy Award winners. Most notably, he was the Visual Effects Supervisor on Chernobyl, for which he was honoured with a Primetime EMMY, a VES award and a BAFTA nomination. He also received a BAFTA nomination for the visual effects work on Tarsem Singh’s Emerald City.

 Over the years, Max has applied his specialist skills to create some of the most famous and much-loved cinematic moments for directors such as Peter Jackson, John Madden, Kenneth Branagh and Johan Renck. From lava-spouting Mount Doom, sci-fi planets for Star Wars and the magic ceiling of Hogwarts to recreating the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl, for Max, the key to developing these iconic scenes is to act first and foremost as a storyteller, authentically bringing the client’s vision to life.

Outside of work he is kept busy by his two children, a Maine Coon cat, several goldfish and a tank of tropical fish. A keen cyclist, he is also a dedicated spectator of the Tour de France every year. As well as dabbling in voice acting for the animated online series Nomad of Nowhere, Max also enjoys writing, having written three feature screenplays and  a television drama series.

IMDB